ROTC, Exams Discussed at Faculty Meeting

Benjamin O. Shuldiner '99 wanted to ask President Neil L. Rudenstine one more question before he graduated.

"What, if anything, can this University offer students to become more enfranchised?" Shuldiner asked during the open question period of yesterday's full Faculty meeting.

Rudenstine reciprocated with one last lecture.

"I understand the frustration of students. You're here for four years. We're here for 400," Rudenstine said.

Shuldiner attends Faculty meetings as a representative of the Undergraduate Council and is also a member of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM). In his remarks, he admitted that a student protest of March's Faculty meeting might have been "deleterious," but he said students need a greater voice in the governance of the University.

"I feel honored that I am able to speak with my tie and my button-up shirt," he told the Faculty.

"[But] our voice hasn't really been heard. I wish that maybe students could be enfranchised within the system, so that we do not have to be 400 strong outside chanting and drowning you out," he said.

Rudenstine responded by noting the Faculty would have to decide for itself if it wanted to open more of its committees' doors to students.

Then, Rudenstine asked Shuldiner if the president could be frank with him.

Demonstrations, Rudenstine said after Shuldiner urged him to continue, are not always constructive on issues about which the University is already engaged in direct communication with students.

He noted that University lawyers were already meeting with members of the PSLM when March's rally took place, and an inter-faculty task force is currently looking at the Living Wage Campaign's requests.

"It's sort of hard, honestly, to have it both ways," Rudenstine said. "Once [the discussion] channel is open, its a little odd to see other channels be opened in ways that can actually be disruptive."

Rudenstine's comments come one week after Living Wage Campaign supporters presented a letter endorsed by more than 100 faculty members to the administration and as the campaign threatens to stage demonstrations at Commencement.

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse also rose during the open question period to ask about the administration's responsiveness to student voices.

Wisse asked whether the University planned to reexamine its policy towards excluding the Reserved Officer Training Corps (ROTC) from campus, in light of recent Undergraduate Council debate on the topic.

Wisse said she was unhappy to hear reports that Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 had told members of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters' Alliance (BGLTSA) that no changes were to be forthcoming.

"I realize that students who want to challenge the status quo are sometimes taken more seriously than those who support the institutions of our country," she said. "Personally, I believe that this policy of contempt for the military comprises everyone at the University, the administrators down to the students."

Lewis said he had told BGLTSA members that because neither the Faculty's non-discrimination policy nor the ROTC program itself have changed since the Faculty last considered the issue, he did not think it would take it up again soon.

One Less Chair At the Table

Yesterday's Faculty meeting also marked the final meeting attended by a president of Radcliffe College.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles noted that Radcliffe presidents have sat at the central table with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) deans for 40 years.

"Linda, if I had a glass of anything more exciting than water, I would raise it to you. I thank you," Knowles told Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson, who announced April 20 that she will step down as Radcliffe's seventh and final president on June 30.

Harvard and Radcliffe announced then that the two schools intend to merge. Under the plan, Radcliffe will no longer admit undergraduate women and will form a new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, headed up by a dean. The new dean will not have the advisory role within FAS that Radcliffe presidents have enjoyed, which has included Faculty meeting attendance.

Later in the meeting, Wilson and Rudenstine presented the merger plan to the Faculty.

"It is not an acquisition," Wilson said of the merger. "It is not an absorption. It certainly isn't the demise of an institution."

"There really is no analog to the new Institute. We have in mind to build something new," she added.

Sunday Exams and More

In other business, Dean of Undergraduate Education William M. Todd III explained to the Faculty a recent change in the academic calendar to allow for a full week of intercession beginning in the 2000-2001 year. In some years, the new plan calls for exams on Sunday afternoons.

Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes questioned if the Sunday exam plan might be reviewed by University committees that deal with issues of religion.

Knowles agreed that the plan could be further discussed next year.

"We will see then if it can be more than souls that can be examined on Sundays," he quipped.

The Faculty also approved a new Ph.D. program in Information Technology and Management. The program will be run jointly by the Business School and FAS Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

In a letter distributed to members of the Faculty yesterday, Knowles noted that Todd and Christoph Wolff, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, would step down from their respective posts in June 2000. Knowles solicited suggestions for successors that "have the energy, tact and good humor that these important positions demand."