Cambridge, Mass.
A sense of history suffuses formal events at Harvard, probably inevitable when an institution is 372 years old. Such was the case at a commissioning ceremony this past Wednesday where five Harvard students who had completed the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program and who would receive their degrees the next day were sworn in as officers in the U.S. military.

Five students may not sound like much, and for a university of Harvard's size it isn't. Harvard's graduating class this year will number somewhere around 1,600. The smallness of the ROTC cohort makes the students literally exceptional. As several of the speakers and attendees at the commissioning ceremony noted, these five determined their path not only after 9/11 but after the Iraq war began. While other high school students won admission to Harvard and began dreaming about the big bucks they might make on Wall Street, the kids who chose ROTC charted a different course.

The commissioning took place on Class Day, the day before Harvard's elaborate commencement ceremonies. A crowd of over a hundred well-wishers packed the Tercentenary theater; family members' pride was evident as they buzzed about with cameras. The number of fellow graduates who showed up to offer support and their congratulations in spite of an unseasonably cold rain was impressive.

Also present in impressive numbers were members of Harvard's Class of 1958. (The 50th reunion class plays a prominent role in Harvard's commencement week each year.) There's little wonder that they were drawn to the scene. The featured speaker, Lt. General Tad Oelstrom (USAF, Ret.), noted that in 1958, 150 members of Harvard's graduating class participated in the ROTC program and joined the armed forces upon graduation. One member of the class of '58 happily recalled his years in the Army, telling stories about the time he got to train a young soldier named Neil Rudenstine at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Rudenstine would go on to become president of Harvard in 1991, but by that time the ROTC program had long since become persona non grata on campus. In 1969, with the Vietnam war raging, the arts and sciences faculty banished ROTC in order to register its "disapproval of the military." This was the era in which George Wallace ran for president denouncing "pointy-headed professors who can't park their bicycles straight"--all of which might sound like ancient history except that Harvard's anti-ROTC edict remains in force, 39 years later. The Harvard students who sign up for ROTC are folded into MIT's nearby program and must train off-campus.

If this sounds like a shabby way for a university to treat students who want to serve their country, one can perhaps take consolation in the fact that the university is less hostile to ROTC than in the recent past. After 9/11, Larry Summers, then president, began agitating for Harvard to fully accept an ROTC program as a matter of simple patriotism. While Harvard still refuses to host an ROTC program, the ROTC cohort's presence is often felt and appreciated. Lt. Col. Leo McGonagle heads the MIT/Harvard ROTC program (which includes five other local colleges). He noted at the commissioning ceremony that Harvard now often allows a color guard at sporting events and that an official ROTC presence was welcomed when Drew Gilpin Faust ascended to Harvard's presidency in 2007.