The Defense Department announced Wednesday that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Virginia Tech will be the first universities selected to host a new fellowship program for senior military officers, replacing partnerships that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth severed with elite Ivy League schools.
The two schools will participate in the Senior Service College Fellowship, a 10-month professional military education program. Additional university partners are expected to be announced at a later date, the Pentagon said.
Hegseth, who holds degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Kennedy School, moved earlier this year to bar senior military officers from attending graduate programs at several top universities, including Harvard, Brown, Princeton and Yale. He called those schools “woke breeding grounds of toxic indoctrination.”
“We demand that senior service colleges work to sharpen our war fighters on genuine national security issues, not social justice activism,” Hegseth said.
Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of war for personnel and readiness, said the overhaul is designed to better prepare officers for actual conflict.
“The Department of War is revitalizing professional military education to ensure that our warfighters are prepared to achieve peace through strength,” Tata said in a statement.
UNC-Chapel Hill traces its military roots to its founding by Revolutionary War commander William Richardson Davie. The school currently serves roughly 1,200 military-affiliated students, more than 1,300 military dependents, and 150 ROTC cadets and midshipmen. Three former presidents have ties to the program: Gerald Ford served as an instructor there, George H.W. Bush trained as a cadet, and Ronald Reagan visited as a celebrity performer.
Virginia Tech has required military training since its founding in 1872. Officers from all military branches are expected to participate at the Blacksburg campus.
“We are deeply honored to participate in the Senior Service College Fellowship program,” UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee H. Roberts said. “The program fits well within the context of our mission of service, and we take tremendous pride in our deep, longstanding relationship with the United States military.”
The move reflects Hegseth’s broader push to reorient the military away from progressive academic environments and toward institutions with demonstrated commitments to national service. Critics have pushed back, but the Pentagon has so far pressed ahead with the overhaul.
