ROTC Can Stay on Penn Campus Despite Loss of Academic Credit

Spokesmen for the United States Army said yesterday that the decision of the University of Pennsylvania's undergraduate Colege of Arts and Sciences to withdraw academic credit from courses given by military science departments will not necessarily mean that ROTC will leave the Penn campus.

Lieutenant Colonel W. F. Tyson and John Pappageorge from the Pentagon told the Daily Pennsylvanian that the college's action will be reviewed by the Judge Advocate General. If regular departments agree to teach some military history or technology courses, ROTC could remain active at Penn, they said.

ROTC 'Track B'

ROTC's contract with universities requires only "appropriate academic credit." Under the "Track B" ROTC program 25 per cent of the courses counted in the ROTC program are regular faculty offerings. Tyson and Pappageorge said that 25 per cent constitutes "appropriate academic credit." Nothing in the faculty vote withdrawing credit for ROTC courses would prevent ROTC from giving non-credit courses.

Neither Pennsylvania nor Harvard currently has a Track B program. All ROTC courses are given by the Military and Naval Science Departments. ROTC would presumably have the option of instituting a Track B program at Penn, a Daily Pennsylvanian editor said last night.

Same as Harvard

The Penn faculty's decision was similar to the HUC-SFAC-HPC proposal now being considered by the Harvard faculty. Last Tuesday, the Harvard Faculty met to discuss removal of credit at Harvard, but postponed any decision while it checked to see what the reaction from the Pentagon officials would be.

The vote affected only the College of Arts and Sciences, but Wharton College and Sciences, but the Wharton College of Finance is expected to follow suit soon, the Daily Pennsylvanian editor said. Together the two colleges include all of Penn's undergraduates except for about 250 engineering students.

Not Moral Decision

"No one says the action was taken on moral grounds," the Daily Pennsylvanian editor said. "The vote only discredited the military science department--not ROTC itself--on the academic grounds of direct control from Washington," he added.

"It seems they will still be able to use space in college buildings. The whole question of whether they will remain seems dependent on academic departments agreeing to teach military courses," he said.