ROTC exchange with PC down to a lone student
Michael Skocpol
Issue date: 11/26/07 Section: Campus News
Among Brown's nearly 6,000 undergraduates, Adam Swartzbaugh '09 is unique - he's the lone student currently enrolled in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Providence College.
Since 1971, when Brown's own ROTC program was ended amid protests against the Vietnam War, the Providence College's Patriot Battalion has served students interested in preparing for military leadership. But since the mid-1990s, Brown undergrads' participation in the program has dwindled down to almost nothing.
Last spring, some debate over the program arose on campus as a student group formed to advocate for ROTC's return to campus, while others came out against the idea.
Currently, fewer Brown students participate in ROTC than students at any other school in the Ivy League, which itself trails other institutions across the country in participation figures. Among the Ancient Eight, only Cornell and Princeton universities have an active Army ROTC program on campus (the University of Pennsylvania has a Navy ROTC program) - the others, like Brown, send students to programs at nearby schools.
ROTC programs require students to complete military leadership courses, field exercises and physical training while in school and pledge to serve in the officer corps following graduation. ROTC students are eligible to receive merit scholarships up to full tuition.
ROTC's purpose - according Lt. Col. Paul Dulchinos, who heads the Providence College program - is to inject leaders who have a liberal arts education into an officer corps that otherwise would be drawn almost exclusively from the service academies. Since its founding over a century ago, the ROTC model has spread to schools throughout the country and currently produces nearly two-thirds of the military's leadership, Dulchinos said.
At Brown, the lack of interested students on campus, lack of academic credit for what can be a significant off-campus extracurricular commitment and minimal efforts to publicize the program may have all contributed to recently sparse participation in ROTC.
Since 1971, when Brown's own ROTC program was ended amid protests against the Vietnam War, the Providence College's Patriot Battalion has served students interested in preparing for military leadership. But since the mid-1990s, Brown undergrads' participation in the program has dwindled down to almost nothing.
Last spring, some debate over the program arose on campus as a student group formed to advocate for ROTC's return to campus, while others came out against the idea.
Currently, fewer Brown students participate in ROTC than students at any other school in the Ivy League, which itself trails other institutions across the country in participation figures. Among the Ancient Eight, only Cornell and Princeton universities have an active Army ROTC program on campus (the University of Pennsylvania has a Navy ROTC program) - the others, like Brown, send students to programs at nearby schools.
ROTC programs require students to complete military leadership courses, field exercises and physical training while in school and pledge to serve in the officer corps following graduation. ROTC students are eligible to receive merit scholarships up to full tuition.
ROTC's purpose - according Lt. Col. Paul Dulchinos, who heads the Providence College program - is to inject leaders who have a liberal arts education into an officer corps that otherwise would be drawn almost exclusively from the service academies. Since its founding over a century ago, the ROTC model has spread to schools throughout the country and currently produces nearly two-thirds of the military's leadership, Dulchinos said.
At Brown, the lack of interested students on campus, lack of academic credit for what can be a significant off-campus extracurricular commitment and minimal efforts to publicize the program may have all contributed to recently sparse participation in ROTC.