By Alysa TeichmanThe Daily Northwestern
This year, only three freshmen enrolled in Northwestern’s Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program, despite numerous efforts to recruit perspective students.
NU is not alone in suffering low numbers in its NROTC program, which is made up of about 50 students. Mike Tooker, commander of the program, explained that the highly selective universities with NROTC programs – especially Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and NU – received scholarship cuts, and still have trouble filling their scholarships.
“To be honest, there aren’t that many really high-caliber students in this pool that apply for NROTC,” Tooker said. “We really have to compete with these other schools.”
The number of full scholarships dropped to 15 from 25 two years ago. NU’s program, comprising both NU and Loyola students, has not enrolled the maximum number of students into NROTC on scholarship in several years.
To gain entrance into an NROTC program, perspective students must apply through the national program and gain admission to an NROTC program. Last year, about 35 students gained admission to NU’s NROTC program, but of those students, only three were granted admission to NU.
NU was one of more than 50 schools nationwide that suffered a decrease in the number of scholarships. NROTC reduced the amount of scholarships because the Navy needs fewer officers than it did in previous years, Tooker said.
NROTC also considered the number of technical majors from each school in this decision. About 70 percent of NU and Loyola’s NROTC members are liberal arts majors, and this was a factor in NROTC’s decision.
Although there are fewer students enrolled than in previous years, Tooker said NU has been “generous” with its support.
“We would have had a much greater fall off in our university-supplied fund than we have experienced,” Tooker said, adding that the university provided almost $20,000 for the 2006-2007 school year. “The hope is that the university will help us through what is a short-term down cycle in ROTC enrollment.”
In the meantime, the NU’s NROTC is brainstorming ways it can reach interested students. It works with the admissions department and mail fliers to every accepted student, encouraging them to apply for NROTC. But Tooker said that to his knowledge, only one student in the NROTC program applied because a flier from the Admissions department interested her.
“We really need to figure out a way, given the difficulties, to attract a list of students that are nationally eligible and interested in Northwestern,” Tooker said.
While enrollment poses the biggest threat to NU’s NROTC program, a funding cut two years ago that decreased the number of scholarships also changed the dynamic of the program. But the changes are minimal, Tooker said. When the program got less funding, students involved feared the cuts would negatively affect their NROTC lives.
According to Tooker, the funding cut “does not affect them,” even though “students have gotten a feeling that there is trouble on the horizon.”
“I guess there hasn’t been a significant change in ROTC life in my years here,” said Weinberg senior Charles Matykiewicz. “But the cut in the sailing program was a hard hit for me.”
Reach Alysa Teichman at [email protected].
