Non-Aggression pacts, or any other form of contract, cannot be considered impartial or neutral.
I cannot see any way in which Dust Uni can legitimise holding any territory, or allowing, or otherwise facilitating another corp holding territory without ignoring their fundamental goals and values.

I think you have painted yourself into a corner in this respect.

+1 for asking the community, at least you can say you are thoroughly transparent.

I suggest that you remain neutral, and do not take any Districts. Teach your students with Pubs, and later FW. Once they are competent, you can seek out smaller corps who need bodies for their own PCs.

Then, once ISK transfer for DUST goes live, I'm sure you'd find rich corps and mercs willing to help you out with your cause.
Serve as a university, and make connections with the bigger stronger corps out there. They'll be happy to take your competent grads, and will compensate you for the effort.

No need to hold ground to make the ISKies, get paid for a specific service to the community, instead of competing in PC.

I beleive that the competition will be pretty cuttthroat for the limited districts we have to fight over. DUST-U already has a unique niche as a neutral training corp. They will make more ISK from donations for providing a service to the community, while still preserving their neutrality.

"Oh, I'm sorry that you were upset that some of our students fought against you when Carebears, Inc. attacked you last night. If you'd like, I'd be happy to put together a squad for you guys tonight when they attack again."

... that and exposure to the new mechanic...

This is a relatively minor thing. What I am expecting in P.C is a completely different tactical objective. From what I read it sound like the attackers objective is killing as many clones as possible while keeping your own mcc alive the longest possible time. notice no focus on destroying the hostile MCC. Where as the defenders it will be the complete reverse, Primary target is the hostile MCC while attempting to keep as many clones as possible.

If I'm right, or even close to it with that assessment (and that we will only really get to see once P.C is implemented) there will be 2 very distinct play styles and tactics used exclusively for P.C. It is that mentality and understanding I want us to be able to pass on to our students ideally before they move on to there home corp.

I feel that failing to teach them this aspect of DUST would leave us passing on student that are not tactically aware or skilled for these fights. To my mind it would be like training students to fight PvE in EVE and then sending them off as PvP pilots.

That would be a catastrophic failure on our part.

Academy, College, and University then "conquer" their assigned "fixed" districts in staged crap battles with the Major Leagues.

As its been suggested a couple of times. What is the general feeling then of the community of a Merc remaining neutral by fighting for anyone?

Would such a freelance corp still be seen as neutral and a corp that business could be done with as long as they were open about it?

This is a good idea. I think CCP should just assign 3-4 districts to DU and let them duke it out there. It will be a good source of income and practice for the students.

Are the core game mechanics going to be radically different (referring to the grunt experience)?

Bojo's School of the Trades wants in, we will be seeing you in conquest Uni

Calling all Allies! Red Rocks! Legacy Rising! Hell even those few people from PFBHz!