Word: pelled
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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These familiar arguments were given an unexpected an unintended boost this week by Colonel Robert H. Pell, professor of military science and director of the Army ROTC program here. Col. Pell's personal defense of ROTC for credit is part of a fact sheet on the program the Harvard Undergraduate Council is circulating in the dining halls, and his justification of the program is far more damning of its academic merits than any of the rhetoric of ROTC critics...
...Senior Division Army ROTC curriculum is designed to produce a specific product...," Col. Pell begins, sharply defining a manipulative, mechanistic goal for ROTC courses, hard to reconcile with any definition of a liberal arts education. He explains further that a young man will gain from ROTC "the dedication and skills he must have to be a good Army officer"--again evoking Sears Roebuck management training rather than a college. Twice, in fact, Pell weakens his case by comparing ROTC to other professional disciplines--medicine, law, and business--which Harvard, except for a handful of accounting, engineering, and pre-med courses...
...ROTC loses its academic status, Pell argues, it will be "derogated and reduced to the level of an extracurricular game." Again he misinterprets the college program which is designed to allow students with career interests--politics or journalism, for instance--plenty of time to pursue them outside the regular course structure. It is not clear why those who want to be officers in the military could not do the same...
...letter supporting academic credit for ROTC at Harvard, Col. Pell expressed the hope that discrediting ROTC "will not become a frivolous game on college campuses across the nation...
...does," he continued, "the hardcore national interest--survival of the nation in a cruel world through the maintenance of adequate deterrent strength--will be seriously jeopardized." Pell said that he hoped "that the ROTC concept will be fostered and enhanced on our college campuses rather than derogated and reduced to the level of an extracurricular college game...