A few days after the United States declared war, President Brown Ayres and presidents from other colleges through the country went to Washington to offer their faculty and facilities in the service of the government. On October 1, 1918, the university passed from the hands of institutional officials to the War Department of the United States under an act of Congress that provided for the establishment of the Students’ Army Training Corps in about 550 colleges and universities throughout the nation.
UT was asked to make provision for five hundred to seven hundred men. To accommodate this many men, it was necessary to convert Old College into a dormitory and to build a large, two-story barracks for two hundred men. Jefferson Hall was also enclosed to serve as a dining hall. The men were housed in barracks and university dormitories. The purpose of the SATC was to provide coursework to men who were entering college that would help to prepare them as officers. These men would be sent from the colleges and universities to central officers’ training schools to ensure that sufficient officers were available for command. The SATC was divided into two sections: Section “A” was the academic unit, replacing the Reserve Officer Training Corps, and Section “B” was the vocational unit. UT had both Sections “A” and “B.”