With the likely repeal of the military’s 17 year-old “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and a general reappraisal of higher education’s relationship with the armed services, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) appears closer to returning to campus.
An ad-hoc Faculty Senate committee will release a report this spring advising the Senate on possible action regarding ROTC. Students who participate in ROTC programs receive an officer’s commission upon graduation as well as tuition assistance. If brought back, the program’s return will end a 37 year hiatus from campus.
According to Ryan Mac of the New York Times, the Faculty Senate decided in 1970 that ROTC courses should no longer receive university credit. Shortly thereafter all three branches pulled their ROTC programs.
[…] General dissent toward the Vietnam War also likely factored into the perception of ROTC on campus. Anti-war fervor manifested itself specifically in 1968 when arsonists burnt the campus’s Navy ROTC building to the ground.
But student and faculty sentiments seem to have changed. In March, the Faculty Senate overwhelmingly voted to allow for the formation of an ad-hoc committee to explore the possibility of bringing back ROTC. The attitude of the Senate seemed to indicate that any return of the program would be contingent upon the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Dr. Ewart Thomas, professor of psychology and the chair of the ROTC committee, stated, “I think it’s fair to say that the [committee] believes that there is little chance of ROTC returning if DADT is not repealed…. If DADT is repealed then we have a horserace, so to speak, and I can see a Senate vote going either way,” Thomas said.
Read the full story at the Stanford Review.
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