Faculty Votes Reduced Status for ROTC

THE Dartmouth College faculty voted January 21 to endorse in principle recommendations calling for a phasing out over a three-year period of all degree credits for courses given by the three ROTC units at the College.

By a vote of 101 to 32, the faculty approved the recommendations of its Committee on Organization and Policy on ROTC and instructed that committee to create an Ad Hoc Committee on ROTC to "work on the Dartmouth campus and with other institutions toward the implementation of those recommendations."

Action by the Dartmouth faculty was part of a growing, widespread move by colleges and universities to abolish or reduce academic credit for ROTC programs. Dartmouth's adoption of a three- year phase-out was less stringent than action by the faculties at Harvard and Yale, which have voted to abolish academic credit for ROTC courses and faculty status for all ROTC instructors.

In its first recommendation, the Committee on Organization and Policy recommended for Dartmouth that "degree credit for courses be reduced to two courses in all three service programs (Army, Navy, and Air Force), and after three years be eliminated entirely if, by then, there has been no legislative change to permit all military instruction to be transferred to summer camps, or no" prospect of recommendation by the Department of Defense of such change." At the present time, the Army ROTC at Dartmouth offers only two courses for credit, the Air Force three, and the Navy four.

Another key recommendation, proposed by the study committee and endorsed by the faculty, included a call to limit faculty status of military personnel assigned to ROTC detachments at Dartmouth to the senior officer of each unit, subject to the approval of the Committee Advisory to the President. Currently, faculty status at Dartmouth is held by six Navy officers, four Army officers, and two Air Force officers.

The committee also urged that during the next three years steps be taken to work with other universities and colleges and the Department of Defense to develop a plan for the military recruitment of college graduates in which the ROTC instruction now required on campus would be provided during the summer training program conducted by each of the services.

Prior to endorsing these recommendations, the faculty rejected by a vote of 90 to 66 a resolution calling for "an end of ROTC at Dartmouth" as soon as possible, but in no case later than three years, and the admission of no new students to any ROTC program. The faculty also rejected by a vote of 82 to 59 another proposed substitute motion which asked that all service programs currently at Dartmouth be terminated if at the end of three years an alternate form of ROTC, such as that suggested in the COP report, had not been accepted.

At present, slightly more than 400 of Dartmouth's 3100 undergraduates are enrolled in the three ROTC programs. About 220 are in the Army program, 175 in the Navy program, and 15 in the Air Force program, which offers only a two- year ROTC program here.

Faculty action to modify the ROTC role at Dartmouth began in May, when the executive committee asked the Committee on Organization and Policy to examine the relationship of the College's ROTC programs to the purposes of a liberal arts education. An ad hoc subcommittee, headed by Prof. Louis Morton, military historian, conducted a study over a period of several months. Its report, with COP approval, then went to the executive committee of the faculty in November. Discussion of the recommendations by the full faculty began in December, with a final vote taken at the January 21 meeting.

The COP report pointed out that the basic changes recommended represented a continuation of the evolution of ROTC at Dartmouth since the first Naval unit was established at the College in 1946, as an outgrowth of naval officer training and the Navy V-12 Unit conducted at Dartmouth during World War II. Army and Air Force units were established at Dartmouth in 1951 during the Korean conflict, when the services were required to expand their officer training programs.

In the past ten years, the report pointed out, the number of military-taught courses for which degree credits have been allowed have decreased substantially: from six to two in the Army, eight to four in the Navy, and six to three in the Air Force.

As part of an introductory summary of its general approach and conclusions, the COP report stated:

(1) Under existing conditions, the ROTC constitutes an important and justifiable source of officer procurement for the armed services.

(2) As a method of recruitment, the ROTC is not necessarily incompatible with the purpose of liberal education at Dartmouth, or with the responsibilities of an institution of higher learning in a democratic society.

(3) What is questionable is the establishment of military units as academic depart- ments, with degree credit granted for military courses and faculty status granted to military officers.

(4) What is needed is a system whereby the military services can recruit for the ROTC on the college campus but where all military training for ROTC students can be transferred to summer camps. Unfortunately, present legislation does not permit the military services to eliminate all training from the campus.

(5) A major recommendation of this report is, therefore, that, through a faculty committee on ROTC affairs, Dartmouth take steps to collaborate with other institutions of higher education in developing a plan for transferring all ROTC military courses to summer camps and in presenting such a plan to the Department of Defense.

Another section of the report was entitled "Long and Short Range Goals" and was as follows:

In distinguishing between the recruitment and training objectives of the ROTC, the committee wishes to make it clear that while it favors the continued presence of ROTC on the campus, it does not believe that the current programs are either necessary or desirable. The problem is how to keep ROTC without the training programs and practices that the committee regards as inconsistent with the aims of a liberal education.

It is not difficult to sketch out a long-range solution to this problem, though it may be difficult to secure approval by the military services. The committee believes that an arrangement superior to the present arrangement would be one in which ROTC students had no professional military instruction on campus except for courses offered by academic departments and recommended by the services as desirable background for military training. All purely military training would be conducted in summer camps or after graduation, as it is at present in the Platoon leaders program of the Marine Corps. Student contacts with the military during the academic year would then be limited to administrative arrangements and counselling for future assignment; consequently, there would be no need for the establishment of military departments within the academic structure of the College. If the Dartmouth faculty were free to organize ROTC as it wished, the committee would recommend the adoption of such an arrangement.

Unfortunately, the faculty is not free to do so, since the existing system was created and is supported by federal legislation and is governed by regulations established by federal agencies. A single school cannot change the entire system, but a number of schools working together might well be able to persuade the Department of Defense to review the program. If the faculty agrees on the long-range goal of removing military instruction from the campus altogether, its first action should be to initiate discussions with other schools, the purpose of which would be to seek to encourage the necessary changes in legislation and regulations to shift ROTC instruction to training camps, thereby eliminating military departments and military instruction on the campus.

While these discussions are being carried out, moreover, the courses being offered by the military departments and the faculty status of ROTC officers should become — in practice as well as in theory — subject to review by the faculty as are other comparable courses and appointments. Nothing in the current arrangements with the military services bars such review; in many ways, it is encouraged. Indeed, the faculty must assume responsibility for having in the past been lax and perfunctory in its review of the ROTC program and courses.

As a second step toward the achievement of this long-range goal, the committee believes that degree credit for ROTC courses should be reduced to two courses for each service, as is presently the case in the Army program. Moreover, if, within three years, there is no major change in the basic structure of the ROTC program, we believe that degree credit for ROTC courses should be eliminated entirely.

A third step the committee recommends is to limit faculty status to the commandants, subject to approval by the Committee Advisory to the President. The committee views this as an interim arrangement pending efforts to change current legislation and regulations. ...

To achieve the long-range goal of removing prescribed military training from the campus, and for supervising the interim arrangements while efforts go forward toward the long-range goal, the committee believes it would be desirable to establish an ad hoc faculty committee on ROTC affairs whose functions would be: (a) to report to the faculty progress on the implementation of these recommendations; (b) to review and make recommendations regarding the curriculum and organizational role of the ROTC; (c) to serve as a continuing review board of the active ROTC units; and (d) to seek the cooperation of other institutions of higher education in order to develop a proposal to present to the Department of Defense that would lead to the withdrawal of military training from the campus.

Such a committee, as part of its duties, could also be of direct assistance to both ROTC instructors and students. As one example, the members could, as necessary, re-assess the interpretation and administration of contractual arrangements between the military departments and the ROTC students in an endeavor to insure that they provide maximum flexibility for the student and do not carry with them undue punishment should students, for good reason, desire to resign from the ROTC program.

It should also be observed that, during the course of its work, the standing committee will have to take into account possible changes in the draft, changes both in the present draft law and in the rate of draft call-up in the event of an alteration in the military situation in Vietnam. The recruitment of students into the ROTC is, of course, integrally related to the draft though factors of scholarship assistance, personal commitment and career aims combine to create a complex set of motivations.

The critical importance of the draft as a factor in recruiting college-educated young men as officers through the ROTC was, however, recognized by the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service. The recommendations of the Commission - not yet acted on, but still a basis for possible changes in the draft legislation — would provide a lottery system for call-up at age 19 and would eliminate student deferment. It is perhaps interesting to note that, in response to the Commission's proposal, the Department of Defense reported that "in the absence of a college student II-S deferment policy, officer requirements could probably be met through a major revision of existing officer procurement programs and extensive use of class I-D deferments [the classification of ROTC students]."

In effect, the availability of college graduates for OCS training would be greatly decreased if the Commission's recommendations were accepted. At the same time, the increased emphasis placed on ROTC as a source of college-educated officers would be affected by the decrease in draft pressure. There would be the need to make ROTC as attractive as possible without the same draft pressure that exists today to stimulate enrollments. A "new look" at the ROTC — including a possible extension of scholarship assistance — might well include a basic change in relations with colleges and universities, as is suggested in this report.

Army ROTC cadets practicing on Chase Field for annual Armed Forces Day parade.

Prof. Louis Morton, chairman of ad hoccommittee which made study of ROTC.