The Ring-tum Phi

Special Edition

Volume LXIX — LEXINGTON. VIRGINIA. MAY 8, 1970 — Number 41-A

Faculty Permits Student Absenteeism

In a special meeting last night the W&L faculty passed a resolution which allows students, who feel morally obligated, to absent themselves for the remainder of this semester.

Under the faculty’s resolution departing students can make up their uncompleted work any time from the date of leaving until September 30, 1970.

Seniors who expect to graduate in June may absent themselves, take their exams immediately upon arrangement with their professors, and then leave school. They will still graduate with their class and receive their diplomas.

Any student can make arrangements with his professor to take his exams at any time until September 30.

A student can absent himself by writing a letter stating his reasons for temporary withdrawal to the Faculty Executive Committee. Immediately on receipt of that letter by the Faculty EC, a student is considered to be absent.

This resolution stemmed from the one adopted by the Faculty Executive Committee prior to the student meeting in the University Center yesterday afternoon.

In passing this resolution the faculty recognized the “sense of immediate concern they (the students) feel about major national issues.”

In passing this resolution the faculty recognized the “sense of immediate concern they (the students) feel about major national issues.” The faculty resolution also stated that a student still will be considered as enrolled at W&L under the approved program. For those students who choose to stay on campus, the faculty endorsed a program whereby students will be able to study the present national situation.

The resolution also noted that “notwithstanding the depth of this feeling of some students, the faculty does not believe that Washington and Lee classes should be suspended or its educational responsibility be abandoned.”

The resolution was a result of three hours of deliberation by the faculty and takes effect immediately.

Cockpit Meeting Proposes Referendum For Students

In order for students on this campus who feel a moral obligation to do “something in the real world,” an interested group of 75 students and faculty gathered in the University Center Cockpit Thursday afternoon to discuss the possibility of the University’s allowing students to leave school for the rest of this semester.

“The purpose of this ad hoc committee,” said Fran Lawrence, president-elect of the student body, “is to have an open discussion about what we want the faculty to do about suspension of classes.”

Staman Ogilvie, junior EC member, informed the group that the faculty Executive Committee was in session at the time, and had called a special meeting of the faculty, which was held last night.

At 6 p.m. the meeting in the Cockpit reconvened with senior Gates Shaw in charge. The principal business of the meeting was the drafting of a resolution, which appears elsewhere on this page.

The resolution was passed by the students assembled at the Cockpit and will be presented to the student body at large at 1:00 this afternoon.

A proposal by senior Paul Morrow expressing concern over the plight of students wishing to continue their classes was defeated.

Another motion to present the Faculty with the proposal soon after it was drafted last night was alto defeated following Shaw’s remark that “we don’t want to inundate the faculty with demands which don’t even come from the student body as a whole.”

Text Of Resolution Before Student Body

(Editor’s Note: The following is the text of a referendum resolution drawn up by the ad hoc committee which met in the University Center Cockpit last night. Its content will he put to a vote at 1:00 this afternoon in the special student body meeting in the front of Lee Chapel.)

Whereas: We the students of Washington and Lee desire to express our concern over the present war in Indochina, we intend to express this concern by joining with our fellow students in this country by closing Washington and Lee as of May 11, 1970.

Whereas: We the students of Washington and Lee desire to express our concern over the present war in Indochina, we intend to express this concern by joining with our fellow students in this country by closing Washington and Lee as of May 11, 1970.

Through whatever channels the faculty deems necessary and with all possible haste we urge that the following be implemented:

1. Declare all classes cancelled retroactive to May 6, until the fall of 1970 and direct the university towards the crisis in this country.
2. As a substitute for classes, students, teachers, and others interested will use the facilities of the university to conduct seminars and hold discussions open to everyone on the economic, political, philosophical, sociological, etc., ramifications of the Indochina War.

In addition, it is hoped that the educational experiences can aid in exploring other problems — present and potential — facing our society and our world.

Whereas classes will have ended as of May 11, 1970, it will be up to the individual student to arrange for grades on the following basis: A student may opt for other (1) grades in his present p/f and letter combination or (2) all pass/fail on work completed as of May 6, 1970.

Graduating seniors will not be deemed to have completed their requirements for graduation until June 5, 1970.

Given the unique situation of the law school and American Bar Association requirements, the students of the law school may take action they deem necessary to meet their requirements.

Another Side

(Editor’s Note: The Ring-tum Phi offers this statement as an expression of an opposing view drafted by a group of students which form the “Committee To Keep The University Community Together “)

Take a deep breath and count to ten.

The radicals decided not to give you until Monday to think over the probable consequences of closing down the University. Just stop a minute and think.

Closing Washington and Lee for a month is not like closing an elementary school three days for snow.

The faculty resolution allows those who feel more immediate concerns to postpone their school work. The proposed student body, action. is a cop-out. We cannot declare Washington and Lee education irrelevant and simultaneously expect the rest of the world to continue to take it seriously.

Afterword

We wish to thank the FactMiners.org Citizen Science project that is helping to create the Ground Truth Editions of our Ring-tum Phi EXPOSED! articles. The enhanced version of this issue of the Ring-tum Phi is available in PDF format from the FactMiners.org GitHub repository for this project.

If You Were There, What Do You Remember?

If you were on the W&L campus during the great Student Strike of 1970, we want to hear from you. Your contributions to this informal archive of memories of this important episode in the history of W&L student life can take many forms. From simple “marginalia” left here as highlights and sidebar comments to full-bore Medium story submissions to be added to the W&L Tall Tales publication; all are welcome.

We will update this article with information about our efforts to donate our “ground truth” editions of the highlighted Ring-tum Phi issues to the W&L University Archive. And we will provide links to the places — like Wikipedia — as we are able to “link into” the world of Open Data to proudly add the story of W&L’s unique response to the Student Strike of 1970.

See the Unseen: The “Text Soup” Edition

To see what the currently published version of this historic issue of the Ring-tum Phi looks like to a search engine or to a historian doing Open Data queries while researching a topic of interest, please take a few minutes to view the How Gentlemen Do Revolution… “Text Soup” Edition.

The current archival digital copy of this issue of the Ring-tum Phi is available here: Ring-tum Phi Volume 69, Number 41A, Record Group 39: University Organizations and Societies, Special Collections and Archives, James G. Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA.