The Student Assembly passed two motions last night - one in support of continuing the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at the College and the other calling for a one-day student boycott of Dartmouth Dining Services.
The DDS boycott, scheduled to take place two weeks from today, is designed to protest what the Assembly called "insufficient flexibility" on the part of DDS to change their meal plan policies.
In the ROTC resolution, the Assembly asked the Board of Trustees to "ensure the indefinite security of the ROTC program at the College." The Trustees will not discuss ROTC's future until their April meeting.
ROTC
In 1991 the Trustees announced that Dartmouth would discontinue ROTC if the military's ban on homosexuals was not lifted by April, 1993. But last winter the Trustees voted to postpone the deadline until Congress had a chance to consider President Bill Clinton's plan to lift the ban, leaving the Trustees to decide if the compromise that became law last summer is in accordance with the College's non-discrimination policy.
During the discussion, some Assembly members spoke of benefits of scholarships offered by the program, and some voiced opposition to the program, saying that it violated the College's equal opportunity policy.
Assembly members who supported the motion did so on the grounds that ROTC is an organization that provides scholarships to students who could not otherwise afford to attend the College.
"There is no point in doing this now," Artzer said. "This motion will absolutely have lost it's thunder by April."
But the motion was put to the Assembly and passed by a vote of 22 for and one against, with three abstentions.
Trevor Burgess '94, president of the Dartmouth Gay, Lesbian and Bi-sexual Organization, was present for the beginning of the meeting but left well before the motion was presented to the Assembly.
"Right now I don't know if I want to comment upon it," Burgess said after the vote. "I think that it is a sad message to be sending from an organization that is supposed to represent the student body. That is, that it's okay for gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals to be discriminated against."
DDS boycott
The call for a student boycott of College dining facilities follows numerous Assembly motions passed over the last 2 years calling on DDS to revise its student meal plan.
Some Assembly members said they felt DDS did not give their previous motions sufficient attention and did not make significant changes.
The Assembly wants DDS to provide students with more choices in their meal plan options by reducing both the punch-plan requirements for freshmen and the minimum declining balance requirement for upperclass students.
"There has been absolutely no progress. I will repeat, no progress on eliminating the mandatory meal plan," Matthew Berry '94, co-sponsor of the motion said.
The motion passed with 14 votes for, 11 against, with two abstentions.
A meeting yesterday morning which gave some Assembly members hope for a resolution of differences lead to the close margin of passage.
Director of Dining Services Pete Napolitano, Vice-president and Treasurer of the College Lyn Hutton, Student Assembly President Nicole Artzer '94 and Assembly dining services liaison Nina Nho '97 met yesterday morning to discuss the possibility of compromise bewteen Assembly requests and DDS constraints.
Hutton suggested that the Assembly and DDS form a task force to resolve the meal plan issue.
Artzer said passing the motion would undermine future Assembly relations with DDS.
"I can't stress enough how much headway we've made recently." Artzer said. "It will be more than generous of the administration to keep working under the threat."
But Assembly vice-president Steve Costalas '94 supported the motion.
"I think that this will really get across to the Dining Services department that the Student Assembly is very serious about its motion," Costalas said.
"We've never had a rapport with Dining Services," he said.
