When the 52 members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) entered Mass. Hall 21 days ago, spirits were high.

They intended to revolutionize the debate over a living wage. And they did, turning a fringe group largely overlooked by Harvard students and administrators into The Topic of Conversation on campus.

In a rare sign of unity, over the next three weeks, hundreds of Faculty members, students, union workers and Cantabrigians joined together to push for a living wage.

Endorsements poured in from around the country from politicians, academics and institutions. Two U.S. senators, civil rights leaders, countless labor leaders, professors, political commentators, Cambridge's mayor and city councillors--all stood outside Mass. Hall and urged the protesters to stay put until Harvard improved workers' pay.

"Do not leave this building until you get the $10.25," urged City Councillor Kenneth Reeves '72 last week.

Over the course of three weeks, the numbers inside Mass. Hall dwindled as academic and health issues forced some protesters out--and the University refused to talk.

Finally, yesterday, the 23 PSLM members remaining left Mass. Hall without a living wage--and with no assurances that there will ever be one at Harvard.

The committee that outgoing President Neil L. Rudenstine announced yesterday as part of the agreement to end to sit-in falls short of the commitment PSLM initially wanted.

It does not promise wage hikes to a living wage level. It offers promises to "reexamine" health care benefits and other workers' issues and open "renegotiations" with several unions.

And some of the loudest cheers came yesterday when PSLM members announced the University's moratorium on outsourcing. But the moratorium is only good through December, and contains provisos that allow the Medical School to continue outsourcing with union approval.

Despite the uncertainty, the mood at yesterday's rally showed no ambivalence about who won.

"If this new committee respects the overwhelming mandate from you people out there, we can be confident that it will come back with a living wage," PSLM member Molly E. McOwen '02 told the cheering crowd yesterday.

"The University's been telling us that the issue of the living wage is closed. Now we've got a committee that has a mandate that specifically reopens the possibility of a living wage," said PSLM member Matthew A. Feigin, a third-law student.

However, where the committee will head, what its recommendations will be and their subsequent implementation is anything but clear--there's even uncertainty about the student representation of the committee in the eyes of the PSLM, according to member Benjamin L. McKean '02, as the student representatives will be chosen by the Undergraduate Council, which condemned the sit-in in an official resolution two weeks ago.

On top of the uncertainty around the committee itself, the committee's recommendations will be handed down during the middle of the first semester of incoming President Lawrence H. Summers' tenure.