The university’s ROTC program has been ranked No. 12 in the nation by a Washington Monthly magazine report.

The magazine evaluated a pool of 258 colleges in several categories and ranked ROTC programs “by percentage of students who serve in ROTC,” according to its Web site.

Kevin Carey, policy director for Education Sector, the nonprofit that helped collect the national data, said the fairest way to rank colleges was by the percentage of the total student population in the ROTC program. Carey said that information was the only publicly available data provided by the colleges that could be used for comparison. Carey said 1.7 percent of the university’s population is in ROTC.

Lt. Col. John Agor, professor of military science, said the program has more than doubled over the past five years from 50 to 60 cadets to a current total of 176. The program also counts with the participation of a few additional cadets from Tarrant County College not included in that number.

“The ranking shows that we’re a big part of the TCU community,” Agor said.

Annie Hawes, a senior nursing major, said she has seen the program grow exponentially since her freshman year. She said the ranking is a reflection of the increased recruitment and retention efforts put into the program by the instructors.

“That’s a pretty big accomplishment seeing as how we’re such a small school with such a large number of participants in the program,” Hawes said.

Bruce Jasurda, chief marketing officer for the U.S. Army Accessions Command and TCU alumnus, said the ranking was impressive. He said the program’s growth can be attributed to the strength of its leadership.

“Lt. Col. John Agor is one of our best,” Jasurda said. “He gets the program and he gets what the program offers students.”

Jasurda, who supervises all of the Army’s recruiting, advertising and marketing programs,said the university has one of the most successful ROTC programs in the country.

“The program has grown by leaps and bounds,” he said. “It’s gotten very broad acceptance with the students attending TCU, and it’s going to be the Army’s challenge to grow with that enrollment to make sure that we have the right resources.”

Jasurda said he feels proud of his university and the ROTC on campus. The challenge for the university now is how to respond, he said.

“We’ll always have room for quality students who want to be part of the Army ROTC program, and our challenge is to figure out how we manage that growth,” Jasurda said.

The top three schools were Florida Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University and Clarkson University in New York.

ROTC Enrollment

2004 – 70 cadets

2005 – 63 cadets

2006 – 73 cadets

2007 – 91 cadets

2008 – 124 cadets

2009 – 176 cadets