Army ROTC joins Naval ROTC at Harvard; rapprochement came after four decades
Six months after welcoming Naval ROTC back to campus, Harvard University is making space for an Army ROTC unit as well, the Army and school announced today.
The university had not allowed ROTC to have a formal presence on campus for the last four decades – a decision that had roots in the Vietnam War – but the repeal of the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy eased the way for a rapprochement.
“This is a welcome step in the long and distinguished history of military service by members of the Harvard community,’’ Drew Faust, the president of Harvard, said in a statement. “At Harvard, military service is rightly regarded as public service, and I am pleased that we can now broaden access for our students to the leadership and learning opportunities’’ provided by the Senior Reserve Officers Training Corps.
There will be no new battalion at Harvard, but students will continue to participate in an existing program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard will pick up the cost.
Harvard will also provide the Army access to its classrooms and athletic fields, and will create a new office space on its campus so the Army’s professor of military science at MIT can hold regular hours there.
“The Army welcomes the opportunity to expand its presence on the Harvard campus,’’ Major General Mark McDonald, commander of the US Army Cadet Command, said in a statement. “ROTC provides officers to the Army from a diverse mix of over 1,000 colleges and universities. Students commissioned from Harvard have long enriched our officer corps.’’
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