Commissioning Ceremonies

Posted by Ted Pickerill, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

We have two NROTC Units (NROTC and AFROTC) on campus, and an Army ROTC unit which is organized through Xavier University in Cincinnati.
The Army ROTC graduates hold their commissioning ceremony at Xavier.  Both our Air Force and our Naval Units hold separate ceremonies on campus the day of Commencement. There has been consideration of combining them, but the specifics of the two ceremonies have enough differences,  that the units do not want to combine. For example, the Air Force Ceremony has more speakers than the Naval Unit’s.
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For all three units, the graduates wear their uniforms to the Universities main ceremony and we include a portion of the ceremony where the ROTC graduates come to the stage and are “commissioned” with the oath of office, led by one of our three ROTC CO’s – the specific unit rotates, and we allow the Unit CO’s to decide who it will be.  When the oath concludes, they will say something like “ladies and gentlemen, our nation’s newest military leaders” and get a huge ovation from the crowd.  Regardless of which CO leads the oath, all three are included on stage as members of the platform party.  Their invitation to the platform includes all platform events, including lunch and photos with the Commencement Speaker.