By Evelyn Koch in Campus News, College Days, Student Life on September 29, 2025
ROTC program will live on for Ripon students, but it comes with some changes
Ripon College President Victoria Folse announced July 9 that Ripon College’s ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) program would be discontinued. The move is occurring due to the disbanding of the Fox Valley Battalion, which includes Ripon, UW-Oshkosh, Marian University, UW-Green Bay, and St. Norbert College.
This left Ripon College starting its academic year with an empty space in the downstairs of West Hall, where the Military Science Department had been.
West Hall was the home to the Department of Military Science and some of the history still remains in the basement. Photo courtesy of Evelyn Koch
According to an NBC 26 report, the decision is the result of the Deferred Resignation Program, which was enacted by the Trump administration, and it has reduced the number of workers in the Department of Defense enough that the ROTC program would have to be cut from several colleges.
When asked about the value of the program to the college, Folse stated that it provided “an opportunity for deliberate leadership development for many of our students in addition to core curricula,” and that “for students who don’t have a clear way to finance college, ROTC had a service to receive financial support.”
According to the college’s history book on the subject, Faith and Courage, Ripon College’s ROTC program was founded in 1919 and was a large source of pride campus-wide. The book states that the organization held many campus events, had its own rifle team, and was frequently covered by the College Days and The Crimson in the 1920s and ‘30s.
Also, according to the text, the Ripon unit’s greatest strength has been its fostering of leadership skills, winning “Distinguished College” award for nearly all of the 1930s, a rare achievement for a small liberal arts school. It also has one of the highest cadet-to-general ratios of any school in the country, producing seven generals according to President Folse’s announcement.
When asked about the impact of the decision to cut the program, Folse said that it will be “a missed opportunity to cultivate a healthy respect for military service, even for students without family in it …a loss for future generations of students who would’ve chosen Ripon.”
ROTC has a rich history dating back to the 1950s, as is depicted in this plaque awarding first place to the Ripon rifle team. Photo courtesy of Evelyn Koch.
Folse also mentioned the present effect of cutting the ROTC program on the community, saying that “alumni reached out expressing disappointment and other intense emotions.” According to her, Ripon has lost two students due to the cut, and at least two freshmen expressed interest in the program.
However, just a week ago, the local NBC 26 channel reported that the chief of the U.S. Army Cadet Command announced that this planned decision to cut ROTC from 10 universities will be reversed in response to backlash from the community. According to this news report, UW Oshkosh is among these 10, meaning that Ripon College cadets – both current and future – will now be able to go through the program in Oshkosh, which will be an extension of Marquette University.
This is not the first time that Ripon’s ROTC has overcome threats of termination. According to Faith and Courage, in the 1950s and ‘60s, a quota rule by the Department of Defense and numerous failures to meet it nearly claimed the unit, and only after repeatedly pleading to the government did the college keep it alive. It was also forced to remove the basic course requirement for male students in order to save the college’s enrollment numbers. Later, the unit had to give up its independence and merge in order to avoid being cut by the government.
This merger between the former Fox Valley Battalion universities and Marquette University’s program means that Ripon’s ROTC program has once again managed to defy total discontinuation. What these sudden changes exactly entail for Ripon College cadets is still in development. Though the ROTC program may no longer be Ripon’s own, its legacy lives on.