Carnegie Mellon has played a role in supporting the United States Army over the years, but there hasn’t been an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (AROTC) program on campus since 1990. (CMU does have a Naval ROTC program, which was commissioned in 1987 and includes students from CMU, the University of Pittsburgh, and Duquesne University.)
Senior Alexandre Ganten, who is a cadet in the University of Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Battalion Army ROTC, wanted to dig deeper into the background of the AROTC. The economics major, who is also pursuing minors in cybersecurity and international conflict and business administration, turned to the University Archives in order to reconstruct the history of the program at Carnegie Mellon. He connected with archivist Emily Davis, then got started with his search through years of historic materials. Goal Investigate the background of the AROTC program on campus, to better understand the context and meaning of its history.
Goal
- Investigate the background of the AROTC program on campus, to better understand the context and meaning of its history.
How We Helped
- Created detailed finding aids, or collection inventories that list the contents and what boxes they can be found in, as well as information like biographical and historical information about the content creator, key subjects, relevant organizations, and dates.
- Created and maintained the Digital Collections site, which makes primary resources available online for virtual research.
- Scanned and uploaded past issues of The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon’s student newspaper since 1906, to make campus history accessible.
Results
- Ganten published his research in the Carnegie Mellon University Journal for Politics and Strategy. The journal, sponsored by CMU’s Institute for Politics and Strategy, provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to publish their work in international relations, political science and public policy.
by Sarah Bender, Communication Coordinator