Although Mass. Hall staff held a meeting on Friday and decided to return to work on Monday, Wrinn cautioned that PSLM students must treat the staff respectfully or they would end any chance they have of negotiations.

"We're monitoring the situation and taking it day-to-day," Wrinn said.

When considering ways to end the occupation, University administrators will deal with the legacy of three decades of social protest on campus.

When students took over University Hall 32 years ago this month, then-President Nathan M. Pusey '28 ordered 200 State Police in riot gear to clear the building. They did so with brutal efficiency, leaving students with dozens of injuries and the University with a lasting stain on its history. Three hundred students faced disciplinary action for their part in the takeover.

The legacy of 1969 is likely to weigh heavily on current administrators. Illingworth, who was then an undergraduate, watched the police raid from the steps of Widener and the subsequent treatment of injured students by emergency workers.

Since 1969, the "sit-in" has been used several times by Harvard students, most notably by black students protesting atrocities in Angola in the 1970s, and by students protesting University investment in South Africa during apartheid.

Historically, after seeing the bad publicity of the 1969 riots, the University has tried to wait out protesters rather than confront them directly.