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Katarina Vogel ’20 is packing a lot into her life as a Rochester undergraduate who aspires to become a commissioned officer in the US Marine Corps.

One of 81 midshipmen in this year’s Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, the senior from Raymond, New Hampshire, carries a full load of courses for her international relations major, and she finds room in her schedule over four years for eight naval science courses required by NROTC.

She’s also an active member of the Ballet Performance Group and other campus clubs and organizations.

And she joins her fellow NROTC students for physical training drills that begin at 6 a.m.

“It’s a lot,” Vogel says. “But my dad was in the Navy 25 years and always told me, ‘Those who do, do more.’ And he was right.”

That commitment to doing more as an NROTC student is being marked this year as the program celebrates its 75th anniversary. Part of the post–World War II cohort of universities selected for the college-based program for aspiring commissioned officers in the US Navy and Marine Corps, Rochester is home to one of the longest-running units in the country.

Captain Nathan York, commanding officer of the University’s NROTC program and a professor of naval science, says Rochester deserves recognition for supporting the program when units at other campus have struggled, particularly during the 1960s amid protests over the Vietnam War.

“The fact that Rochester has stood behind this program for 75 years is fabulous,” York says.

Rear Admiral Jamie Sands, commander of the Naval Service Training Command, which includes the NROTC program, also commends Rochester.

“For 75 years, the University of Rochester Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps has produced outstanding officers to lead our Navy and Marine Corps as they serve our nation around the world,” he says.

“These men and women are the professional, dedicated Naval warfighters who exemplify our core values: honor, courage, and commitment.”

V-12 Becomes NROTC

The NROTC was established by Congress in 1926, with units housed at six colleges. Today, more than 150 colleges and universities offer programs. Rochester’s unit was an offshoot of the V-12 Navy College Training Program, formed in 1943 at the height of World War II to train future military officers at campuses across the United States. The V-12 program was phased out when the war ended two years later, but military leaders decided to expand its NROTC programs from 27 to 52 to replace Naval officers who would be leaving. Rochester joined Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Nebraska, Oregon State, and Villanova among the 25 colleges and universities selected.

Despite having one of the smallest student bodies among the new units, Rochester took a lead role from the start. University president Alan Valentine was selected the first president of the National Association of Naval Colleges and Universities, and Rochester made national news with the construction of Harkness Hall, named after Admiral William Harkness, Class of 1858, a famed naval astronomer. Dedicated on June 1, 1946, Harkness was the first building in the country other than the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, devoted entirely to naval science and tactics.

Harkness was designed like a ship, and the second floor was accessed by climbing a gangway. The building came fully loaded—rifles, bayonets, antiaircraft guns, machine guns, complete sets of Navy signal flags, a dark room for night vision training, and a shooting range.

The NROTC stayed at Harkness until 1971, then moved to Fauver Stadium, Morey Hall, and Todd Union before returning to Morey—its current residence—in 1987. Harkness is now home to the University’s economics and political science departments but still houses a ship simulator program used to train midshipmen on navigation.

Turbulent Times

The nation’s escalating involvement in the Vietnam War—and the student protests that followed—took its toll on NROTC programs in the 1960s.

While Rochester’s program survived, others at major universities did not. In 1968, arsonists burned Stanford’s NROTC building to the ground. The school began phasing out its program and terminated it in 1973. Also in 1968, dynamite destroyed the NROTC building at the University of California, Berkeley.

At Northwestern, the NROTC office was moved off campus for seven years, following student protests and faculty dissension. More programs disbanded in 1970 following the shooting deaths of four students by National Guard soldiers at Kent State. Harvard terminated its program in 1971, in the wake of antiwar protests. Forty years passed before the program was reinstated.

At Rochester, the battalion was around 180 at the start of the 1960s. By 1966, when nearly 400,000 American troops were in Vietnam, that number had dropped to 60. By the late 1960s, Rochester’s NROTC students were subjected to heckling, and carried on amidst protests, criticism in the Campus Times student newspaper, and hearings between faculty and students questioning the program’s very existence. History professor Arthur Mitzman called for its abolition, saying, “The University should have no connection with military affairs . . . or play any partisan roles in quarrels between nations.”

With low enrollment came a major change. In 1973, Rochester became one of 56 schools to accept women into its NROTC program—part of the Navy’s effort to end sexual discrimination. Four women joined.

By 1977, only nine of the 170 midshipmen—just 5 percent—were women. This year, 23 of the 81 midshipmen (28 percent) are women.

“I’ve never felt different, and no one has ever made me feel different because I’m a woman,” says Kaileigh Davis ’20, a microbiology major from Newbury, New Hampshire.

Program Today

Having weathered the broader cultural shifts of the 1960s and early 1970s that affected higher education, Rochester’s NROTC program is firmly part of campus life.

“Our NROTC unit is such a hidden gem,” says Lisa Norwood ’86, ’95W (MS), assistant dean at the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and the College’s NROTC liaison. “Our NROTC students are some of Rochester’s best students academically and most involved socially. They take very seriously their leadership responsibilities and oath to maintain a high degree of moral character.”

As part of an agreement among Rochester-area institutions to share resources, the current Rochester NROTC unit includes students from the Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Brockport, and St. John Fisher College. Students who take part in ROTC training for the Army and Air Force are in a program based at RIT.

About 50 Rochester students are enrolled in NROTC and another 11 are in the ROTC program at RIT.

In order to be part of the NROTC program, students must successfully apply for a Navy or Marines scholarship, then earn acceptance into a college of their choice.

“It’s basically a double application,” says York, who heads a staff of 10.

Life of an NROTC Student

Throughout their college careers, NROTC students take naval sciences courses, ranging from Seapower and Maritime Affairs to Leadership and Ethics. Most days start at 6 a.m. with physical training or close-order drills. The drills include physical challenges like rope climbing, pushups, pullups, and grappling, as well as running while carrying a fellow student or swimming while attached to a cinder block.

Rochester also competes each year in drill and fitness competitions against other programs, hosted by Cornell and Villanova.

The Yellowjackets finished second to the US Naval Academy last fall at Cornell.

“We push ourselves now so that once we hit the fleet we can lead by example,” says Joseph Ginnane ’20, a mechanical engineering major from Buffalo. “When the day comes that we have to execute a mission that requires physical stamina, we’ll already have that down.”

Students spend a month each summer with active soldiers—aboard a ship, submarine, or aviation squadron, or in ground training with Marines. “The summer training cruises are the most beneficial experiences I’ve had here,” Ginnane says. “I’ve learned so much.”

Ginnane was 11 when his family toured his uncle’s Naval ship, the USS Carl Vinson, in San Diego. “That was the day I decided what I wanted to do with my life,” he says. Ten years later, he was back on the Carl Vinson as an NROTC student during a summer training mission to the South Pacific, where he participated in a joint naval exercise that included 25 other countries.

Ginnane says a common misconception is that midshipmen don’t have time to join extracurricular activities. “It’s not true,” he says. “I spent two years on a club rowing team, was a lifeguard, a member of a fraternity, and studied abroad for a semester in the United Arab Emirates.”

In addition to being part of the Ballet Performance Group, Vogel also played women’s club soccer. Davis is a midfielder on the varsity women’s lacrosse team, and several NROTC students play other varsity sports. Matthew Watrous ’20, a chemical engineering major from Brookline, New Hampshire, works 40 hours a week as an EMT, serves as a laboratory teaching assistant, and was the NROTC’s drill officer this past fall.

Davis didn’t even consider the NROTC until her senior year of high school, but she says joining the Rochester unit has been the best decision she has ever made. “It has shaped me into someone I never thought I could be,” she says. “I began my NROTC career not being able to imagine a future in the military. Now, I can’t imagine a future without the military.”

Seniors recently learned which warfare community they’ll be joining after graduation. Vogel will head to The Basic School (TBS) in Quantico, Virginia, joining other newly commissioned Marine Corps officers who will train for six months before receiving job assignments. Watrous will commission into Navy Nuclear Power School in Charleston, South Carolina. Ginnane and Davis will head to flight school in Pensacola, Florida, the next step in their path to becoming naval aviators.

The students are proud to be part of a University program that is still going strong after 75 years—through war, peace, and campus protests. “When we go out for summer training, we interact with real sailors and Marines, and that’s when you see that our unit is known and has a strong reputation,” Vogel says. “They’ll say ‘Oh, you’re from Rochester? That’s a really good unit.’ It’s a pretty cool feeling.”

Ginnane says he’s honored to carry on the legacy.

“Since 1945, the University of Rochester has been producing high-performance officers to the Navy and Marine Corps,” he says. “It’s a humbling feeling to know that I’m a part of that.”

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The University’s NROTC unit will host an alumni reunion in Washington, DC, May 1–3. The events include a reception at the National Museum of the United States Navy and a dinner at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. For more information, write to Ashley Steeves