College of the Ozarks Now Requires Course in ‘Patriotic Education and Fitness’

The College of the Ozarks may well be vying for the title of America’s Most Patriotic College.

The small Christian institution in rural Missouri made headlines last month for refusing to play sports against any team whose members kneel during the performance of the national anthem. Now it’s getting attention for requiring all of its freshmen to take a new course, “Patriotic Education and Fitness.”

“The college attracts a lot of publicity because it’s so very different,” said Jerry C. Davis, who is in his 30th year as president of the 1,500-student college. “And I think it has lately because it’s willing to make a public statement about what it represents and what it thinks is best for the culture and the country.”

In requiring the new course, the college is signaling that patriotism is largely synonymous with the military, to judge from its materials. The required course debuted last year as a retooled version of previous courses in physical education and patriotism — this time, with a more-intentional emphasis on the military.

“We’ve always had some aspect of the military. Usually we try to cover rank structure and how the military is kind of organized,” said the college’s director of patriotic activities, Bryan Cizek. “We’re just getting a lot more intentional with the military curriculum.”

Students in the course will “learn map reading, land navigation, rifle marksmanship, rope systems and knots, and rappelling,” a news release says. They will also study the formation of American government and politics, military customs, task organization and courtesies, and flag protocol and procedures.

“We’re not requiring students, and we don’t expect the majority of students, to ever want to be a cadet or even join the military,” said Mr. Cizek, who added that the course can fulfill some ROTC requirements. But the college wants to introduce the idea of military service to students, he said, and give them a head start if that’s something they’re interested in doing.

No Kneeling

The college’s penchant for attracting attention is a byproduct of its uniqueness, said Mr. Davis. For example, he said, it wasn’t trying to capitalize on a hot controversy when it came out against kneeling during the national anthem. The decision was made to prevent other teams from creating a situation that would embarrass the college during tournaments that it hosts.

Although he “can’t speak to the hearts and minds” of the people who have been kneeling during the playing of the national anthem to protest racism, Mr. Davis said he believes the act is disrespectful and counterproductive to their stated goals.

Reaction to the college’s decision has been mostly positive, Mr. Davis said, aside from “a letter or two” from “people who wouldn’t like us no matter what we did.”

[[relatedcontent align="right” size="half-width”]] “Our college, given who we say we are, needs to make a strong statement about what we represent and what we’re a part of,” he said. “That was not a decision that we went out here looking for.”

Racial issues don’t figure much in the institution’s structure. While the college has vice presidents for academic affairs, vocational programs, patriotic activities, cultural affairs, and Christian ministries, it doesn’t have an administrator focusing on diversity, as many colleges do.

“We’ve never had any racial problems that I can think of,” Mr. Davis said. The student body is 93 percent white.

Instead, Mr. Davis framed diversity at the college as a matter of economics. Indeed, the college stakes out what it sees as a unique place in higher education by guaranteeing that all students who graduate will do so debt-free, with the help of campus employment and scholarships. “The way the College of the Ozarks itself represents diversity is you have to show financial need,” he said. “The target group for students is those who don’t have a lot of money, and that’s what we were founded to do.”

Patriotism as Core Value

Patriotism has been integrated into the institution in other ways. A leadership restructuring in 2015 formally assigned a senior administrator to each of the college’s five core values, which appear in a ring on the edge of the college’s logo: academic, vocational, cultural, patriotic, and Christian.

Marci Linson, then dean of admissions, took on an additional role as vice president for patriotic activities. Mr. Cizek was hired into the new position of director of patriotic activities, in which he focuses full time on patriotism.

Programs to bolster patriotism include sending students and veterans to battlefields around the world, a yearly Fourth of July blowout that draws thousands, and hosting speakers such as Gen. Colin Powell and Gen. Peter Pace.

The college also recently built a monument on its campus to Missourians who died in Vietnam, since the state didn’t have one. The college expects to break ground on a similar monument for Korean War dead in November.

“We’re trying to use our influence,” said Mr. Davis, “to remind everybody that we’re fortunate to live in this country and we all need to be reminded of whose sacrifice made that all possible.”