NROTC at Rochester: 75 Years of Service

The NROTC was established by Congress in 1926, with units housed at six colleges. Today, more than 150 colleges and universities offer programs. Rochester’s unit was an offshoot of the V-12 Navy College Training Program, formed in 1943 at the height of World War II to train future military officers at campuses across the United States. The V-12 program was phased out when the war ended two years later, but military leaders decided to expand its NROTC programs from 27 to 52 to replace Naval officers who would be leaving. Rochester joined Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Nebraska, Oregon State, and Villanova among the 25 colleges and universities selected.

The nation’s escalating involvement in the Vietnam War—and the student protests that followed—took its toll on NROTC programs in the 1960s.

While Rochester’s program survived, others at major universities did not. In 1968, arsonists burned Stanford’s NROTC building to the ground. The school began phasing out its program and terminated it in 1973.

More programs disbanded in 1970 following the shooting deaths of four students by National Guard soldiers at Kent State. Harvard terminated its program in 1971, in the wake of antiwar protests. Forty years passed before the program was reinstated.

At Rochester, the battalion was around 180 at the start of the 1960s. By 1966, when nearly 400,000 American troops were in Vietnam, that number had dropped to 60. By the late 1960s, Rochester’s NROTC students were subjected to heckling, and carried on amidst protests, criticism in the Campus Times student newspaper, and hearings between faculty and students questioning the program’s very existence. History professor Arthur Mitzman called for its abolition, saying, “The University should have no connection with military affairs . . . or play any partisan roles in quarrels between nations.”

With low enrollment came a major change. In 1973, Rochester became one of 56 schools to accept women into its NROTC program—part of the Navy’s effort to end sexual discrimination. Four women joined.

By 1977, only nine of the 170 midshipmen—just 5 percent—were women. This year, 23 of the 81 midshipmen (28 percent) are women.

As part of an agreement among Rochester-area institutions to share resources, the current Rochester NROTC unit includes students from the Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Brockport, and St. John Fisher College. Students who take part in ROTC training for the Army and Air Force are in a program based at RIT.

About 50 Rochester students are enrolled in NROTC and another 11 are in the ROTC program at RIT.

In order to be part of the NROTC program, students must successfully apply for a Navy or Marines scholarship, then earn acceptance into a college of their choice.

Throughout their college careers, NROTC students take naval sciences courses, ranging from Seapower and Maritime Affairs to Leadership and Ethics. Most days start at 6 a.m. with physical training or close-order drills. The drills include physical challenges like rope climbing, pushups, pullups, and grappling, as well as running while carrying a fellow student or swimming while attached to a cinder block.

Rochester also competes each year in drill and fitness competitions against other programs, hosted by Cornell and Villanova.

Read the full story: https://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V82N2/0502_nrotc.html

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