In the fall of 1948, Trinity College established an R.O.T.C. program in conjunction with the training initiative of the recently-formed U.S. Air Force. After critical examination in 1969, the contract was terminated in the spring of 1970.

Although the College's experience with the military had ended with the disbandment of the V-12 unit in 1945, the hundreds of veterans who attended Trinity had done much to keep the spirit of service alive. President Funston, several administrators, and a considerable number of junior faculty had recently experienced military service, many of them as commissioned officers. In view of the large number of officers in World War II who were college-educated men rather than graduates of the service academics, many believed the citizen soldier, particularly one with a fundamental education in the liberal arts, could well serve the nation's military needs. Also, there were alumni who had served in the enlisted ranks, and felt that they had been at a disadvantage in matters of promotion compared to men who had attended colleges with Reserve Officers' Training Corps Programs.

With the Trinity community in favor of establishing it, the R.O.T.C. program began in the fall of 1948. All students were eligible, regardless of major, and was strictly elective. Continuation in the program beyond sophomore year entailed service in the Air Force upon graduation. Junior and senior R.O.T.C. cadets received a small monthly stipend from the Air Force that helped many of them meet their College expenses. The newly-created U.S. Department of Defense assigned three officers and three non-commissioned officers to staff Trinity's unit; they were appointed to the faculty, with Air Force Major William E. Taylor in charge of the unit with full faculty rank as Professor of Military Science and Tactics.

Trinity's unit was one in a network of 175 supplying the Air Force with close to a third of its officers. It occupied the old psychology labs and classrooms on the third floor of Boardman Hall, where an American flag flew above the fire escape. ¹⁾

Its membership peaked in 1953, when over half the undergraduate body enrolled. By 1969, only 22 students were enrolled “and then only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Student interest declined during the 1960s with growing antiwar and anti-military sentiments due to the conflicts in Vietnam and Cambodia. In the spring of 1969, President Lockwood asked both the Trinity College Council and the faculty to submit their recommendations on the program. Petitions demanding the College sever all connections with the Department of Defense circulatedd among faculty and students.

There are two questions in the ROTC dispute. The first asks whether ROTC courses are worthy of academic credit (all eight Ivy League schools, reports the New York Times, think, not). The second asks whether ROTC should be on campus at all. Critics charge that the ROTC curriculum simply doesn't measure up to Trinity's academic standards. They argue that ROTC courses are vocational and pre-professional, that they are taught by non-academics from a service point of view, One of the many descriptive pamphlets available in the ROTC office, deals bluntly with this question: “Emphasis is on pre-professional education. The basic goal of this education is to provide the cadet with the military knowledge and skill he will need on the day he becomes an Air Force lieutenant.” ²⁾

In the spring of 1970, the Air Force and Trinity College mutually agreed to discontinue the program.

Text taken from Trinity College in the Twentieth Century (2000) by Peter and Ann Knapp, pp. 142-144.

Trinity Tripod, 04/22/1969.

The Trinity Reporter, July 1948.