YCC to survey students on ROTC
YCC to survey students on ROTC
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Yale College Council is planning to conduct a scientific survey to gauge student interest in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps’ return to Yale.
Administrators often cite the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy as the reason why there is no on-campus ROTC unit at Yale. But if the survey results suggest that Yale students are interested in the program, YCC will present its findings to Yale administrators to ask them to support the program’s return, said Pierson College YCC representative James Campbell ’13, who has spearheaded the YCC ROTC Committee assembling the survey.
“[The survey] covers an arch of issues regarding Yalies in the military,” Campbell said. “We don’t know where students fall in terms of real interest.”
Campbell, Thomas Meyer ’13, a Morse College YCC representative, and the other members of the YCC ROTC Committee are working in conjunction with the Yale Social Science Statistical Laboratory, or StatLab, to create and analyze this survey, which is still in its early stages.
Yalies in ROTC are a minority among the student body — there are only three Air Force cadets and one Army cadet at Yale. Still, Meyer said that he wants current students to know that Yale provides resources, such as money for transportation, for cadets traveling to off-campus ROTC training. In the past, organizations have failed to get the administration to support ROTC’s return because they have no data to show that students are interested, Campbell said, and previous YCC boards have not tackled the issue of ROTC returning to Yale.
Yale ROTC adviser William Whobrey declined to comment about the upcoming survey and said he is not involved in advocating the program’s return to campus.
Campbell, who supports ROTC’s return to campus, said that he knows there are students interested but he wants to have “scientific data” to back it up, adding that he had talked to some Yale students, including members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, who expressed interest in ROTC if a program existed at Yale.
University Secretary Linda Lorimer said Thursday that while she has not heard about YCC’s planned survey, she is looking forward to reviewing the results. Lorimer added that having an on-campus program might persuade high school students interested in ROTC to apply to Yale.
In an interview with the News last month, Lorimer said the military may not want to spend money to establish an ROTC program at Yale since Yalies can participate in the Army ROTC program at the University of New Haven. But Yale students’ interest in ROTC will probably influence the Pentagon’s interest in setting up a new unit, said University Spokesman Tom Conroy.
YCC President Jeff Gordon ’12 said that are no focus groups set up yet to probe student interest in ROTC’s return to campus. Gordon added that he sensed that more students are talking about ROTC’s return this year compared with last year.
“I think it’s really just about giving students the opportunity to pursue whatever their interests are,” Gordon said. “I know for many of us, service to our government — whether military or civilian — is important.”
Gordon added that he supports ROTC’s return to campus only if “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy that bans gays from openly serving in the military, were repealed.
Yale College Dean Mary Miller said she thinks the current ROTC plan in place serves “a real role” for Yale students as it stands, but added that the program has room to grow.
“I’d like to see exploration of the expansion of that role,” Miller said.
Yale’s faculty banned ROTC on campus in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War.
Comments
sigh 1 year, 7 months ago
I thought DADT had been terminated. Shouldnt Yale be gearing up to usher ROTC back to campus?
RexMottram08 1 year, 7 months ago
One of Yale's most disgusting black marks....the exclusion of ROTC and the inclusion of.....well, everything else.
morse_14 1 year, 7 months ago
Until we have DADT gone -- that is to say, when either the Supreme Court rules that it's unconstitutional or Congress and the President repeal it -- there is no place for ROTC on Yale's campus.
One injunction from a district judge doesn't mean repeal.
FailBoat 1 year, 7 months ago
Until Muslims allow gays to become imams, there's no place for Islam on Yale's campus.
Right?
13131313 1 year, 7 months ago
@ morse_14
What you're saying is pretty absurd.
The fact that DADT is still in place isn't even a legitimate objection to bringing back ROTC. Not having ROTC on campus has a significant negative impact on this university and this country, and when you say that Yale ought to shut off this opportunity to students because the military doesn't let openly gay people serve, think about other things like the Harvard/Yale blood drive. These blood drives don't allow homosexuals to give donate, yet we continue to sponsor them anyway because we know it's the right thing to do. And in the specific case of DADT, the university can and should make its political statements without depriving those people on campus who want to serve this country.
PC2005 1 year, 7 months ago
This is great and welcome news; however, the target audience is wrong. Current students not already enrolled in ROTC programs won't have the opportunity to take advantage of any that are added on campus. Instead, the University should be looking at how this would effect and improve the applicant pool and the ability of interested students to afford a Yale education, particularly those who are from middle class families but for whom significant borrowing for education is too burdensome.
Also, the ROTC unit should be Naval and Marine Corps, as there are already Air Force and Army ROTC units at UConn but no NROTC ones in the state, and the Marine Corps has proven very popular with recent graduates.
yaylie 1 year, 7 months ago
The fact that DADT offends a small minority of the Yale community shouldn't be a reason for there to be no ROTC on campus.
jnewsham 1 year, 7 months ago
Slippery slope: Until Conservative Jews allow gays to become rabbis, there's no place for Chabad on campus. Right?
We hold religions and government institutions to different standards. I'm not here to explain or examine why, but I'm just sayin'.
11 1 year, 7 months ago
@Failboat
DADT is a law, created and defended by the government. Islam is a religion. These are not analogous.
FailBoat 1 year, 7 months ago
Except that Yale could boycott either, correct?
Hieronymus 1 year, 7 months ago
Military recruiters ordered to accept gay applicants
Hey, so, does Yale's West Point transfer feel kinda... silly? Even just a little? (I mean career wise, financially, life aspirations and all that.) Unless she changed her mind about the glories of military service... Also, does this nullify the change from (the very useful) ChemEng to...Soc (ugh!)?
As for transferring BACK to WP... call me kooky but I bet, you know, that doesn't work out. Pointers are kinda funny about what they consider (rightly or wrongly) to be traitorous action. (And do not take this as an outright dig at the girl--as I have stated in the past, she fits in here perfectly.)
jnewsham 1 year, 7 months ago
As this helpful article points out, ROTC isn't banned.
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