- With the outbreak of World War I, the University Council appointed a Committee on Military Instruction which authorized the teaching of military science and tactics. A university corps was organized in the fall semester of the 1914-1915 year with 64 students taking extra classes to qualify as officers. On March 1, 1915, the Canadian Officers Training Corps (C.O.T.C.) of the University of Manitoba was established. Eight companies of 60 men of all ranks were formed with Professor E.P. Fetherstonhaugh as captain and adjutant. In 1915, the Western Universities Battalion was formed with the University of Manitoba contributing one company and one platoon. With the introduction of conscription legislation in 1917, military training was made compulsory for all male students. After the First World War, the C.O.T.C. program was reorganized, in 1920, by Lt. Col. N.B. Maclean, but it continued in relative obscurity for almost twenty years. With the outbreak of World War II, the C.O.T.C. was quickly revitalized and its membership mushroomed, from its peace time level of 150 to 800. The Senate also passed regulations relating to academic credits or bonuses for students who joined the C.O.T.C. By 1942, all male students were once again required to enlist in a compulsory programme of military training. The C.O.T.C. continued the work of military training on a voluntary basis after World War II with new modernized and attractive programmes, but with the return of peace its popularity rapidly declined.
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Archives & Special Collections
Archives & Special Collections is a department of the Libraries and is located in Room 330 on the third floor of the Elizabeth Dafoe Library. Since its establishment in 1978, the Archives' mission has been to acquire, catalogue and preserve university records and special research collections which further the educational aims of the University of Manitoba, and to promote and provide wide access to them. The Archives' wide-ranging collection mandate includes the acquisition of the records of the University of Manitoba, Canadian Prairie Literary Manuscripts, the Archives of the Agricultural Experience and rare books in the areas of western Canadiana, early Arctic exploration, early Native language syllabics, spiritualism, church history and philosophy, and agriculture among others.