The primary goals of the SATC was to produce trained soldiers and officers for both front line units, like the Infantry and Artillery, and more specialized groups like the Engineers and Chemical Warfare units. This required by military training and academic instruction. The Committee on Education and Special Training (CEST) requested that SATC members “who have completed successfully one or more years of technical study in engineering, medicine, mining, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and pharmacy to continue the advanced studies of their technical programs.”¹

The CEST did not set a standard textbook for each academic course and expected professors to “use their own judgement” when choosing textbooks.² To ensure standardized academic training across all SATC units, the CEST instead created and distributed Special Bulletins and Special Descriptive Circulars that outlined what each course should be teaching to SATC members. These were intended to serve as guides for colleges and universities, since every school could not teach every course, and were subject to change.² The CEST created five programs of study for students to choose from, with each catering to a different need in the Army or Navy.

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Term Length and Expected Placement

The CEST divided academic instruction into 12 week sections, with the first beginning on October 1 and ending on December 21, 1918.³ SATC members had military instruction for 11 hours per week and academic classes for 42 hours per week for a total of 53 hours, regardless of program. Based off of wartime experience in Europe, the CEST provided an estimated breakdown of placement of SATC members once they joined the Army:

• 60% to Infantry, Machine Gun Battalions, Field Artillery, and Heavy (Coast) Artillery
• 20% to Air Service
• 10% to Ordnance and Quartermaster Corps
• 10% to Engineers, Signal Corps, Chemical Warfare Service, and other miscellaneous specialties⁴

With the vast majority of SATC members expected to go front line specialty units such as the Infantry and Field Artillery, the CEST was preparing for World War I to continue into 1919 and anticipated continued high casualty numbers.