December 14, 2015
I’m not kidding. See page 4 of this document, fresh from Leavenworth. “Departments will monitor the attendance of their faculty” at professional development meetings. For this they got PhDs? This strikes me as a knuckle-headed way to treat a faculty that is supposed to be world-class.
There’s more. Just to make sure that Air Force, Navy and Marine officers don’t slip in some subversive information, it is mandated that “A DJIMO [department of joint, interagency and multinational ops] faculty will be in the classroom whenever a sister service student is teaching.”
And enough of that nonsense about Army officers studying ethics or understanding the media — that stuff appears to be on the chopping block. “Departments will review the need for subjects or events added over time that are not linked to a documented requirement, (examples: ethics, media panel, certain resiliency training, negotiations, contracting) and propose their elimination or a method to incorporate the pertinent subject matter into other instruction blocks.”
The inside word is that history instruction also is gonna be slashed. History is more or less bunk, after all.
Don’t worry! This document purports to be part of the plan to develop “agile, innovative and adaptive” officers.
Frankly, it looks to me like the inmates are running the asylum.
You want to improve CGSC? So do I. Here’s how: Get good faculty, give them the freedom to teach. Make sure the students know how to write — that is the first step in developing critical thinkers. Make it rigorous. Publish class rankings, top to bottom, perhaps once a month. Right now CGSC has lost its currency — no one particularly cares if you went there. If only the Army took CGSC as seriously as it takes the Ranger School.
I put a lot of effort into CGSOC and completed it entirely online. In fact I took it seriously enough that I actually spent time researching the assignments. The majority of the Officers in my unit told me to just check the block and complete the course. For my efforts I received A's in every lesson but one. By my calculations I received a 4.0. For my efforts I received an "achieved course standards" and in the comment block they stated that since I completed the course through distance learning they were unable to assess how well I fostered a climate of dignity and respect and adherence to SHARP. So what do I tell the first junior Officer that asks me how they should approach CGSOC? I now realize I should have whipped through it as quickly as possible and then spent the time I would have saved studying for a Masters. At least that would count for something.
What is it that is so outrageous about ensuring that faculty attend professional development sessions? Is it also outrageous that attendance of students is monitored/enforced? The notion that faculty--military or civilian--are lofty, Olympian figures bemuses me. And OPD out in the force is mandatory as well, and blowing it off is usually frowned on. I see nothing "knuckle-headed" at all. It's merely accountability (albeit a rather minor instance thereof.)
The insinuation that the Army is somehow paranoid about what other services might say at CGSC seems way off the mark too. Here's a fuller excerpt from the paragraph cited:
"The CGSC sister service elements do not have the resources to provide total coverage of all of the CGSOC venues or academic requirements with current TDA authorizations. As a result, the scheduling and conduct of focused classes are inconsistent and require the leveraging of students to perform as facilitators. The service elements are responsible for ensuring that student facilitators meet the lesson delivery standards. A DJIMO faculty will be in the classroom whenever a sister service student is teaching."
In other words, there aren't enough sister service faculty to cover all the relevant topics, so sister service students are compelled to pick up the slack. To ensure that these student blocks of instruction meet the standard, a Joint Ops faculty member should be on hand to monitor. That's how I read it anyway. What's the issue? It seems like a pretty reasonable QC measure to me.
As for the elimination/incorporation of ethics, and other topics, it's a debatable point, but certainly not an instance of Goths running rampant through Plato's academy as this piece seems to imagine. Over time, many topics du jour enter curricula. It makes sense--to me at least--to review them periodically and prune some and integrate others more fully into the core curriculum. One of the main points of this memo seems to be that there is a lot of "stuff" in the curriculum that is not well integrated with core warfighting study and that instruction should be aimed not simply at imparting knowledge but at creating the ability to "do." Again, it's debatable in the specifics but hardly unreasonable in general.
History classes at military schools are a problem. Historical knowledge is, of course, important, but opportunity costs must always be considered as well. Military technology is leaping forward; there is ongoing debate about the application of tactical and operational principles (e.g., counterinsurgency); and of course the ethics, media issues, etc require some consideration as well. As important as historical knowledge is, should an officer expend an elective on Thucydides or WW I on the one hand; or on the other hand, on learning more about logistics or advanced operations or Air Sea Battle (or whatever it's called now) doctrine or new C2 automation or the current Eastern European security environment? Lots of important topics and relatively little time.
I think a lot of history courses at CGSC and elsewhere are typically undersubscribed. There is (or was) a required general military history course, but it may be hard in practice to justify the number of history faculty and courses offered, given what I suspect is the low demand for many of the electives. In any case, broad-based historical knowledge is not something that can be gained over the course of 6-12 months anyway. If officers don't read history--military and general--on their own over the course of their primary schooling, undergrad years and professional career, CGSC isn't going to be able do much to address that. Let's face it: For the most part, the history that is most practically useful and interesting to most of today's officers is focused on World War II and the post-WW II period: Vietnam, Arab-Israeli Wars, counterinsurgency efforts since 1945, etc are likely to generate a lot more interest than Napoleon or even the Civil War. And that MAY justify some pruning, as unappealing as that may be for those who appreciate the value of history.
The same is true of writing. You are unlikely to change appreciably the writing style and capability of most 35 year olds in a few months, if at all, with many other things going on. And service schools should not function as remedial training facilities. If CGSC students didn't learn to write tolerably well in the 15+ years from kindergarten to college graduation, don't imagine that some miracle will occur at Fort Leavenworth. ("Teacher says, 'Every time a CGSC student learns how to write, an angel gets his wings.'")
Finally, I think the piece exaggerates the place of Ranger School in the Army. Post-Vietnam, the Ranger tab has been important for two groups: infantry officers and Ranger Regiment enlisted soldiers. Maybe the counterinsurgency focus of the last 12 years, the move of the Armor School to Fort Benning, and the use of engineer, armor and artillery units to a certain extent in infantry roles in a counterinsurgency environment has expanded the importance with which a tab is regarded outside the 11 world. I don't know. But historically, Ranger School matters to a relatively small (though obviously centrally important) part of the Army. Right now, Ranger School has high visibility because of its connection to the ongoing women-in-combat-arms issue. The supposedly significant Ranger School-CGSC contrast makes little sense to me.
Moreover, I have no idea what purpose posting CGSC class rankings could serve. (Do they do this at civilian post-grad schools?) Maybe if you added a bloc in the officer's permanent record for DG, top 1%, top 10%, top 50% rank at CGSC, so that the data would be seen at O-5 and above promotion boards, that might have some effect.
Less outrage and more thoughtful analysis of the policy document would have provided a more valuable critique of CGSC and its curriculum.
I'd say you are being rather selective and unfair in your reading.
While a little long, the document actually aims to incorporate the changes you and others have proposed to improve the course: limit the number of instructional hours (contact time), realistic reading lists, and integrated instruction. Since time is a limited resource, this demands planning and critical thinking from the faculty to make the best use of time relative to the priorities. They could do that kind of prioritization/integration in a meeting, or they could do it in front of the students.
I'm not sure what school you've been to that a PhD (or a new military faculty member) just starts doing their thing like Miles Davis without any kind of guidance, mentoring, or instruction. Correction--that DOES happen at many research universities, and abysmal teaching results.
Good teaching is built through practice, rehearsal, feedback, and professional development--not simply writing a dissertation or being "the man." Again, the document says that departments have to develop good teaching/faculty. Going to faculty development helps (both for older and younger teachers--both always have something to learn).
As for the joint officers, it is a frequent complaint that the course moves to the advanced level and out trots the joint service officer for his "101" class. These are important topics that should be fully maximized in the overall course structure, not treated as a "day off" for the rest of the team while Navy guy teaches. Again, I see this as "take an interest in what is taught, and reinforce it through the course." Not 1984.
No argument on good writing. Underemphasized to our detriment.
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