During the early 1970s, the school I was at experienced a surge in enrollment. The yield that year — percentage of students accepts to those who enrolled — was extremely high, too high, in fact, in relation to the number of dormitory rooms available to house incoming students. Thus, what was great for the university’s bottom line created a problem. Where were we going to put these students? One option that appeared was an off-campus dormitory at a local theological seminary that had the opposite problem: not enough students to fill its quarters. However, when the students on my own campus heard about the off-campus alternative, they “requested” (a.k.a. protested) the administration to create triples out of the resident halls’ doubles and keep everyone around the quad. We obliged, converted student lounges into rooms, put bunk beds in the doubles and the extra students were in residence on site.

Fast forward eight years, two complete academic cycles, and the undergraduates came to the administration and protested (a.k.a requested) that the triples on campus be re-converted into doubles because the overcrowding was creating too many social problems: long lines for bathrooms, too noisy, difficulties in the dining halls, etc. We obliged, opened up the lounges, took out the bunk beds and extra closet units, and reduced occupancy. We found an off-campus dormitory at the local theological seminary that still had unused rooms. No joke. Not a single student from Protest No. 2 had any memory of Protest No. 1. Tabula rasa.

From the September 15, 2008 Columbia Daily Spectator:

“Columbia has not allowed ROTC programs to operate on campus for over 40 years, when the military training groups were banned as a statement of opposition to the Vietnam War. More recently, the University Senate — the highest body of administrative, faculty, and student representatives which makes recommendations to the University’s Board of Trustees — has reaffirmed the ban, citing opposition to the U.S. military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Final decisions on university policy rest with the board of trustees. Students who are interested in ROTC can join programs at other schools.”

Policy decisions are affected by current environment. Columbia’s administration responded to the anti-war fervor on campus with a policy change — no more ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) on campus. They reacted once again, to affirm the no-ROTC policy, when the military’s position on homosexuality and the campus community’s position were in conflict. But the issues surrounding ROTC have changed once again, and now there is a movement to reinstate the military’s presence on campus.

ROTC on non-military campus (distinguished from the service academies) accomplishes several things: educates students who will become officers in the military with supplemental skills beyond traditional academic disciplines, such as leadership, personal and professional codes of conduct, strategic problem solving, military tactics, and others areas. Enrollment in the ROTC program comes with financial assistance and military service obligations.

While I believe that keeping gay people from serving the country is wrong and foolish, unsound and un-American, I found the actions directed against ROTC to be unpersuasive and unproductive. They did not get the job done. Our military is under civilian authority: Policies put in place by the military are subject to approval by a chain of command that goes through the secretary of defense to the commander-in-chief. Each of the branches of the military has a non-military leader, Secretary of the Army, Navy, Air Force, etc. Congress and the administration control the military; or, to put it another way, the military takes orders from “we the people.” And our military needs all the talent it can get.

Yet the ROTC programs became lightening rods for anti-war and equal-rights policies. Students who effectively shut down ROTC programs were denying their fellow students the right of freedom of choice, to be engaged in public service, and here is where the past meets the present.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain recently spoke at a forum on public service held at Columbia University. Both men proclaimed their support for the encouragement of public service by many sectors of the population: college students and beyond, in many fields of endeavor — education, health, social service — in urban and rural communities — full time, part time, for pay, or as volunteers. The tone of the meetings was to invigorate a spirit of service into the national consciousness, a subject many will recall I have addressed in the past.

But in their remarks, both Obama and McCain also voiced support for the reintroduction of ROTC to campus in order to give students the right to select the military as an avenue to engage in public service. They pointed out the irony of holding a public service conference on a campus that has limited the rights of its students to support the military. Obama put it into context when he said, “I recognize that there are students here who have differences in terms of military policy … But the notion that young people here at Columbia … aren’t offered the choice, the option of participating in military service, I think is a mistake.” And McCain pointed out, “the attractiveness of serving in the military, particularly as an officer.”

As an aside, in an odd “compromise,” Columbia and Harvard allow their students to enroll in ROTC on other campuses! Is this the campus equivalent of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?

The Columbia campus is gearing up for a referendum on the subject, most likely to take place after the presidential election in November. As a Columbia alumnus of the Class of 1959, I vote for the return of ROTC and for fair treatment of all who seek to serve their country without regard for their sexual orientation. Patriots come in all forms.

For more information on public service see: Time Magazine, “A Sense of Community,” September 22, 2008 Brainstorm “Uncle Sam Needs You,” February 2, 2008

(Photo from sodiersmediacenter at flickr.com)