About Our Program
Thank you for your interest in joining Army ROTC! We are growing future leaders; leaders in our communities as well as for military service. We blend the Army Values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, integrity and personal courage with the Spartan Values of individual strength, collective power and extraordinary achievement. Though some of our students will serve for their professional careers, others will transition into civilian careers. We provide leaderships skills they will draw upon for their success.
Our mission is to recruit future Army leaders. Our cadets who graduate can receive commissions as second lieutenants in the United States Army, the United States Army Reserve (USAR), or the Army National Guard (ARNG). Spartan Battalion cadet training helps prepare students to serve in the Active Army, become civil servants, private business owners or become leaders in private industry. The focus is leadership, which is applicable across the spectrum of professions.
We are highly competitive amongst the ROTC Programs. The last official ranking of our program places us 12th out of the 275 programs in the Nation. We have won our brigade’s “Bold Warrior” competition six out of the last seven years and five years consecutively. We sent a team to West Point’s Sandhurst Competition and placed third out of the competing ROTC programs. These competitions focus on military tasks and teamwork – orienteering, marksmanship, physical fitness, small unit tactics, problem solving, team building, etc. They are both physically and mentally challenging competitions.
We have four extracurricular clubs:
Pathfinders – Focused on advanced orienteering and small unit leadership.
Ranger 1 – Focused on small unit tactics and leadership.
Marksmanship – Focused on rifle and pistol marksmanship skills.
Color Guard – Focused on military custom and courtesies.
We also participate in other activities:
Army 10-miler (a 10-mile race ran in Washington DC.)
German Armed Forces Proficiency Badge (GAFPB) (an individual competition conducted off-campus to earn the GAFPB award, which can be worn on the uniform.)
US Army Marksmanship Competition (conducted at Fort Benning, GA.)
Adopt a School Program (volunteer program for local elementary schools)
Cadre:
Collectively, our cadre has over 100 years of military experience. We have officers and non-commissioned officers from all three Army components. We teach our students the academics of leadership and Army service, and reinforce the academics with leadership laboratories and field training exercises. We provide mentorship to our future leaders based upon our experiences in our careers.
Cadets:
We usually have around 150-200 cadets in the program (includes all four years); but we are growing. They have various majors and extracurricular interests. They assess well during Basic and Advanced Camps; I believe it is because of the facilities we have that allow us to train our cadets in an outdoor environment. In the last two years, every cadet who wanted to serve on active duty was selected for active duty, and most got their first or second branch (filed of service – such as Infantry or Military Intelligence) choice.
Our Scholarship and Enrollment Officer is Mr. Robert Sullivan. He can assist with setting up visits, discussing other opportunities and providing additional details. In the meantime, feel free to check out our website which can provide you with more information about our program and what it means to be an Army ROTC Cadet. You can also check out our Facebook page.
Go Green!
Signed: MSU Professor of Military Science