Occupy UC Davis protesters frustrated over university tuition and fee hikes took their anger Monday to Dutton Hall, the home of UCD’s financial aid services.

The building’s subsequent occupation aimed to show solidarity with UC Santa Cruz, where protesters had taken over the financial aid office earlier in the day.

“Occupy, decolonize. No cuts, no lies,” a group of about 300 people chanted as they marched east to the hall from the campus Quad. Within minutes, they had filled the halls and stairwell of the three-story building.

“It feels good to be taking some action,” said Erica Rettig, a graduate student in ecology at UCD. “I’ve seen people coming out of their offices to see what’s going on.”

The takeover took place shortly before 1 p.m., following a debate among Occupy UC Davis members as to whether protesters should march into classrooms to promote their cause. While some professors had canceled classes in support of a general strike, others had not.

“Students should be here,” one woman said during a general assembly attended by several hundred people on the Quad, which has doubled as headquarters for Occupy UC Davis. “If you crossed into a classroom, you are crossing a picket line.”

Some protesters agreed, while others said students’ choices to attend classes should be respected.

“We don’t have the right to go and affect their grades or their midterms,” said one man.

The group settled on marching to Dutton Hall after another man announced that morning’s actions at UC Santa Cruz.

“We’ve shut it down before with fewer people, and we can shut it down again today,” he said.

“Let’s march!” someone else declared. Soon, a banner declaring “general strike — no more fee hikes” hung over the building’s main entrance, and the first of several teach-ins was under way.

There was no sign of any police action, other than occasional patrols by a lone bike officer.

The number of occupiers ebbed, then grew again as the day wore on. Roughly 50 protesters who attended a general assembly inside the building that evening voted to continue occupying the hall for two weeks.

While the financial aid offices shut down early Monday, other departments in Dutton Hall remained open for business.

They included the Student Academic Success Center, where workers said they have seen similar marches in years past and sympathize with the students’ concerns.

Ellen Abrams, a principal learning skills counselor, said when she was a graduate student at UCLA years ago, students could pay for a year’s worth of tuition and books on their earnings from a summer job.

“That’s not possible now,” Abrams said. “It’s effectively moving in the direction of cutting out the middle-class and low-income students.”

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene