Faculty Will Meet Today To Decide ROTC's Fate

The Faculty--with specially-invited students attending for the first time in Harvard's history--will meet today to decide what to do about ROTC.

Four separate ROTC proposals are docketed for discussion today, and several professors say that they may bring up other motions from the floor at the meeting.

Nine students--three each from the HUC, the HRPC, and the SFAC--will attend the meeting and join in the discussion. Dean Ford, who asked the three groups to name representatives last month, said that the students will have "the same prerogatives as Faculty members," except for the right to vote, at the meeting.

On the Docket

The four motions definitely on the docket for discussion are:

* The SFAC resolution--to be presented by Rogers Albritton, professor of Philosophy--which asks the Faculty to remove ROTC's academic credit and to deny ROTC instructors their Corporation appointments;

* The HUC resolution--to be presented by Edward Wilcox, director of General Education--which calls for virtually the same action as SFAC proposes;

* The CEP resolution--to be presented by James Q. Wilson, professor of Government--which would force ROTC courses to re-apply individually for credit through existing Harvard departments;

* The SDS resolution--to be presented by Hilary Putnam, professor of Philosophy--which seeks ROTC's total banishment from campus.

In addition to these four motions, Seymour Martin Lipset, professor of Government and Social Relations, said he may introduce a proposal backed by the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) calling for a student referendum on ROTC's future.

HRPC Representatives

Last night Kenneth M. Kaufman '69, chairman of HRPC, named his group's three representatives to the meeting. They will be Scott Present '69--author of the HRPC's final report on ROTC last fall, Jay Epstein '69--who worked with Present on early drafts of the report-- and Mary K. Tolbert '69. The SFAC and HUC representatives were announced earlier this week.

Two student groups that were not invited to the meeting--SDS and YPSL--yesterday objected to the student representation plan. SDS is calling for a protest march outside Sanders Theatre when the Faculty begins its meeting there at 3 p.m. today. But SDS members--who led the Dec. 12 sit-in that forced cancellation of the last Faculty meeting slated to discuss ROTC--say they do not plan to obstruct today's meeting.

The ten-man executive committee of YPSL last night released a statement asking that at least one student supporter of YPSL's referendum plan be admitted to the meeting. The statement claimed that the nine invited students "are not representative of the student body," and that YPSL's stand has "the most demonstrated support in the student body."

Lipset said yesterday that he is "fairly definite" in his plans to present his motion--the same one YPSL backs--today. But he may decide not to offer the motion if the Faculty seems ready to vote on one of the other proposals, he said.

"The effect of asking for a referendum is to delay the decision on ROTC," Lipset explained. "If it turns out that people want to vote at the meeting, then I don't want to hold up the action."

Lipset said he had originally requested a place on the docket for his resolution. But when Wilcox--who was in charge of drawing up the docket--asked him to withdraw the motion in order to streamline the docket, Lipset said he agreed to bring it up from the floor.

Wilcox said yesterday that he had placed the HUC resolution on the docket "simply as a mechanism for getting student opinion before the Faculty."

"The SFAC has Faculty members on it," Wilcox said last night, "but the HUC has none. One of the major questions that developed as we placed items on the docket was what role students' opinions would play. Under the present system, there is no mechanism for students to place their views on the floor." Wilcox said that he will not speak for or against the HUC position, but will merely introduce it.

The man who will offer the CEP's proposal today--Wilson--said yesterday that he thinks "the general Faculty sentiment is in favor of changing ROTC's academic status. The real question is how best to do it."

Wilson said that the CEP's plan--forcing ROTC courses to reapply for credit rather than flatly denying credit as SFAC asks--is "a better way, more consistent with Faculty principles, of achieving essentially the same goal as the other proposal."

But Wilson added that the CEP's reapplication scheme might not have the same effect as SFAC's resolution. "This question of outside control of courses comes primarily with policy-oriented courses," Wilson said. "No one really cares if the Pentagon controls courses on navigation or technology."

For these "policy" courses, Wilson said, there could be two ways for departments to re-grant credit. "Departments could offer the courses with one of their own regular instructors," Wilson said, "or else they could assign some military instructors in whose credentials they had confidence--for instance, someone who had earned a Ph.D. from Harvard."

"The more likely solution--the one I hope for," Wilson said, "would be to have the Pentagon designate some standard Harvard courses as acceptable for ROTC credit.