University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

Crisis Of Confidence

By John Israel
(Associate Professor of History)

A crisis of confidence has arisen
over ROTC. Last fall, due to a
"misunderstanding" with the Dean
of Students office, draft counselors
were denied equal time with ROTC
recruiters during freshman orientation
week. Now that the academic
status of the program is under
review in the College of Arts and
Sciences, a veritable credibility gap
has developed - not between left
and right or between pro-and-anti-ROTC
factions - but between he
administration and the rest of the
academic community.

The administration's handling of
this issue suggests that candor and
fair play are expendable commodities,
to be abandoned when
convenience so dictates. Faculty
committees appointed by Dean
Shannon had hitherto been scrupulously
balanced to represent divergent
points of view. Furthermore
the composition of these committees
had generally been promptly
reported to the faculty. Not so in
the case of the ROTC committee,
whose ludicrously lopsided membership
was divulged only in response
to public inquiry.

When the College faculty discussed
the ROTC issue during its
deliberations over curriculum, five
alternatives were offered. We agreed
to consider these in sequence,
starting with the first, which
proposed maximum changes in the
academic status of the program,
and continuing through increasingly
conservative possibilities until a
majority was attained. After the
first two alternatives failed, the
faculty settled upon the third.
Numbers four and five never came
up for a vote. Yet, when the
composition of the committee was
announced, it turned out that one
of its five members had supported
resolution number three, one had
spoken on behalf of number four,
two had co-sponsored number five,
and one was an individual to whom
the care and feeding of the ROTC
program seems to have assumed the
proportions of a theological imperative.
Though more than 40 percent
had backed number two, not a
single spokesman for either of these
positions was named to the committee.

The credibility is widened by
your report that students were
excluded from the committee on
grounds that it would be "negotiating"
with the military. The committee
was charged with no such
responsibility. It was asked to
"consult with appropriate officials
regarding various possibilities of
retaining ROTC on a non-degree
credit basis." Its commission, in
other words, is not to negotiate but
to investigate, a task that could
scarcely be hampered by the
presence of students.

Credibility is further eroded by
an utterly unsubstantiated allegation
by the presidentially-appointed
chairman of the committee on
ROTC affairs (a member of the
five-man faculty committee of
course) to the effect that the
faculty had violated a contractual
obligation when it voted to terminate
degree credit. Understandably,
such statements give rise to rumors
that efforts will be made to
reintroduce degree credit through
the back door. How this might be
attempted is a matter of conjecture.
One means, suggests your editorial,
would be to railroad it through a
sparsely-attended faculty meeting
in the face of indifference from
"tired" College liberals. Another
report has it that high-level administrative
pressure will be used to get
out the vote for normally apathetic
conservatives - in other words to
pack the meeting. Still another
rumor predicts that scare tactics
will be used to panic the faculty
with apparitions of state legislators
waiting in the wings to pounce
upon us if we dare to exercise our
traditional prerogatives concerning
the curriculum.

Of course the pro-ROTC forces
will benefit from the ballots of
more than a dozen ROTC personnel
who now hold faculty rank. Attempts
to deny voting privileges to
these career-officers-on-loan are put
off, once again, with vague references
to "contractual obligations"
and by misplaced sentiments of
collegial solidarity. Hence, in a
closely-divided faculty, the military
services could entrench their position
in the curriculum through their
own votes. The ROTC syndrome at
the University serves, indeed, to
verify the most "paranoid" apprehensions
of the New Left.

Good faith among students,
faculty, and administrators is the
life blood of an academic community.
When the handling of a
controversial issue is marked by
deviousness and subterfuge, good
faith disappears. Bitterness, suspicion,
and ugly rumors fill the
vacuum Such are the blessings that
the ROTC program has brought to
the University.