Rudenstine simply stared, McKean said, and swirled his tonic water for about 30 seconds before telling McKean that the Corporation usually deliberates alone.

Stymied by the official bureaucracy, the students then decided to try more creative ways to reach the seemingly elusive Corporation members.

In February, PSLM members spent a weekend in New York, attempting to track down Corporation members at their homes and offices.

They visited Corporation member Conrad K. Harper’s home in Connecticut, were escorted out of D. Ron Daniel’s office at McKinsey and Co., and leafleted the Harvard Club of New York.

Later that month, PSLM members held a “Hunt for the Corporation” rally, leading students from University Hall to Loeb House holding cardboard effigies of Corporation members with the name, company affiliation and net worth of each emblazoned on the head and body.

But the change in strategy did not have any real results.

In April, Grogan said the issue would not be reopened, regardless of the number of student actions aimed at Corporation members.

“This simply won’t be an effective tactic in causing the University to reopen a question it has already engaged in very comprehensively and very seriously,” Grogan said.

Lights, Camera, Action

The months immediately preceding the sit-in were also marked by a brief flurry of media attention as PSLM held a series of rallies that coincided with the announcement that Lawrence H. Summers would succeed Rudenstine as University president.

About 30 PSLM members garnered extensive media coverage for their cause with a hastily organized protest outside the press conference announcing Summers’ selection.

The students called for a less secretive presidential search process and a living wage--marching outside Loeb House, banging recycling bins and chanting loudly throughout the course of the press conference.

About 150 students and a dozen members of the media attended PSLM’s first rally of the year, held the day after the University announced Summers as the president-elect.

Although the rally did not feature any celebrity speakers and did not attract more students than rallies in the past, a news helicopter flew overhead as the students marched across the Yard, armed with a loudspeaker and drums.

But the increased burst of media attention did not translate into higher wages, as the PSLM members had hoped.