Friday's effort is just one part of a campus-wide and Boston-area drive to gather 100,000 signatures for the petition by April 6.

The petition will tentatively be delivered to Gov. A. Paul Cellucci, Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham '72 (D-Boston), House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran (D-Mattapan) and other state legislators in Boston on May 9, according to Ari M. Lipman '00, a member of the campaign.

At Harvard, students from the College, Dudley House, the Graduate School of Education, the Law School, the Divinity School and the Kennedy School of Government are aiming to collect 3,500 signatures by Spring Break, Lipman said. He added that 1100 endorsements had already been collected.

As part of the Boston Campus Organizing Project (BCOP), Harvard's students are working in conjunction with students from Roxbury Community College, Tufts University, the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and local high schools, he said.

"The nice thing about it is that it's students working together with people from all across Cambridge," Lipman said.

On Saturday, the Harvard campaign held a "Petition Day" at Phillips Brooks House, as more than 50 people were trained in the art of gathering signatures, then sent out into Cambridge, armed with clipboards and pens.

"It's nice to prove that there are students who care about it and are doing something about it as well," Lipman said.