Having officially re-established its Air Force program after 45 years, Harvard University will once again offer all Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) services.
Stars and Stripes reported on June 14:
Of the eight Ivy League colleges, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Brown ended their ROTC programs in the 1970s, motivated by opposition to the war in Vietnam. Army and Navy ROTC returned to all but Brown after Congress repealed “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2011. (In the intervening decades, ROTC cadets attending Harvard trained nearby on MIT’s campus; the homepage for MIT’s Air Force ROTC still lists Harvard among the campuses it serves.) Yale and Columbia restored all three ROTC services, while Harvard held out.
In 2011, as the Ivies revived their commitments, Cheryl Miller and John Hillman wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the benefits of the Armed Forces recruiting again from top schools, despite relatively little student interest:
Now, ROTC opportunities at Harvard have won back their wings.
