Quick word: With DADT repealed, return of ROTC to Columbia is next

Yesterday, the Senate passed DADT repeal. Good.

The follow-up issue is Ivy ROTC. Immediately after DADT repeal, mainstream journalists contacted the presidents of the prestigious universities that lost ROTC during the Vietnam War about ROTC returning to their campuses. Their responses, including by President Bollinger, were promising.

Soapboxing ROTC rhetoric during the DADT era was easy. With the DADT block gone, now it gets real. The hard part for ROTC advocates is just beginning. The devil is in the details: buy-in from the needed university and military decision-makers, course credits, faculty status, campus space and facilities, recruitment, operating costs, etc., etc., etc.. A viable business model for Columbia ROTC will be key. General David Petraeus on institutional change:

Now, as anyone who has been involved in transformation knows, change can be hard. It can be challenging. And it can be frustrating. Inevitably, all institutions resist change to some degree--even when all recognize that change is needed.

Eric