Harvard’s criticism reflected a more widespread dissatisfaction with the educational rigor of ROTC. Princeton President Harold W. Dodd, for example, believed that its ROTC program was too segregated from civilian instruction.
In the March 1953 issue of The Atlantic, Dodds wrote, “The general objection of educators is that the emphasis of ROTC is so exclusively on practical details of the ‘know how’ to the neglect of the complimentary ‘know why.’”
LaPlace says he remembered the academic disparity, characterizing the ROTC courses as “not very challenging.”
“The academic experience of the normal Harvard undergraduate program was certainly very stimulating, but [ROTC] was perhaps a more practical aspect of the real world,” he says.
In 1953, Lt. Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, professor of Military Science and Tactics, presented the College with a three-pronged proposal to reform ROTC. He suggested that summer training extend to at least 12 weeks, that the campus four-year program be whittled down to three years, and that the College institute “an expanded program of civilian instruction in ROTC classes,” The Crimson reported.
In response to Dupuy’s concerns, the College’s Committee on Educational Policy convened a subcommittee in the spring of 1954, composed of a group of seven University faculty members, to address the issue of the role of ROTC at Harvard.
In an 18-page report, the subcommittee advocated adopting all of Dupuy’s recommendations. Leaving the mechanical aspects of Army training to an extended summer period would free up the academic year for more rigorous ROTC courses, thus allowing for the elimination of a year of ROTC instruction in the college. This in turn would allow students to choose whether or not to enter the program after a year of study, when “the advantages...might be more apparent.”
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
While the plan earned Faculty approval in May of 1954, the proposal didn’t reach Washington until a year later. The Pentagon ultimately rejected two of the three major points, approving only the integration of the liberal arts and military curricula. According to the Department of the Army, the prolongation of the summer training period would overtax Army resources—and without that extended summer period, an additional year remained necessary.
In a letter to The Crimson in September 1955, Dupuy expressed satisfaction with the “substantial progress” made, contending that the goal of bringing about “a closer integration of the civilian and military subjects” was “the fundamental aspect of the Harvard proposal.”
And while the program failed to get completely off its feet, it did score a success in influencing similar changes in many other colleges throughout the nation. According to the Crimson, Yale, Princeton and Ohio State Universities and Kenyan College similarly planned “to integrate ROTC courses into a liberal arts curriculum,” and other colleges considered doing so.
Captain Bryan K. Pillai, Assistant Professor of Military Science at M.I.T.—where Harvard students have travelled since the College removed the program from its campus in 1969—says that the revision was adopted “in part to better align the cadets’ required leadership and technical training to academic environments.
“This then allowed them to spend slightly less time on military courses in order to permit them the ability to focus more of their attention on other (traditional) academic requirements,” he writes in an e-mail.
The effects of changes set in motion 50 years ago are still felt today. Under the current ROTC program, according to Pillai, students can choose among a two, three, or four year program, a “key aspect” of which is a summer training program that lasts around four weeks.
—Staff Writer Margaret W. Ho can be reached at mwho@fas.harvard.edu.