R.O.T.C. at elite universities

Greg Jones

Back in the 1960s during the anti-war movement, many Ivy League Universities banned their R.O.T.C. programs because of the way the program was being treated by students at the universities. Despite most universities now showing an outpouring of support for the military, the R.O.T.C. programs at many are still banned. In an article by the New York Times entitled The R.O.T.C. Dilemma the author, Michael Winerip, explains that despite recent polls of students that show support for R.O.T.C programs, Ivy League schools still refuse to reinstate their programs. Most Ivy League schools show only token support for their students that wish to pursue R.O.T.C regardless of the barriers.

The few students that still chose to pursue R.O.T.C programs have to travel to host universities in the area of their school to receive their training. For students at schools like Yale this means a three hour round trip drive to the University of Connecticut with no special considerations for classes they might miss making the drive 3-5 days a week. Being involved in an R.O.T.C. program can be stressful and time consuming enough without having to factor in the added stress of trying get to another campus to participate in training. In a recent article by The Harvard Crimson, entitled R.O.T.C. May Return to Ivy Schools, stated that the Department of Defense has expressed interest in restarting the programs at Ivy League schools.

The thing that is interesting to note is that even if the Defence Department does chose to reinstate these schools as training academies, it will most likely not result in R.O.T.C. training centers. For example, the R.O.T.C. uses what's called the host school program in which it puts programs on campuses that are big and centralized and has these programs service the schools nearby. The Georgia Tech R.O.T.C. program, for instance, serves; Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Kennesaw, Emory, Morehouse, Spelman, Clark, West Georgia, Southern Poly, Clayton, Agnes Scott, and Mercer. So if a school like Harvard were to express interest in reinstating their R.O.T.C program on campus their request would most likely be denied and they would be told to send their students to M.I.T. along with the other 8 schools in the area whose students go to M.I.T. for R.O.T.C. training. This is a fact that is often overlooked by both students at these universities and critics of the lack of program at these schools.