University of Virginia Library

McCLELLAN

Corps Platoon Leaders' Training
Program.

The students would apply to the
service of his choice at the end of
his sophomore year. If accepted, he
would spend the summers following
his junior and senior years in
intensive training on military bases
and would be commissioned the
September following his June
graduation.

This program will eventually be
adopted, and the services will
withdraw ROTC from the campuses
in favor of this much more logical
and efficient program. We will still
have college-trained officers. No
one will be deprived of his right to
spend a period of active duty as an
officer.

And the services will not ask the
opinion, let alone the permission,
of the universities when they make
this the
majority of the recommendations
call for the institution of this new
program between 1973 and 1975,
though it is of course uncertain
whether these recommendations
will be accepted).

Finally, the University
community should take serious
note of the fact that a substantial
majority of the civilian faculty, 88
to 75, voted in April to reaffirm its
December 1969 decision to take
away degree credit. The resolution
reaffirming that decision "lost" by
90-88, but of that 90 "majority,"
15 were "faculty members" in
uniform, voting in good military
lockstep, not a one of them free to
vote their consciences. Those 15
votes are invalid on two counts:

(1) the Commerce, Engineering,
Nursing and other faculties have no
vote in the College when the
College Faculty considers any
matter affecting them; why should
ROTC have a voting privilege?

(2) no faculty member
anywhere in the University, one
hopes, is subject to any outside
discipline other than the military
(uniformed or otherwise); therefore
those whose behavior and conduct
is controlled by outside agencies
should not be permitted to vote, at
least not in the College of Arts and
Sciences.

There are of course those who
like the way the military votes; but
that argument works both ways,
and it is not inconceivable that
some group subject to outside
control might seek the right to
vote, and might not vote the way
they should, and then where would
the University be?

ROTC should not be an issue
which divides the faculty of any
division of the University. For this
reason, the Selden Committee
should withdraw its report, which
was rejected 88-75 by the civilian
faculty, close up shop and let the
matter rest with the Breit-Moore
resolution which passed last
December.

And as a matter of honor, the
military should abstain from voting
in the College; should they insist,
let them hear the stigma of creating
an artificial situation in which the
only real loser is the University, an
institution dedicated to the
discovery, dissemination and
preservation of humane knowledge.