The Great War had shown that the U.S. Navy couldn't meet the demands for officers during a rapid expansion of the force; an experiment with a three-month cram course called the “Midshipman School” was not very effective. The force needed a cadre of trained and experienced officers, larger than could be produced by the Naval Academy alone, ready to go but held in reserve.
Therefore, the Navy moved to emulate the successful college-level Army Reserve Officers Training Program (ROTC)—which provided classroom and some field military training roughly equivalent to, although not as intense as, that offered at West Point. The Navy set up six Naval ROTC units, at Northwestern, Yale, Harvard, Georgia Tech, the University of Washington, and the University of California (UC) at Berkeley. The program began in the fall semester of 1926, with Nimitz as the first professor of naval science at Berkeley. He was assisted by Lieutenant Commander Ernest Gunther and four chief petty officers.
There was a bit of irony in this assignment, and some personal discomfort. Here he was, a 41-year-old Navy commander, who not only lacked a college degree (not granted at Annapolis until the class of 1933) but hadn't even graduated high school. Now he was ranked as a full professor and dean of his department in an environment where advanced degrees and earned status counted for everything.
There were some touchy moments. At a staff meeting, the head of the department of astronomy learned that Nimitz planned to teach a class on nautical astronomy, a key element in the education and training of any naval officer. He complained—loudly—that this was an invasion of his professional domain. Nimitz quietly asked if the professor might be willing—as he was far more qualified—to take over this course? The professor agreed. Thus, the Department of Naval Science was able to shift a small responsibility off to another department, freeing up time to address other subjects. Over time, jealousies evaporated as Nimitz slowly gained the confidence of the rest of the faculty and was invited to serve on the university's faculty promotion board and new-faculty search committee.
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