“The justification of a university is to be found in the service which it gives to the nation” — Dr. Charles Seymour, president of Yale University (1937-1951).

AS WE CELEBRATED the diverse and robust graduating classes last spring at local commencement ceremonies, there was one demographic conspicuously absent from Brown University’s august affair. For the third year in a row there was not a single graduate from the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program. In other words, of the last 9,000 Army ROTC officers commissioned at the various institutions of higher learning across America, there was not a single Brown-educated candidate.

What that means to the Brown legacy is that 25 years from now, Brown will not be relevant in shaping the most senior leadership of our largest military branch of service. There will not be a Brown equivalent of Gen. David Petraeus or Gen. Colin Powell.

Although Brown has not had a resident ROTC program since the Navy ROTC program left, in 1972, Brown students have always been eligible to participate in the cross-town Army ROTC program at Providence College since 1955. In the past this has been a very successful partnership, producing more than 190 Brown Army officers over the past 50 years. Unfortunately, the decline in Brown University student participation over the last 15 years has been staggering.

The core problem lies in the extremely exclusionary nature of Brown University undergraduate-admissions process. To produce future Army officers, you need to first admit them as freshmen to your institution. Army ROTC four-year scholarship recipients apply for the ROTC program right out of high school. With an admissions rate of only 14 percent at Brown, Army ROTC four-year-scholarship candidates are systematically overlooked (either by coincidence or by design). The last successful four-year Army ROTC scholarship recipient admitted to Brown University was in 1996. He went on to graduate and be commissioned as an Army officer in 2000. Since then Brown has produced only three Army ROTC officers despite graduating more than 12,800 students over this same period. In addition, none of these students were admitted as freshmen Army ROTC scholars.

Consequently, without an established goal or stated policy to protect this minority population, Army ROTC scholars are indiscriminately eliminated. Therefore the current downward trend in Brown student-body participation is expected to continue indefinitely. Given that the current president of Brown University, Dr. Ruth Simmons, has refused to meet with either the Army ROTC program director at Providence College or even the U.S. Army cadet command commander, Major Gen. W. Montague Winfield, concerning this matter during her tenure, it demonstrates that the highest levels of leadership at Brown are unconcerned with the plight of their Army ROTC students and that they do not want to improve the situation.

To add insult to injury, the majority of the Army ROTC four-year scholarship applicants denied admission to Brown over the last three years have possessed the school’s basic admissibility standards. However, without a demographical attribute to identify them as a desired market segment they become lost in the crowd. This is why Brown needs to establish an admission policy that will secure the inclusion of Army ROTC scholars in the Brown University undergraduate population at least at a level commensurate to the percentage resident in the nation’s general university population. Currently there is only one cadet in the program attending Brown. He was admitted to Brown during his sophomore year as a transfer student.

However, according to Brown University’s Academic Enrichment Web site: “Achieving academic excellence requires a commitment to diversity. Students educated in diverse environments have been found to learn better, to deal with complexity more readily, and to emerge with a greater understanding of how to participate productively in a pluralistic society. We hope to make Brown even more of a leader in the national effort to manage and learn from the rich diversity of the nation and the world.”

Unfortunately, this academic environment does not allow for the equal inclusion of those wishing to serve America in its military. Currently, less than 0.4 percent of the U.S. population is serving in any capacity in the U.S. Army, as a member of the Active or Reserve components.

Brown should desire that this under-represented minority also be reflected in its student population. To do this, Brown needs to reserve at least 2-3 seats every year for Army ROTC scholars in its entering freshman class. This would ensure that Brown could consistently produce a minimum of 1-2 officers a year. Given Brown’s overall undergraduate population of more than 6,400 students, this would not be a very arduous commitment.

The policy would be in keeping with the university’s current diversity objectives and might move Brown out of last place among its peers in the Ivy League for Army ROTC enrollment. It is the duty of all institutions of higher education (both public and private) to equally share in the mission to educate the future leaders of the nation’s military. As Brown’s total ROTC population has dwindled to a lone cadet, I would have to emphatically argue that Brown is derelict in this duty.

Paul C. Dulchinos, of Barrington, is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and a former Providence College professor of military science.