The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program was established in 1926 to offer certain college students the necessary naval science courses required to qualify them for commissions in the Naval Reserve. NROTC was initially established at the University of California Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Northwestern University, the University of Washington, and Yale University. The program proved highly successful and was subsequently expanded to include additional colleges and universities with the onset of World War II.
Days before the U.S. entered World War I, Yale’s Emergency War Council voted to support the interruption of undergraduate education for voluntary military service. Any student that had advanced to at least their Junior year would be given due credit for satisfactory work in the Army or Navy. Prior to World War II, nearly twenty other colleges and universities hosted NROTC units. During the War, Yale educated thousands of students enrolled in the Navy V-12 program which provided students a Yale undergraduate education while preparing them for active duty service. The Yale NROTC unit operated continuously through 1972, when the U.S. Navy and Yale did not renew their contract.
The Yale NROTC unit was re-established by a contract signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and Yale President Richard Levin on May 26, 2011. The unit began enrolling incoming freshmen and sophomores for the 2012-2013 academic year.