The revival of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at LeMoyne-Owen College in Tennessee makes the Memphis-based school one of several historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the country that offers students an education and military training to become a commissioned officer in the United States armed forces.
As a member institution of the United Negro College Fund’s Career Pathways Initiative, LeMoyne-Owen’s reestablishment of the ROTC program will prepare students for the 21st Century military and security workforce. It will also give the ROTC cadets the space and support to become global citizens and transformative leaders who spark change in their communities, college officials say.
Dr. Terrell L. Strayhorn, interim vice president of academic and student affairs and professor of urban education at LeMoyne-Owen, says that it is the college’s mission to offer students a “transformative experience” through academic programs and extracurricular activities such as ROTC.
“Students should leave LeMoyne-Owen changed,” he says, adding that the reinvigorated ROTC program will be rigorous, help students transcend conventional methods of thinking and equip them for a lifetime of “leadership, scholarship and service” in alignment with president Dr. Andrea L. Miller’s vision for the small, private college.
Reflecting on his own brief experience in the Air Force ROTC program at the University of Virginia, Strayhorn recalled the ways that the program ushered him into a space where his commanding officers and others in the program supported him. It also gave him a strategic way to consider financing his education, he says.
Charlie Folsom, director of the UNCF Career Pathways Initiative at LeMoyne-Owen, notes that the government’s increased funding for military service and training opportunities is an “issue that really needs exposure.”
Folsom says that student participation in ROTC programs – and certain marks on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test – can lead to a degree and a guaranteed high-paying, highly-technical job, he says.
