In 1918, the Army created a branch of the Students’ Army Training Corps, SATC, at  the Columbia campus to prepare students to serve in France. According to Columbia at War, published1918. “2,500 men took the oath of allegiance to the flag amid stirring scenes on the Mall in front of the [Low] Library.”

Columbia was one of twelve universities designated by the War Department to create a naval section of SATC. More than three hundred students passed through the program and were deployed as naval officers.