Over the weekend, the Ford Hall 2015 sit-in was open to all students, faculty and administrators who wished to enter. Students came and went from the protest, and clubs, faculty and administrators provided resources and encouragement.

The protestors had a few tables with their food supply set up in the connecting hall between Bernstein-Marcus and the Gryzmish Center. Most students over the weekend sat down in the hall leading to Interim President Lisa Lynch’s office, sharing food and power adapters to charge laptops, cell phones and other electronics.

Though around 150 students marched from the Rabb steps, about 50 remained at the sit-in by Friday night. Early into the sit-in, Christian Perry MBA/MPP ’16 encouraged students to get to know each other and introduce themselves, adding that — at least initially — the space was going to be for students of color to speak up and share their stories. “If you’re seeing a number of people who have power in this school in different communities talking consecutively, you need to tell them to sit down,” Perry said.

On Friday, shortly after Interim President Lisa Lynch returned to her office, Perry encouraged students who were leaving and coming back to the sit-in to bring food and water for those who would not be leaving the building. Executive Administrator in the Provost’s Office Judy Salvucci provided bottled water to the demonstrators and helped set up several electric fans to keep students cool, according to an interview with the Justice. Around 4:20 p.m., an anonymous donor provided pizza for the sit-in demonstrators.

About half of the donated food over the weekend was provided by students — Amnesty International and Project Plus One, for example, provided leftover Thai food from an earlier event on Saturday afternoon — and about half has been provided by administrators, many of whom have voiced support for the movement, according to Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 in a Saturday afternoon interview. Students frequently circulated the hallway to provide water bottles and check in on fellow demonstrators.

Macklin said that Lynch left her office around 9 p.m. on Friday night. Macklin, who is part of the core group of students negotiating with Lynch, said that the group was waiting on Saturday to receive a final summary of the negotiations by both student leaders and Lynch. She also said that the environment within the protest area shows “a sense of community that is unparalleled.”

To keep energy up, Macklin told the Justice that students were practicing yoga and “doing the electric slide and getting into black dance” on Saturday morning. Students came and went throughout the protest, often contacting friends to take their place when they left so as to keep bodies in the building.

Among other faculty members, chair of the African and Afro-American Studies Department Prof. Chad Williams (AAAS), Prof. Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson (AAAS) and Prof. Anita Hill (Heller) came by the demonstration on Saturday afternoon and voiced their support for the students. Before they left, Williams and Nsiah-Jefferson addressed the group, voicing their — and the AAAS department’s — support for the movement.

The African and Afro-American Studies Department released a statement of solidarity on Saturday morning on Facebook, saying that they feel it is their “intellectual and moral duty” to stand in support of the students, given the department’s own founding after the original Ford Hall takeover. The AAAS statement also adds that “the work of educating Brandeis students about black people cannot fall on the shoulders of one department.” It decries the University’s lack of significant action to address racial injustices despite its supposed commitment to diversity.

The English Department has also issued a statement of solidarity and announced a no penalty policy for students missing classes or falling behind on work due to protesting in Ford Hall 2015. In a Facebook post, the department announced that the W.E.B. DuBois room in the Rabb Building would be used for drop-in discussions and teach-ins about issues raised by and related to the protest.

The Theater Arts Department and the Anthropology Department — two of the departments called out in student demands as needing to prioritize black faculty hires — have also issued similar statements of solidarity, as has the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department.

Around 4:20 p.m. on Saturday, Rima Chaudry M.A. ’16 announced that a documentary film crew was coming to film and document the sit-in. Later that night, documentarians Chuck Grand and Cimron Charles filmed students talking and working in the hallway and interviewed both Hill and event organizers. According to Grand, the pair is producing a documentary about peaceful student movements on campuses in Boston that relate to similar issues, such as hate crimes and the low numbers of faculty of color in colleges. Grand elaborated that he’d heard from colleagues about the demonstration at Brandeis, which surprised him, since he’d never heard of student actions at Brandeis during his time in the Boston area. He was impressed by the protest’s strategic nature and the sophisticated organization of the group.

The Rev. Miniard Culpepper ’76 stopped by the protest on Sunday afternoon. Culpepper was a leader of the Pearlman Hall takeover in 1975, when students of color and their allies occupied Pearlman Hall and issued a list of demands — some of which were met — including continued funding to the Myra Kraft Transitional Year Program. Culpepper urged the students not to be intimidated or shaken by administrative actions or community doubt in the coming days and to maintain faith in the justness of their cause. He then led the gathered students in a nondenominational prayer for strength and justice.

A reporter from the Boston Globe also visited the protest on Sunday and wrote an article appearing in Monday’s paper. Additionally, a follow-up article appears in today’s Boston Globe.