Columbia in the Nation’s Service: Warner Burke and the Education of U.S. Army Leaders

Abstract

In 1969, Columbia University banned Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) from campus. In 2004, Teachers College’s Warner Burke, a senior professor of psychology and Army officer veteran, saw an opportunity to close this civil–military gap. Burke partnered with West Point to educate West Point cadets’ primary leader developers, its 36 company tactical officers, through hosting them annually in a world-class Master of Social-Organizational Psychology. In 2010, Burke welcomed the Army Fellows program to campus, bringing in one or two senior Army officers a year to study under his mentorship. Since Burke courageously showed the way, Columbia has welcomed ROTC back to campus and now boasts the largest numbers of veteran students in the Ivy League. Most recently, Burke built a third program, this one to educate critical Army leaders who historically did not have access to elite higher education, its noncommissioned officer corps.