Ceremony to mark return of ROTC to campus

A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held on campus on Friday, Sept. 21, to welcome Air Force and Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps detachments to the campus.

The ceremony will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Yale’s Hewitt Quadrangle, on Wall Street near College Street, in front of the cenotaph honoring Yale servicemen who gave their lives in World War I. The quadrangle includes Memorial Hall rotunda, which honors all Yale war dead.

Watch the ceremony on YaleLivestream.

University President Richard C. Levin will welcome Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower & Reserve Affairs Juan Garcia III; Lieutenant General David Fadok, commander and president of Air University; Vice Admiral John Richardson; and other military officials. Levin, Garcia and Fadok will address the gathering. The Yale Concert Band will also perform at the event.

Yale Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen and Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (AFROTC) cadets from Yale and other institutions will attend the ceremony. The NROTC unit has 12 Yale midshipmen enrolled in the program. In addition to providing training for Yale’s eight AFROTC cadets, the Yale detachment is the host for about 30 cadets from other Connecticut institutions. Those schools whose cadets will train at Yale are Western Connecticut State University, Southern Connecticut State University, the University of New Haven, Sacred Heart University, Quinnipiac University, Fairfield University, and Wesleyan University.

U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and Levin signed an agreement in May 2011 to establish an ROTC unit at Yale.U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley and Levin signed an agreement in September 2011 to establish an Air Force ROTC detachment at Yale.

All are invited to attend the Friday ceremony.