San Francisco Foghorn

              Academic council reaffirms
position on voluntary ROTC
Citing "the marked increase in student concern"
over compulsory ROTC, the
academic council early this
week confirmed its stand of
last year that military science
should be made voluntary for
male students.
Acting on behalf of the council, chairman Michael Galligan re-stated the conclusions
of an "extensive survey of
student opinion" taken last
year and submitted to the
president's committee for
core curriculum reform
chaired by Paul Harney, S.J.,
academic  vice-president.
At that time, the council
told the committee that the
survey revealed that it y/as
"the almost unanimous opinion of the students that male
undergraduates no longer be
required to participate in the
Reserve Officer Training
Program."
The council, after observing
the increased interest in
ROTC brought about by a
petition to make the program
voluntary which circulated
for the past two weeks, decided to reiterate its position.
"The council believes that
only those courses should be
required of all candidates for
graduation . . . that directly
advance the academic and
intellectual growth and development of the student . . .
Insofar   as   the   training   re
ceived in ROTC has as its
end the learning or acquirement of particular skills related to military service, we
do not think it directly supports the primordial goal of
the university."
Quoting John Henry Newman, the council believes that
goal is "the true and adequate
end of intellectual training,
thought or reason exercised
upon knowledge."
Believing that "the question
of military service is a pressing problem for male undergraduates," the council
recommends that ROTC be
retained on a voluntary basis,
and that "the undergraduate
(Continued on page 2)
Short semester
Administrators register
satisfaction with calendar
SAn f KZAllL
foglmorzn
Vol. 62, No. 9
November 17,  1967
SK 1-3118, SK 1-3119
Push tor voluntary ROTC
leaves administrators cold
The furor over compulsory
ROTC has produced no appreciable effect upon the
upper echeleons of the university  administration.
"It is up to the university
to decide whether or not the
need for leadership filled by
the ROTC program is enough
to make the program a requirement," said Colonel
Vernon Gilbert, head of the
military science department.
The administration apparently feels no need to hurry
its decision on compulsory
ROTC.
"The recommendation of
the first Core Curriculum
Committee concerning voluntary ROTC was never accepted by the faculty," said
Paul Harney, S.J., academic
vice-president.
Instead, a second committee
was formed to make recommendations to Charles Dullea,
university president, drawing
its material from the CCC report and faculty reaction to
it.
This committee, chaired by
F-alther Harney and including
Edward Stackpoole, chairman
of the original CCC and assistant professor of English; Edmund Smyth, S.J., former
dean of arts and sciences and
presently associate professor
of history; Albert Smith, S.J.,
assistant professor of philosophy; and George Lerski, associate professor of political
science, is now in the process
of evaluating the core curriculum.
"We are doing this in two
phases," stated Father Harney. "The first phase, that
of deciding a philosophy of the
core curriculum, was just recently completed."
This was done after some
12    or    13    meetings    held
throughout the spring semester of 1967. The report is
presently being compiled by
Father Smyth.
"The second phase," said
Father Harney, "is to evaluate the core curriculum according to this philosophy."
It is this second process that
concerns the military science
program.
"I do not feel that attacking
the core curriculum piecemeal is the proper approach,"
said Father Harney.
Therefore, the university's
decision on compulsory ROTC
(Continued on page 2)
By Mike Doogan
Foghorn News Editor
Despite the hue and cry
which has appeared in letters
to the Foghorn, the university
administration has received
no formal complaints about
the revised academic calendar.
"I haven't heard any complaints about the new system," said Paul Harney, S.J.,
academic vice-president. "The
only complaints I've seen I've
read in the Foghorn."
The main complaint about
the new calendar is that it
does away with dead days.
This, according to letters received, is detrimental to all
students in hot pursuit of the
almighty grade.
"The new calendar does
away with dead days," said
Robert Sundarland, S.J., dean
of men and one of the originators of the new calendar. "Td
some students this is bad, to
others good."
However, according to
Father Sunderland, there are
fewer freshmen in academic
trouble after their first midterms than there were in previous years, and the feeling
among the Phelan Hall staff
is that there is more study and
more serious attitudes than in
the past.
The new calendar does more
than just eliminate dead days.
It cuts the number of vacation days in the fall semester
from four to two and lengthens
the Easter vacation from two
class days to eight class days.
The main feature of the new
calendar is the longer break
between semesters. This year,
the break is 27 class days,
while last year the two breaks
totaled 18 class days. The new
system eliminates the four
class days and the finals
which fell between the Christmas vacation and the semester break last year.
"This was the period labeled
as the 'lame duck' period by
teachers and students," said
Father Sunderland. "The new
calendar has 65 class days (as
opposed to 68 class days in
the fall semester of last year),
but they are all prior to
finals and Christmas vacation,
offering a continuity to both
students  and teachers."
The criticism of the new system brought universal reaction from administration nabobs. As expressed by Richard Vaughan, S.J., dean of
arts and sciences: "It's really
(Continued on page 4)
memonam
Beckwith B. Clark, lee
turer in mathematics, died
in his sleep Sunday morning, November 12. Funeral J
services were held Novem-
• ber 15 at the Laswell Mor-;
tuary in Daly City.
Clark received his B.A. in
j math from USF in 1964 and ;
had been teaching at the
university since that time.
He took a degree in bacteriology from Stanford
University in 1932.
He is survived by his wife
and his two daughters, his
mother, brother, and sister.
So much for Beethoven
0hlysesh0pp/n6\
oays til the
next annual
PtAtyOSMASHtl
For those of you who may have missed it (shed a tear), we
are providing a replica of the mammoth piano smash. This
event, the Peers' and Spirits' contribution to the USF cultural
scene, took place in Harney plaza and added loads of bad taste
to an otherwise mediocre pep rally. It is comforting to know
that whenever things are going badly there are groups willing
to leap into the breach with infantile antics and make them
worse.