Federal support cutbacks still looming The outlook for , federal support of The House of RepresentatIves last cutb.acks higher education is slightly brighter than month the ~Ixon it was a few weeks ago, but academic commuaity is still expressing A:drmmstratIon the PresIdent concern over an apparent slowdown in himself has recently pledged to restore ot~ers. But most observers foresee. a U. S. funds and over some fundamental changes in the means of allocating those major depart.ure from f~deral po~cy that had, until now, provIded steadIly funds. restored . some the reco~end~d earlier by and . Commission to convene June 1 The first meeting of the newly named Presidential Commission on Admissions and Student Body Composition - scheduled for 2 p.m. next Monday (June 1) - will deal with organizational matters and with establishing some issues that the commission faces. said that instruction, Ira Polley, director of the commission and former state superintendent of public the commission initially will focus on three undergraduate - areas : Graduate in ' MSU's enrollment balance colleges, undergraduate maximu~ or optimum size and enrollment ceilings, As it proceeds during the remainder of this year, he added, the commission will hold open hearings - both on and off the campus. Its recommendations are expected during winter, 1971. Faculty voting members named to the commission include: W. Vern Hicks, professor of elementary and special education, and Willard Warrington, professor of evaluation services, both from the University Educational Policies Committee; and Charles A. Blackman, professor of secondary education and curriculum, and James H. Pickering, professor of English, both from the Graduate Council. " Ft6m the Academic Council are: Norman Abeles, professor of psychology and Counseling Center; Daniel F. Cowan, assistant professor of human medicine ; Mildred B. Erickson, assistant professor of American Thought and Language; Henry W. Kennedy, professor of teacher education; Mordechai Kreinin, professor of economics; Clifford J. Pollard, associate professor of botany and plant pa tho logy; and Chitra M. Smith, James Madison assistant professor, College. Faculty members - at - large include James D. Shaffer, professor of agricultural economics, and Dorothy Arata, professor in the Honors College. Other voting members include James H. McMillan , director of Equal Opportunity Programs; three the Council of representatives of Graduate Students (Stanley Sibley, William Greene and Kwong-Yuan Chong); five undergraduates; and a third at - large (former State Sen. Frank member Beadle, St. Clair). two alumni; President Clifton R Wharton Jr. is chairman, and Provost John Cantlon is vice chairman. Non-voting and ex officio members include five persons designated from the public, the Board of Trustees and nine University staff and resource persons, including Polley. mcreasmg support for higher educatIOn since World War II. The President's announced intentions _ aroused quick response from educators and from some Congressmen. and both educational Th~ picture Specifically, Administration proposals Although President Nixon suggested call for reduced spending in direct aid that some programs suggested for cuts for new fellowships or phase _ outs be absorbed by his construction. They would replace that direct aid with increased reliance on for proposed National Foundation loan programs using private capital. As a Higher Education, officials of several national result; say some education officials, associations pointed out that the programs could a<;ademic science and health - related suffer seriously if they were disf\lpted in programs are in particular jeopardy. the transfer process. at Michigan State the generally reflects the national outlook, according to campus spokesmen. A May Administration but partially restored by 6 scheduled visit by President Clifton R. the House are in the appropriations bill for the U. S. Office of Education. That Whart.on Jr. to Washington, D. C. - to meet ~' with the Michigan Congressional bill (calling for $4.1 billion for the delegiJtion - was delayed by strike Office of Education, including $1.1 billion for higher education) is expected attempts on the campus. One topic on to be acted on this month in the Senate. the agenda of such a meeting was voted federar support for higher education. increase to The House appropriations Since ' the appropriations bills are not (over Administrative recommendations) for such programs as yet fmaIized, there is still time to try to the National Defense Education Act change them. (NDEA) student loans and funds for land - grant institutions. Some cutbacks suggested by that could be IN IDS educational reform message earlier this year, President Nixon promised a "concerted effort" to fmd reduced, programs fundamentally terminated restructured. Arnong those programs were fellowships and traineeships for graduate for new students, grants facilities, funds for land - grant colleges, support for lIbrary resources, grants for health - care facilities. or More recently, the Administration has assured leaders of higher education that there will be no sudden withdrawal of teacher support for college federal fellowships, and area an.d , foreign studies. for ,are eventual inclusion in the Foundation for scheduled (Both (Continued on page 3) MSU Faculty News Vol. 1, No. 29 ,May 26, 1970 The ROTC question: Is it compatible? By BEVERLY 1WITCHELL Associate Editor, Faculty News To ROTC or not to ROTC or how to ROTC ' - that is the question. Asked, discussed, shouted around campus for the last few weeks, arid to be discussed today in a special Academic Council meeting at 3: 15 p.m. in the Auditorium. Attacks on offering Reserve Officers Training Corps programs at MSU have been two fronts: Military and academic. Some students, particularly the along Committee Against ROTC , have taken the military argument, with some faculty support, opposing the offering of ROTC because of its relationship to t~e mil~tary - industrial complex and particularly its relationship to (through supplymg offIcers for) the Indochina war. Some faculty have opposed offering ROTC here on academic grounds, opposing the role of outside agen cies (the Air Force and Army) to determine curricula and supply instructors and to prepare students for a single employer. investigation by The administration's stance, as articulated in a May 1 statement by President Clifton R. Wharton J r. , is that, based on an ASMSU opinion survey last year and the University Educational Policies and Curriculum an Committees, the position of ROTC is warranted. But, he said, " if the Committee' Against ROTC has additional evidence that the situation has changed materially or that there are additional facts which should be considered, then there exist appropriate channels to present these views for a hearing and consideration." And finally held two open hearings last week, and the Academic Council. He suggested two channels: The Military Education Advisory Committee, which ' the stance of those who oppose either abolishing ROTC or wit hdrawing University ftnancial support and accreditation (as demanded by striking students) cen ters on academic freedom and what they say is the liberalizing effect or a University on ROTC commissioned officers. As Herman King, assistant provost and chairman of the Military Education Advisory Committee, said : "We ' are more concerned about the role of the Un iversity in military train ing than the role of military training in the University." * * * ARGUMENTS AGAINST ROTC: MILITARY A mimeographed. rootnoted 13 - page "Case for Abolishing ROTC " has been distri bu ted and sold by the Committee Aga inst ROTC, The case speaks of the RarC history, ROTC as a main source of officers, the question of alternatives to ROTC , elit ism, imperialism racism and academic freedom , The case begins with a statement about the Chicago Conspiracy trials and the anti - war movement and explains the campaign against ROTC as bringing the anti - war movement to the local situation: "Here at MSU , where sqme 250 Army and (Continued on page 2) Corrlnlittee AKainst ROTC --~----------------------------------------------------------------------- - -- - - MSU Faculty News; May 26, 1970 - .. LClIIIICCIOC OC C:CClICClICClICClICC:III:CIOClOClCCllClIlCalICCIIIICIIIIClllalDOaaalCallCallCalllllallllallllaaoc a:lCl:llC:llClallCallCalCl:IlIIICI:IIIClIIIClClClClCllIlCl:IlCClICa:MCI:IIIClCIOClO:CClCClICClICClICClICCI:IIICI:IIIClCIOClOClCClC:ICClICClICClICCI:IIICI:IIIClCIOClCClICIClICClICClICClIC:III:III.I;IIOD The que s t i () n (Continued from page 1) 200 Air Force cadets are receiving training to help the war effort, we can begin to fight against the war as students in the university community." The case lists figures : Of all Army Officers on active duty today, less than 12 percent are West Point graduates, while more than 50 percent are ROTC graduates, according to the Report of the Special Committee on ROTC to the Secretary of Defense, Sept. 22, 1969 (the Benson Report). The figures for the other branches of the Armed Forces are lower, according to the New York Times: ROTC graduates are 35 percent of the Navy's officers and 30 percent of the Air Force's officers. The case also points out that "it costs five times as much to train an officer at an academy than at a college campus. For example, it costs approximately $4,800 per officer at MSU as opposed to $49,400 at West Point...," making the ROTC program financially desirable to the Army. The case also points out that "an additional measur~ of the importaIlce of ROTC is the high percentage of commanding offiCers in Vietnam who are ROTC graduates. Of six commanding generals in Vietnam, five are from ROTC ... "Still the question might linger," the case states, "'Will the abolition of ROTC effectively slow the operation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam?'" The committee quo tes the head of the ROTC program at Harva rd as saying: 'Let it be understood beyond q uest ion that there is at present no acceptable alternative source of j unior officer leadersltip if ROTC is driven fro m the college campus'" and " ... the blunt truth is that Office rs Candidate School programs are not attractive to college graduates un less there is extreme pressure from the draft. ) The committee rejects the notion that an in nux of educated men into junior officer positions makes a basic difference in Army politics. ' 'The ROTC program (and the argument about in telligence) ," they say 'is based on class prejudice and t he pe rpet uation of the inner q ualities of American socie ty within the Army ." They again quote the Harvard ROTC head : " The Armed Forces simp ly eannot funct ion withou t an office rs corps comprised largely of college graduates. Who is prepared to trust their sons - Jet alone the nation ' s destiny - to the leadership of high school boys and dropou ts? Equally disturbing (as idealistic young Americans ruining their lives by fleeing the country to avoid the draft) must be the knowledge that the re are brilliant young Harvard men with God - given leadership abilities who seem content to waste two years of their life by allowing t hemselves to serve as a private. ' The committee responds: "What incredible snobbery!" A relat ively large section of The Case fo r Abo bshing ROTC" is devoted to figures conce ming U.S. investmen ts abroad as the Committee Against ROTC alleges that the "military establishment o f the U.S. has grown in the past d e~ade s to beco me the most powerful world pol ice force in history." Th~ pOint the Committee makes is that " the funct ion of the military has not been to make the world safe for democracy , but rather to make it safe fo r American bu siness enterprises. The case accuses the U.S. military of "racist exploitation of people both at hOtneand abr6ad. ,. 'The military uses racism to help justify the war iO Vietnam by pusltiog the idea that he Viet n arne~e are somethin g less than human ... that t hey have no regard for life , that they aren' t Christian , and in general are not 'our kind of people: American soldiers are ta ught to think of them as pests to be exterminated ... rather than people fighting fo r a better existence, while the govemment plays up the idea that we'd like to let them govern themselves bu t right now they aren't capable of it so we have to do it for them." Domestic military racism is seen, the case states, in that "most dralt calls are filled by workers, many of them black or Chicano, while almost all of the officers are college - trained and most are white. Thus the blacks are kept 'in their place' as they are in all institutions and end up being conscripted to die defending the imperialist system which has always kept them down by giving them the lowest wages, worst jo bs and poorest housing." The committee says that academic freedom has nothing to do with their abolish ROTC position. "The abolish ROTC position ... doesn t care who teaches it or how it is taught, with or without acade mic credit. As long as ROTC is used to serve as a proteoto r of the U.S. global empire then ROTC must be abolished, they say. Ln their con clu sion. the co mmittee members say t hat their aim is not to impair the defense capacity of the U.S. but to make ' a significant blow ' against the Vietnam war. And they point out that theirs is an attack on ROTC , not on the students who ~inWIT. . 'We believe," they say , ' that ROTC manipulates students into signing up by appealing to their immediate needs - money to go to school an d fear of the draft" which leads to , they say , misguided, rather than genuine , patriotism. The demands of the committee made to President Wharton, are: ( 1) That ROTC have no access to University faciliUes on any basis' (2) that there be no con tractual relations between MSU and the mili tary for the training of officers on a curricular or extra - curricular basis; and (3 that students who are currently receiving ROTC scholarsltips be given equivalent MSU scholarships. ARGUMENTS AGAINST ROTC: ACADEMIC * * * Robert Repas, professor of labor and industrial relations, said he was "astounded" by the statement of President Wharton that University channels had not been untilized for consideration of ROTC issues. Repas headed a group of faculty members who worked from December, 1969, to April, 1970, to bring the ROTC issue through the University channels. They proposed reestablishing the Military ' Education Advisory Committee into a University standing committee. The proposal was defeated at the April 13 Academic Council meeting. Repas said he would not object to "throwing it (ROTC) off campus,altogether," or to stripping the program of academic credit and making it pay its own overhead. But if the program is to be kept on campus, he said, "I 'can't see how we can keep it at its present administrative level." T~erefore he proposed that the Military Education Advisory Committee _ be made a standing committee "with clear p,rocedural requirements." . Repas objects to the provision in the 1964 ROTC Revitalization Act which requires that : "No unit ma)' be established at an institution unless the senior commissioned officer of the armed force concerned who is assigned to the program at that institution is given the academic rank of professor... (and) the. institution adopts as part of its curriculum a four - year course of military instruction or a two - year course of advanced training of military instruction , or both, which the Secretary of the military department concerned prescribes and conducts ... " (Public Law 88 - 647, Oct. 13; 1964). Thus, Repas says , an outside agency requires the University to assign rank ; it would be like the United Auto Workers providing the School of Labor and Industrial Relations with instructors, textbooks, and holding final say over curriculum, he said. "We pay for the privilege of offering ROTC ," Repas. says, by paying fOf secretarial help and overhead , and by providing · free· office facilities and .3' drill· field. He also argues that the instructors are not career teachers and 'are "shuffled in and out" of the Uiversity by their respective military departments, . " , Repas also objects to departmentalstatus for ROTC programs (agi:eed to in_ the " , contracts with the Air Force and Army). knowledge. No one has ever accused ROTC of that. " "Presumably," he says,"justification for. department status is creation -of new - . . He also questions a "curriculum designed to train people for a single employer," and asks: "How do you justify academic credit for marksmanship?" He rejects the notion of the liberalizing effect of University - based ROTC programs on military officers because "when you enter the military, an organizatiori, you conform to that organization, not transform it. Besides, second lieutenants do not make policy." He described, the student issue regarding abolishing ROTC (to cut off the officer supply to Vietnam) as "absolute nonsense ," for the same reason that he thinks an argument to keep ROTC for defense is wrong. He quotes figures from the New York Times, March 3, 1970, which showed that in the 1967 - 68 escalation of the war, OCS turned out twice as ~any officers as did ROTC; while in 1969 - 70, OCS turned out fewer officers than ROTC - which means that ROTC remains somewhat constant, but OCS fluctuates according to the demand for officers. Repas 'said he objects to the Military Education AdvisorY' Committee because it does not report to the faculty and until recently most f~culty were not aware of its existence. - * * * ARGUMENTS FOR MAINTAINING ROTC Campus supporters of ROTC react to the preceding 'arguments on the basis of academic freedom, on a contention' that :University - based ROTC provides a valuable liberalizing effect,and on the contention that abolishing ROTC would not particularly affect the Indochina war. Herman King described as misleading the use of the quote of Harvard's Col. Pell (that "there is at present no acceptable alternative source of junior officer leadership if ROTC is driven from the college campus"). There are alternative sources of officers, such as OCS , the military academies, .field commissions, etc., . King said, but ROTC is the most acCeptable program, for a variety or reasons. Historical summary, page 4 "I don't think abolishing ROTC would have any effect on Vietnam whatevei-," King said. " But it can have an effect in maintaining peace down the road." The mi litary influences civilian government - which prescribes wars - through adVising that govern ment. ROTC officers could influence civilian decisions, King sa id , by occupying a majority of strategic positions. - - "What does a bachelor's degree mean in terms of character?" King asks. " A conference a couple of years ago concluded that a bachelor s degree says nothing about a man's character ' it says he had the intelligence to get through four years of college with 180 cred its, wi thou getting caught at plagiarism. the on ly unforgivable sin at a University. " If we aren't concerned about that , why get so excited about ROTC? "The Military Education Advisory Committee is concerned. We think the ROTC graduate ought to have some strength of character. We have to do something to make sure he ge ts a more liberal education, a better education for his -purposes than the average university graduate ... . "It's just as important to stop the next war as this one , and to cut off ROTC is to cut off one outlet. They ought to have a chance to influence fu ture decision - makers. We should infiltrate , not destroy , organizations, whether they be business, politics or the military." For the s.ame end , King said he "would like to see officers come from all over the country , with all sorts of education ... to represent the welI- educated citizen s of the country." Co - optation by the military is less likely occur to those who enter with a college education and at a higher rank, King said. ROTC serves those purposes. To those who say tha t they haven' t seen any liberalizing effec ts dur ing ROTC's 70 - year existe nce , King responds that his committee hasn t been going very long and that in those 70 years ' the University hasn't tried to do what we' re trying to do" through reorganization of the ROTC curriculum. He p oints out that ROTC cadets are enrolling in growing variety of majors, from television and radio to political science to mathematics. rather than the majority enrolling in engineering as they did in the past. Curriculum rev isions in military science (effected last year: aerospace studJes is currently under review) provided more opportunities for courses of an interdiSCiplinary nature. (Milifary science cadets are required to take courses in such fields as economics, geography , political science history and managmen t.) * * * TO THE CHARGE that the military is racist , King answers that the Armed Forces will not contract fo r RO_TC programs with segregated schools. He also said that there is " mo re chance of the military being racist if ROTC is shut off in the North. leav ing it only in the South," where ROTC enro llment is high. He saiq the argument that the Universi ty man ipulates stude nts into sign ing up for ROTC by appealing to such "immediate needs" as fin anc ial need and fear of the draft "could have some logi c," but he pointed out that students at MSU have several choices for obtaining financia l aid and are not forced into chOOSin g RQTC . scholarships. King re sponds to the argument of an outside agen cy (the military) placing ROTC -• • requ~rements on the University by pointing out that the stale specifies that certain reqUirements be met b~ education majors in order to obtain teaching certificates. Col. Bert Shaber chauman of the Department of Aerospace Studies, says that the Air Force requires that certain goals be met (much Like the American Medieal and American Bar Associations require), bu t does net particularly specify course content. For example, the Air Force may specify the goal 'to become familiar with themeaningand scope of war," but the particular courses used to meet that goal are established by the department faculty with the advice of the Military Education Advisory Committee. . King .points o~t that the Rcn:C Revitalization Act requires that military mstlll otlOn prescnbed and cenducted by the secretary of tlie military department concerned be adopted by the University as only part of its curriculwn; thus the University bas the option to set other course requirements for ROTC cadets. !n res~onse to the argument that ROTC prepares students for a single employer, King pomts out for comparison that the College of Education prepares most of its st udents for a siJ}g1'e employer - public schools. " Tne single employer ~or which ROTC cadets are prepared, King says, is the government an extenSIOn of· tbe·-people. I see riothing wrong with tramin" people to serve the country. It is one employer - it's one country . ' b King said he though the law required the assignmen t of professorial rank so that the ROTC instructors could be considered part of the academic community . The solu tion he says, is to " pick those who qualify Jor the rank." Regarding the argument of '