Michael Sim, an Army lieutenant colonel who was previously stationed at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York, taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most recently served in Italy for NATO, has been selected to lead RIT’s Army ROTC program.
As head of the ROTC department and professor of military science, Sim is responsible for the approximately 70 Army cadets studying at RIT.
“I am thrilled to have this opportunity,” he said. “My goal is to select leaders of character who are physically strong and emotionally resilient and have a solid foundation of skills, knowledge and behaviors to lead well. Our most important weapon system is not an aircraft or a ship. We rely on young leaders to lead soldiers who win our wars. The tools we give our students will serve them for the rest of their lives.”
Sim is a native New Yorker and was studying political science and sociology at New York University when the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001.
“There was a great sense of unity back then,” he said. After completing his undergraduate degree, he began studying law and joined the ROTC.
“I’ve always had an interest in the military, but I was never really pushed to do anything related to that interest. It wasn’t until after 9/11 that the idea of serving became more important to me.”
Although he has not worked in the legal field, he greatly values his education during his studies and the profession, including that of military lawyer.
“I benefited greatly from it and wouldn’t change anything,” he said of his circuitous path to the military. “I joined the Army a few years later, but I felt better prepared for the emotional hardships that came with it.”
His military background includes deployments to the former Fort Hood in Texas (now Fort Cavazos) with one deployment to Iraq, Fort Sill in Oklahoma, and the Army’s 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum in Watertown, NY with two deployments to Afghanistan. He received his master’s degree in national defense and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College in 2018 and worked as an assistant professor of military science at MIT from 2015 to 2017.
“It gave me an insight into the teaching side of things,” Sim said. “I fell in love with teaching and being a teacher.”
In 2022, he was deployed as a planner to NATO’s Rapid Deployable Corps near Milan, Italy, where he worked on high-level exercises in a multinational staff.
He and his wife, Natalie, now call Henrietta, NY, home. He looks forward to hiking in the summer, skiing in the winter, and his new responsibilities at RIT.
“It’s exciting to see our cadets develop from brand new students to brand new lieutenants entering the Army,” Sim said. “It’s a tremendous honor.”
