Ivy League Conservatives

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On Sunday, the Harvard Republican Club and Harvard College Democrats passed a bipartisan bill in the Undergraduate Council specifically geared towards Harvard ROTC students. This bill, entitled Supporting ROTC Students and developed according to recommendations from the Harvard ROTC Association and current ROTC cadets and midshipmen at Harvard, has three primary components:

• An extra section will be added to the portion of the Handbook for Students that discusses ROTC to add that Harvard is proud of ROTC students’ service to the nation.
• The integration of ROTC colorguards into University functions, such as athletic events, is formally commended, as is the presence of the ROTC commissioning ceremony on Harvard’s campus. 
• Most importantly, ROTC courses will be listed on Harvard’s transcripts to acknowledge the hard work at MIT by cadets and midshipmen.

The new policies are tentatively planned to be in place in time for the class of 2012. 

Among the remainder of the Ivies, Cornell has a strong ROTC program, with offices for the Army, Navy and the Air Force. Columbia does not recognize ROTC courses in a student’s official curriculum. Dartmouth’s ROTC program was forced off-campus during Vietnam due to protests from the student body. The program reappeared in the 1980s, but the number of ROTC students has dropped significantly since its return. Penn’s ROTC program is combined with those of Drexel University and Temple University students, and Penn students earn academic credits for courses that pertain directly to a student’s school–as Leadership and Management does to Wharton students, for example. Princeton’s ROTC program also admits students from The College of New Jersey; its courses are not eligible for academic credit at Princeton, but will appear on the student’s transcript with grades earned. Yale students must participate in the University of Connecticut at Storrs’ ROTC program, while Brown students must travel to Providence College. Their coursework is not eligible for academic credit.