M.I.T. Institute Committee Votes To Renounce NSA Membership

The M.I.T. Institute Committee has voted 8 to 4 to withdraw from the National Student Association. The decision, postponed for a month, was reached Friday night after a two-hour discussion between the Committee, Donald Hoffman, president of NSA, and Harold Bakken, a former president of NSA.

Speaking for nearly an hour, the NSA executives reviewed three basic reasons for Tech's continued participation in the association. NSA, they said, offers "something for everybody"; it can be changed by schools within the organiza- and; and the officers are continually attempting improvements.

The Committee, however, remained unconvinced by these arguments, maintaining that NSA is, at present, incapable of any significant accomplishment, and that only a sustained and vigorous effort from several member colleges could make it worthwhile. "Apparently no one at Tech is willing to make this effort," commented Christopher Sprague '60, president of the M.I.T. student body.

The Institute Committee, Sprague continued, is a peculiarly conservative organization, "with members who prefer not to air their beliefs publicly" The Committee's attitude toward NSA, he said, was best summarized by one member's assertion that, "We don't really care how NSA votes on the atomic bomb tests, we just don't want them to vote."

Some members of the Committee, Sprague included, had hoped that M.I.T. would remain a member of NSA. "We might have gotten a lot out of the organization, if we had been willing to devote the time and effort," Sprague said