Columbia NROTC poll results are in
Columbia Spectator reports the aggregate vote of Columbia College, General Studies, and SEAS as 1502-no to 1463-yes. The separately tallied result for Barnard is 736-no to 453-yes.
The splits for the CC, GS and SEAS polls are unknown because the votes were counted together. That's meaningful because only 39 votes separated yes from no across 3 colleges, so it's possible that 1 or 2 of the 3 college student bodies voted in favor of NROTC.
If the colleges tied 2 to 2, that would be interesting.
Even if only SEAS voted for NROTC, that would also be interesting given that the NROTC initiative came from SEAS. The interest is recipocral - Navy ROTC's interest in Columbia is primarily for SEAS engineers, which means NROTC conceivably would have a disproportionate impact and benefit for SEAS students. If only SEAS students voted for NROTC and the program benefits them the most, would it be fair for their classmates to deny them the opportunity? Again, I don't know that SEAS students voted for NROTC or not, but it would be interesting if they did.
11DEC08 UPDATE: SEAS and GS voted for NROTC. CC and Barnard voted against.
Eric
The splits for the CC, GS and SEAS polls are unknown because the votes were counted together. That's meaningful because only 39 votes separated yes from no across 3 colleges, so it's possible that 1 or 2 of the 3 college student bodies voted in favor of NROTC.
If the colleges tied 2 to 2, that would be interesting.
Even if only SEAS voted for NROTC, that would also be interesting given that the NROTC initiative came from SEAS. The interest is recipocral - Navy ROTC's interest in Columbia is primarily for SEAS engineers, which means NROTC conceivably would have a disproportionate impact and benefit for SEAS students. If only SEAS students voted for NROTC and the program benefits them the most, would it be fair for their classmates to deny them the opportunity? Again, I don't know that SEAS students voted for NROTC or not, but it would be interesting if they did.
11DEC08 UPDATE: SEAS and GS voted for NROTC. CC and Barnard voted against.
Eric
Labels: rotc
posted by Eric at 12/02/2008 06:20:00 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks, Eric. I hope those of you who are interested in bringing ROTC to Columbia will try again. You raise an interesting point-is it fair fo one segment of the Columbia community to deny others a chance to join ROTC? On a liberal minded, pro-CHOICEcampus like Columbia, I would say that it is not.
By the way, my daughter was among those on the Barnard campus fighting to bring ROTC to Columbia. And her father and grandfather both attended the precursor to Fort Huachua-Fort Halibird, Maryland. Mom, the writer of this piece, is a registerd Democrat and a member of the local draft board. Peace!
Anonymous,
Please thank your daughter for me. Columbia ROTC advocacy is not over with the survey. I don't know whether the student advocates will do any more in the short term, but there are alumni who are working on the issue. She should stay in touch with her fellow student advocates in case more happens with them. When she's an alumna, she can join with us.
I was disappointed that the Columbia Democrats actively opposed ROTC at Columbia. Many Columbia ROTC advocates are liberals and the CU Dems' position is a betrayal of their own party's civic progressive values.
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