Induction of the Student Army Training Corps (October, 1918)

A photograph of the induction ceremony for the Student Army Training Corps (SATC) on the Springfield College campus October 1918. Students stand in orderly rows beneath the midday sky. Away from the proceedings are a group of people observing from across the fast fading autumnal grass. Trees are full of foliage still, the ivy creeps up the side of the administration building.The SATC was formed on October 1, 1918, and the one-hundred and eight students enrolled in the program were held in barracks on campus. At Springfield College, the SATC disbanded on December 21, 1918. In April 1918, the National Army Training Detachments program was established at one hundred and fifty-seven colleges, universities, and trade schools under contract with the War Department. The program was designed to train draftees in a variety of trades needed for the war effort, and was jointly administered by the military and the university. The proposed Student Army Training Corps, according to Carol Gruber, would serve to develop “as a great military asset the large body of young men in the colleges and... [to prevent] unnecessary and wasteful depletion of the colleges through indiscriminate volunteering, by offering the student a definite and immediate military status." (Mars and Minerva 215)