Arms and the University Military Presence and the Civic Education of Non-Military Students

Alienation between the U.S. military and society has grown in recent decades. Such alienation is unhealthy, as it threatens both sufficient civilian control of the military and the long-standing ideal of the 'citizen soldier'. Nowhere is this issue more predominant than at many major universities, which began turning their backs on the military during the chaotic years of the Vietnam War. Arms and the University probes various dimensions of this alienation, as well as recent efforts to restore a closer relationship between the military and the university. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, Donald Alexander Downs and Ilia Murtazashvili show how a military presence on campus in the form of ROTC (including a case study of ROTC's return to Columbia and Harvard universities), military history and national security studies can enhance the civic and liberal education of non-military students, and in the process help to bridge the civil-military gap.

Part I. A Normative and Pedagogical Framework: 1. The closing of the university mind: the military/university gap and the problem of civic and liberal education; 2. Education in the regime: how a military presence can enhance civic and liberal education; Part II. ROTC and the University: 3. ROTC and the university: an introduction; 4. ROTC and the Ivies: before the storm; 5. ROTC and the Ivies: the divorce; 6. ROTC, Columbia, and the Ivy League: Sisyphus renews his quest to renew a troubled relationship; 7. Post-DADT: Sisyphus nears the top of the mountain; 8. Pedagogy and military presence: the educational influence of student-soldiers in their own words; 9. Winning hearts and minds?: The consequences of military presence for non-military students; Part III. Military History Examined: 10. Military history: an endangered or protected species?; 11. Half empty or half full?: Military historians' perspectives on the status of military history and the leading departments; 12. Military presence in security studies: political realism (re)considered; 13. Security studies in the wake of the Cold War university: paragons of productive fiction, or throwing the baby out with the bathwater?; Part IV. Concluding Thoughts: 14. Conclusion: placing the military in the university.

Arms and the University probes various dimensions of the tense relationship between the military and the university. Developing and applying a theory of civic and liberal education, this book shows how some military presence on campus can contribute to the diversity of ideas and the education of all students.

Donald Alexander Downs is Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of five books: Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community, and the First Amendment; The New Politics of Pornography; More than Victims: Battered Women, the Syndrome Society, and the Law; Cornell '69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University; and Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus. He is the co-founder and director of the Wisconsin Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin and a frequent contributor to local, state, national and international media.
Ilia Murtazashvili is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. He earned his PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his research interests include institutional design and political economy.