Uniformed ROTC students first reappeared on campus in late 1975, when Steven A. Peck '79, Charles DePriest '77 and Theodore S. Block '77 petitioned the Faculty to permit them to crossregister at MIT's ROTC program. Since the ROTC courses would be non-credit, the three undergraduates wished to pursue their military training as an extracurricular activity, and thus bypass the academic objections lodged against ROTC in 1969.

On May 4, 1976, a majority of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a resolution allowing students to cross-register in ROTC courses at MIT. Several faculty members said they believed students should not be prohibited from participating in any extracurricular activities.

"The issue is whether we should regulate the relation of our students to the military, and I would regard that as an act of moral imperialism," Joseph S. Nye Jr., Dillon Professor of International Affairs, said after the vote.

Following an unprecedented wave of controversy for a student extracurricular, a proposal for an on-campus ROTC support group gained formal approval from the student-faculty Committee on College Life in April 1983. Both University officials and students expressed concern that the ROTC-related club would engage in the type of recruiting and other activities banned by the 1969 Faculty legislation.

The Faculty voted in 1984 to reimburse MIT for the overhead costs--$60,000 worth of heating, electricity, and the like--incurred by ROTC-enrolled Harvard students.

Last year Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence approved a formal agreement with MIT and ROTC, putting into writing the 1976 arrangement whereby Harvard students could get credit for three of the eight Naval ROTC courses offered through MIT academic departments--even though the Faculty had designated ROTC an extracurricular activity.