hursday May 29. P759

SCARLET AND BLACK

Page Eleven

 

ROTC Reversal

Faculty Frustraies Student

oy TED GLICK

On Monday, May 19, the faculty once
again showed their lack of conscience
and their low opinion of the students
of the institution. At the last faculty
meeting of the year, while students
were engaged in writing papers and
taking ﬁnals, a motion was unexpected»
iy sprung on an uninformed faculty ask-
ing for a reversal of the previous deci-
sion to remove academic credit from
ROTC in 1570. Mr. Vanderpool, one of
the members of the committee set up
to look further into the ROTC question,
presented this motion, and it was passed
47735. Reasons for Ibis action are yet
to be put forth by Vanderpool or any
other member of the faculty to the stu-
dents.

, What does this action mean? To me it
means two things. First, it is clear that
when the faculty made their initial de-
crsion to remove academic credit from
ROTC the reason was not one of moral
principle; rather it must have been
primarily one of the academic merit
(or lack of it) of the courses. The sec~
ond thing to be learned from this action

' is that it shows once again what the
faculty, as a collective unit, thinks about
the students — they think of them as
"loggers”.

"Doing the right thing for the wrong
reason” is something we are continually
being wsrned against doing. But, as is
too often the case, our supposed “su-
parlors” did just the thing which most
or them counsel against. They were
either too conscienceless or too naive
to see that a continuation of ROTC on

' this campus will do nothing but increase
the amount of men who serve this
coiuitry under the facade of “defense”,
but in fact as agents of oppression in
conflicts such as Vietnam.

Operating under the illogical assump-

‘ lion that this is 1945 and that the United
States is not an imperial power, they
Show their blindness, be it a moral
blindness or simply a blindness of per
ception, of what this country is really

about. Either of these reasons is not
excusable at a, supposedly, "good"
school like Grinnell.

The second point is just as important
as the first. Students at Grinnell, as
well as at virtually all other pubic
schools and colleges, are treated as
“niggers”. The secretiveness of the
motion and the tact that it was put
forth at the last faculty meeting or
the year, ill the final minutes, and dur-
ing finals week, shows where the
minds of at least some, and probably
a majority of the facility, lie. They
think of students as second‘class Citir
zcns, not worthy of having a real voice
in their education and not worthy of
being notified of plans to reverse what
had been decided on before largely as
a result of student pressure.

These aie the two reasons why 1 de-
cided to go on a hunger strike to try
and move the conscience of those who
so obviously need some pressure to get
moving. The faculty should consider
themselves lucky that it was a last and
not some other action that would have
“horrified" them (Columbia, Harvard.
Berkeley, Stanford — dig it?) That is
not to say that such an action is not in
the foreseeable future; I will be very
surprised it next year does not bring
enough student agitation to make this
year's actions look like parity raids and
1950's pranks.

As this issue of the sets goes to press
the ROTC issue has yet to be decrded.
it would he gratirying and surprising if
the faculty did decide to stick to their
first decision decided upon earlier »—<
an elimination of ROTC credit. How-
ever, no matter what the faculty de-
cides to do on this issue, it is clear that
the continued high»handedness of the
faculty in all areas of college life will
next year bring increased student pres-
sure and militance on all fronts for a
role not as niggers but as human beings
with power to control their own lives.

We, the students, don’t want to and
aren’t going to be treated like niggers
any more.

Compliments of

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Profs Rethink
Rolf: Issue

In the wake of several weeks of in-
decisiveness about the withdrawal of
academic credit from the college ROTC
program, the faculty is presently voting
on a final recommendation as to when
accreditation of Aerospace Studies
courses should cease.

President Leggett on Tuesday sent a
ballot to all faculty members asking
them to vote on whether ROTC credit
should be continued until June, 1972
(when the Air Force plans to have totalr
ly phased out ROTC at Grinnell) or if it
should be discontinued after Sept. 1, 1970
(as the iacuity recommended 47-40 on
Apr. 7.)

At a May 19 meeting the faculty voted
47434 to alter its original decision and
recommended that academic credit for
ROTC courses he continued until June.
1972. A majority of the faculty at that
time apparently believed that the Air
Force’s decision to phase out ROTC at
Grinnell made the earlier recommenda-
tion unnecessary.

However, a special faculty meeting
was called last week after the executive
council received a petition signed by 13
faculty members asking that the faculty
reconsider the question of when ROTC
credit should be terminated. The mat-
ter was discussed at a full faculty meet—
ing last Monday, and a committee was
appointed to draw up the ballot that is
presently being circulated, President
Leggett has asked that all ballots he
returned by 5 pm this Friday.

Monday’s special faculty meeting was
called after sophomore J. Theodore Glick
began fasting on May 20 to protest the

To demonstrate our concern
over the Vietnam conﬂict, Grin-
neirs flag is tlyiiig at hall—mast
over central campus, and will
continue to do so until the end

 

 

of the cris'

faculty’s reversal of its earlier- ROTO
recommendation. Glick sent a» letter to
all professors informing them that he
would not eat. until the faculty. met to
reconsider the ROTC matter. He ended
his 3—day hunger strike after learning
that the executive council hadiealled tho
speual meeting.

President Leggett told the SH) that his
recommendation to the board of- trust-
ees on the status of ROTC credit Will
probably be based upon the faculty re-
commendation that will be finalized when
the ballots are counted on Friday.

 

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