Needed: A New Mission

Is the Air Force's college reserve officers' training program as outmoded as the B-17 bomber? Fortnight ago, John D. Millett, president of Miami University of Ohio, posed the question on behalf of 176 college and university administrators gathered for an Air Force-sponsored conference on R.O.T.C. problems at Maxwell A.F.B., Ala. Continued changes in policy have caused growing tension and occasional open hostility between the colleges and the junior service. Even former Air Force Secretary James H. Douglas admitted to the educators that the A.F.R.O.T.C. program "suggests a considerable amount of lost motion," since only 4,000 officers are commissioned each year from the 100,000 undergraduates in the program.

At the root of the tension between the Air Force and the colleges, said President Millett, is a continuing uncertainty over the mission of the A.F.R.O.T.C. program. Over the past 15 years, the Air Force has shifted the goal from training men to serve for short terms in reserve units to recruiting and educating active-duty officers on a long-term career basis. This has been done, charged Millett, without the Air Force's defining a new mission for its college R.O.T.C. units. Said he: "It is not unfair to say that the administrations of many colleges and universities sense a lack of interest and concern on the part of the Air Force with the college education program."

In explanation, Major General Lloyd P. Hopwood, director of Personnel Procurement and Training, said that the A.F.R.O.T.C. program is "the least flexible of our officer-procurement programs," since changes in Air Force strength in recent years have "been established in hours or at most a few months." To change the role of college programs to produce the bulk of the Air Force's career officers will require many corrections by all, said Hopwood. Then he proceeded to hit some Air Force beefs. Last year 15% of the Air Force's college R.O.T.C. units turned out only 218 of the 4,000 required officers; yet these colleges were staffed with 221 military personnel. The Air Force spends an average of $6,943 for each officer entering active duty, but the cost at individual institutions ranges from $3,000 to $48,000.

One possible solution, said Hopwood, is for the Air Force to substitute civilian-taught courses for some military-taught ones. This would save military personnel. The Air Force would also consider reducing the basic compulsory two-year program to one year, and cutting down the number of participating schools. But the Air Force has no intention of dropping the program. "Today," said Hopwood, "the R.O.T.C. has become really a C.O.T.C.--Career Officer Training Corps--the source for the bulk of our active-duty officers."

Having cleared the air, the college representatives recommended to the Secretary of the Air Force that he set up an advisory panel of educators to resolve a much needed new mission for A.F.R.O.T.C.

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