The College

The Dartmouth Trustees at their April meeting termed the "overall question of ROTC and its relation to undergraduate education a matter that requires thorough review" but specifically deferred any such review until "an appropriate time" in the future.

Appearing at his monthly campus press conference following the Board meeting, President Kemeny said the Trustees decided that "the present does not seem to be the appropriate time for such a review." He stressed at the same time that the Board also agreed that it "will initiate a broad-based study" of ROTC and its place at a liberal arts institution "as soon as it believes the time to be appropriate."

President Kemeny declined to predict when that might be. On other occasions he has said that until the war in Vietnam ends, ROTC is too emotional an issue to be reopened at Dartmouth.

The issue was brought to the atten- tion of the Board initially as a result of a resolution passed by the Alumni Council in January requesting that the Trustees instruct President Kemeny to appoint a committee to study the issue of reinstating ROTC at Dartmouth. In addition, a group of seven faculty members and eight students last month sent a letter to the Trustees making a similar request.

On the other side, just prior to the Trustee meeting, 145 members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences submitted to President Kemeny for transmission to the Board a petition urging the Trustees to refrain from reopening the ROTC issue. The signers asserted, among other points, that reconsideration of that issue would be disruptive to the campus at a time when Dartmouth is preparing to introduce both yearround operation and coeducation. Finally, petitions opposing reopening the ROTC issue and containing the names of approximately 600 undergraduates and others were presented to President Kemeny for the Trustees at the end of a "silent vigil" of about 150 students outside Parkhurst Hall while the Board was meeting on April 14.