Will academic credit be denied?
Committee struggles with ROTC issue
By BOB WOMACK
Kansan Staff Writer
A committee of faculty members and students is currently grappling with the issue of ROTC and the role it should play in the curriculum at the University of Kansas.
The preliminary report they expect to issue in April is important because the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty plans to vote the same month on whether to deny credit, starting in 1971, to military science courses not taught in regular academic departments of the University.
The committee was created by a motion passed at the University Senate meeting of Oct. 30, 1969. The Senate voted to direct its executive committee to appoint a temporary Senate committee to deal with the question of ROTC. The motion charged the committee with issuing a progress report by the fall of 1971 at which time a reassessment of the ROTC situation would take place. The committee was selected in November of last year.
Members of the committee will
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issue their preliminary report in April to indicate the progress they have made in dealing with the question of how ROTC is to fit into the University's structure.
The members of the committee reflect a wide range of different opinions, but grounds of agreement have been found and the group is making progress in its effort to have its report ready by next month. Much material is being read by the members, who have broken into sub-groups to study different aspects of the ROTC question. Herman Lujan chairman of the Department of Political Science and chairman of the committee, said the committee had not dealt with the question of whether or not credit should be granted for military science courses.
"Before you can decide on credit, you have to have some idea of a program. We're still talking about program and program content rather than credit," he said.
Lujan was among those who asked the faculty of the College to delay its vote on credit for ROTC. The vote was originally scheduled for December. "I did this on the grounds that our committee needed a chance to begin its work in terms of the
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future of the ROTC programs, without mandates from anybody, to see what we could come up with," Lujan said.
He agreed to make a progress report prior to the April vote which will be by mail ballot. He described the report as "informational input" the faculty can use in making its decision.
to make ROTC itself, rather than the legislature's actions, the central issue.
A central issue in the postponement of the vote was the concern that an immediate decision might be interpreted as deliberately antagonizing to the legislature, which was beginning to show increased interest in the ROTC programs at KU. There was a desire at the same time to avoid the idea that the legislature was dictating curriculum to the University. The committee is trying
vate prejudices and positions himself, but, "I have to rectify these in terms of the fact that I happen to teach at a state university."
Lujan pointed out that the College faculty represents only one school and one level of University structure.
This is the year that state universities are grappling with ROTC, he said. The University of Washington has removed credit from ROTC programs and the University of Michigan has severely modified the military science program there.
It is possible for the different schools of the University to give different answers on the matter of credit. The chancellor must deal with the question, as does the Regents as the policy-making body, and final authority rest with the legislature.
Lujan said he hadn't clearly defined in his own mind what role the ROTC programs had in the college curriculum, and the committee was wrestling with this problem..
Lujan said he had certain pri-
"Private schools have an easier way out. They can simply choose not to have it around. But a state university may not have that kind of independence," Lujan said.
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