BERKELEY, Calif. -- Law enforcement officials arrested more than 40 people who occupied a building at the University of California at Berkeley Friday morning in protest of fee hikes approved by the UC Board of Regents on Thursday.

Claire Holmes, UC Berkeley's associate vice chancellor for communications, said police entered Wheeler Hall shortly before 5:30 p.m. to arrest the 41 people, a mixture of students and non-students, who occupied the building between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m.

Those demonstrators are being cited in the building for misdemeanor trespassing, and will then be released.

Wheeler Hall is located just east of Sproul Plaza and several hundred protesters were continuing to surround the building at about 6:15 p.m.

Holmes said a group of administrators, faculty and students unsuccessfully attempted to have a dialogue with the occupiers before police entered the building.

Protesters are demonstrating against an increase in undergraduate student fees, which will jump by more than $2,500, or 32 percent, by the 2010-11 school year, with some increases taking effect next spring. Protesters also said they want the university to rehire 38 union custodians who have been laid off.

Earlier Friday, the occupiers locked the building from inside, apparently by using bike locks and placing chairs near the doors.

Campus police were able to get into the first floor of the building and arrested three people, including two students, for burglary, according to Holmes.

There were no reports of serious injuries during the protest, but at 4:45 p.m., a demonstrator became involved in a shoving match with officers, and was struck by a baton.

Another protester, UC Berkeley senior Adam Astan, told reporters he was shot in the stomach with a rubber bullet. However, he said he was not seriously injured and intended on rejoining the protest.

Besides just occupying the buildings, students took further action, pulling fire alarms at different buildings on the Berkeley campus.

Officers from the UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and Berkeley police departments, and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, responded to the campus.

Wheeler Hall houses various humanities departments, and the protests caused students to miss classes in the building this morning.

Protests over the fee hikes have taken place all week at UC Berkeley and other campuses by students and university union members sympathetic with their fight.

Lisa Kermish, vice president of the University Professional and Technical Employees-Communication Workers of America union Local 9119 said "students have every right to be furious and angry and drawing attention" to the fee hikes.

"It's such a severe, monumental threat to public higher education in California," she said. "The fee hike yesterday is the most egregious example of the dangerous path that the regents have taken. It means many students are going to be dissuaded from even applying."

A similar protest also took place Friday at UC Santa Cruz, where on Thursday dozens of students and other people entered Kerr Hall, an administrative building on campus, and refused to leave.