The last Navy program assigned to Colgate was established in July, 1944. It was V-7, an academic refresher course set up to prepare men coming directly from the fleet, in from 6 to 18 weeks, for officers’ training at midshipman’s school. Colgate was one of the three colleges participating in the program. It replaced the War Service Training program which was terminating in August. All men in it had completed at least two years of college before entering the Navy, some were graduates and a few even had master’s degrees. Their schedule included concentrated courses in mathematics, physics, engineering drawing, and English. Lt. Arthur C. Mooney was officer in charge under Lt. Commander Held. Dr. French was co-ordinator for the college until appointed Acting Dean of the Faculty when Dr. Everts succeeded him. The total enrollment for V-7 when it was decommissioned in October, 1945, was 848.
To provide entertainment for members of the units on the campus, local organizations, townspeople and faculty made available and supported a U.S.O. house, a large 1850’s mansion in the center of the village. This was the only U.S.O. center at any college participating in any services-training program. Here were found game rooms, a writing room, a piano, radio, newspapers, and magazines and in the kitchen was an old coal stove which radiated cheer as well as heat. Local ladies were hostesses and on Saturday night and Sundays served coffee, sandwiches, cookies and cake. For a time, weekly dances were held at the Student Union, with girls being brought by bus from schools and neighboring communities, and churches occasionally held “open house” affairs.
Although bluejackets and Marines decidedly outnumbered the civilian students every effort was made to keep the latter from feeling like forgotten men. There was little friction between the civilians and military as they shared classrooms, the gymnasium and other facilities and joined in sports and other activities together. Fraternity life was greatly restricted, of course, since there were so few civilian students and eleven houses were preempted for Navy quarters and the Sigma Chi house for an auxiliary infirmary. The University rented the D.U. and Theta Chi houses for dormitories for the civilians and served meals in the latter. Dr. Earl Daniels of the English Department and Mr. Edwin J. Downie, ’33, of the Mathematics Department were their advisors. Dr. Howard B. Jefferson of the Philosophy Department in
