Seventeen Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen are working toward their undergraduate degrees and commissions in the Navy and Marine Corps at the newest NROTC host school — Tuskegee University.

The Tuskegee NROTC unit was approved in the summer of 2009 and immediately began to enroll students and establish a unit presence on the campus.

“We are looking forward to a long and productive relationship with Tuskegee University,” said Rear Adm. Clifford S. Sharpe, commander, Naval Service Training Command (NSTC), Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill., who directly oversees the NROTC program.


Tuskegee is now one of eight Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that host NROTC units. Although the NROTC program was established in 1926, there were no NROTC units at HBCUs until Prairie View A&M (Texas) joined in 1968.

According to Capt. Dell Epperson, Professor of Naval Science at Tuskegee University, the 17 Tuskegee NROTC midshipmen, among the more than 360 midshipmen enrolled at HBCUs across the country, have gotten off to a good start.

HBCU-hosted NROTC units have produced numerous prominent officers through the years. The first Professor of Naval Science at Florida A&M University, Benjamin Hacker, went on to earn the rank of Rear Admiral. In 2000, Hampton University commissioned the first African-American female to enter the surface nuclear power community, Renee Reynolds.

For more information about NROTC, visit https://www.nrotc.navy.mil