ROTC Surges on Elite College Campuses
by CHERYL MILLER, weeklystandard.com
April 23rd 2011
Yesterday was a big day for ROTC. Just three weeks after Columbia’s university
senate voted in favor of engaging with ROTC, Columbia has announced it
will reinstate its Navy ROTC program. The agreement between President Lee C.
Bollinger and Navy secretary Ray Mabus marks the end of a 42-year ban on the
program.
Meanwhile, ROTC looks set to return to both Stanford and Yale. Yesterday, the
Stanford ad hoc committee on ROTC voted unanimously to support ROTC’s return to
campus. The faculty senate will vote on the recommendations next week.
Likewise, the Yale faculty committee on ROTC released its own report,
recommending that Yale amend the four resolutions approved by the faculty in
1969, which led to the campus ban on ROTC. The Yale faculty will vote May 5.
Full press release and President Bollinger’s email:
Columbia to Officially Recognize Naval ROTC
NEW YORK, April 22, 2011 — Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger and
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus today announced that Columbia and the U.S. Navy have
agreed to officially reinstate Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC)
Program enrollment opportunities at the University.
“Repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law provided a historic opportunity for our
nation to live up to its ideals of equality and also for universities to
reconsider their relationships with the military,” said Bollinger. “After many
months of campus discussion, open forums, and a strongly favorable vote in the
University Senate, together with consultation with the University’s Council of
Deans, it is clear that the time has come for Columbia to reengage with the
military program of ROTC. I believe that it is the right course of action for
Columbia to formalize this recognition and thereby add to the diversity of
choices for education and public service we make available to our students.”
Under the agreement, Columbia will resume full and formal recognition of Naval
ROTC after the effective date of the repeal of the law that disqualified openly
gay men and lesbians from military service, anticipated to come later this year.
“Columbia University and the Department of the Navy have a long and rich
history together,” said Secretary Mabus. “The formal recognition of Naval ROTC
by Columbia marks a renewal of that storied relationship. Columbia’s tremendous
support to our men and women in uniform returning from the recent wars is
overwhelming, as are the growing numbers of veterans who are woven into the
fabric of this great institution. The return of Naval ROTC to campus will only
serve to enhance and strengthen our institutions and continue to contribute to
the success of this great country.”
On April 1, Columbia’s University Senate passed a resolution by a vote of 51-17
welcoming “the opportunity to explore mutually beneficial relationships with
the Armed Forces of the United States, including participation in the programs
of the Reserve Officers Training Corps.” University Provost Claude M. Steele
will establish a committee of faculty, students and administrators to oversee
implementation of the ROTC program consistent with Columbia’s academic
standards and policies of nondiscrimination.
Columbia’s Navy and Marine Corps-option midshipmen will participate in Naval
ROTC through the NROTC unit hosted at the SUNY Maritime College in Throgs Neck,
Queens. They will join Columbia’s Army and Air Force ROTC members who will
continue to train, as they do currently, with other New York area students at
consortium units at Fordham University and Manhattan College. At present, there
are nine Columbia and Barnard College students participating in these New York
consortium units. The new agreement between the Navy and Columbia will provide
that NROTC active duty Navy and Marine Corps officers will be able to meet with
Columbia NROTC midshipmen on the Columbia campus in spaces furnished by
Columbia.
“In recent years Columbia has proudly welcomed hundreds of talented veterans as
undergraduate, graduate and professional students,” Bollinger said. “Some
continue to serve in the Reserves; others are now ROTC members. They have
greatly enriched the diversity of life experience and perspectives that make a
university a place of intellectual discovery and their example gives me
confidence that our campus can be a forum for further enhancing the
relationship between our military and civil society.”
In addition to Columbia’s growing community of student military veterans, more
than half of whom attend the School of General Studies, the University in
recent years also dedicated a new War Memorial prominently placed in Butler
Library. The memorial includes an interactive Roll of Honor website that lists
the names of all known Columbians who lost their lives in the nation’s military
service going back to the Revolutionary War.
The School of General Studies has taken a leading role in Columbia’s
university-wide participation the Yellow Ribbon program of education benefits
for Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans, some 340 of whom are currently enrolled
at Columbia. The school was originally founded after World War II in part to
provide a Columbia undergraduate education to veterans and other nontraditional
students.
The University has a long history of educational programming with the U.S.
military and the Navy in particular. Beginning in 1942, Columbia’s Morningside
Heights campus served as a Midshipmen’s School that trained more than 20,000
officer candidates for duty during the next four years. Columbia was also a
site for the Navy’s V-12 programs, which trained doctors and dentists for
military service. A third program, the Military Government School, was
established to train a cadre of naval officers to handle the administration of
occupied territories.
Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons created a hospital in Europe to
minister to the wounded, following U.S. troops first to England and later to
France, sometimes operating in hospitals behind the lines and at other times in
tents nearer the front. It had provided a similar service during World War I.
In 1942, the medical school organized the Second General Hospital on the
Washington Heights campus to treat soldiers and sailors who were sent home due
to the severity of their wounds. At the end of the conflict, many veterans
enrolled in the University with support from the G.I. Bill of Rights. Other
veterans resumed academic careers as members of the faculty or joined the
administrative ranks of the university.
In recent years this relationship has developed in many ways. In April 2010,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen began a national
speaking tour focusing on civilian-military engagement and veterans’ issues
with a day at Columbia that included a visit to the new war memorial, a
luncheon with student military veterans and a public World Leaders Forum
moderated by President Bollinger.
On Veterans Day in November 2010, with approval from the University Senate,
Columbia student military veterans and current ROTC students began weekly honor
guard ceremonies for the University’s American flag in front of Low Memorial
Library.
“The University Senate provided an open and transparent process for multiple
voices in the Columbia community to be heard on the issue of reinstating ROTC,”
said Sharyn O’Halloran, chair of the University Senate and professor of
political economy. “The overwhelming final vote reflected a strong consensus
that the time has come for Columbia to reestablish relations with the ROTC in
ways that both maintain our academic values and allow the university to play a
productive role in educating the nation’s next generation of military leaders.”
President Bollinger’s email:
Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
After many months of campus discussion, open forums, and a strongly favorable
vote in the University Senate, together with consultation with the University’s
Council of Deans, it is clear that the time has come for Columbia to reengage
with the military program of ROTC, subject to certain conditions and with
ongoing review. Accordingly, I am announcing today that after four decades
Columbia again will recognize ROTC on campus through an agreement to reinstate
a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program at the University.
Formal recognition of Naval ROTC by Columbia will resume after the effective
date, expected later this year, of the repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law
that disqualified openly gay men and lesbians from military service. Under the
agreement, Columbia’s Navy and Marine Corps-option midshipmen then will
participate in Naval ROTC through the NROTC unit hosted at the SUNY Maritime
College in Throgs Neck, Queens. They will join Columbia’s Army and Air Force
ROTC members who will continue to train, as they do currently, with other New
York area students at consortium units at Fordham University and Manhattan
College. Provost Claude Steele will establish a committee of faculty,
students, and administrators to oversee implementation of the ROTC program
consistent with Columbia’s academic standards and policies of
non-discrimination.
Columbia’s long and honorable history of engagement with the military includes
major training programs for naval officers and medical personnel during World
War II, and the founding of our School of General Studies in the aftermath of
the war in part to provide a Columbia undergraduate education to returning
veterans. During both of last century’s world wars, Columbia’s College of
Physicians and Surgeons created and staffed hospital facilities in Europe for
wounded combat troops, in some cases operating in the field of battle. In
recent years, hundreds of talented veterans welcomed here as undergraduate,
graduate, and professional students have added to the diversity of experience
and perspectives essential to making our University a place of intellectual
discovery and open debate. In recognition of those efforts, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen last spring came to our campus for a day
of discussion of issues facing the military and our society.
I have confidence that, with the return of ROTC, Columbia will be an even more
valuable forum for enhancing the relationship between our military and civil
society in the years ahead.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
Original Page:
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