J A M E S P. FA R W E L L
Through the long and varied history of the U.S. Marine Corps, one thing has remained consistent: its ability to recognize when change is needed and adapt to the situation. A significant factor that contributes to the Corps’ adaptability is the constant focus on training and education that every Marine — officer and enlisted—receives throughout the length of their career. In the 36th Commandant’s Planning Guidance, 2015, General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. highlighted how the Corps can continue to meet those changing needs: “The challenges of an increasingly uncertain, complex, and decentralized operating environment will continue to place new demands on our leaders at all levels. Our recruiting standards, manning policies, training, and education must constantly evolve to produce Marines who can meet those challenges.”1
As a Corps, we must move away from the Industrial Age educational approach of listening to a lecture, memorizing facts, and then regurgitating those facts. For Marines today, training and education must be understood as vastly different exercises of the mind and body. Marine Corps training refers to job-oriented training aimed at accomplishing the tasks associated with the military mission. It prepares us for what we know we will have to do in combat. The concept of education itself seems intuitive: learning in an academic setting. However, distinctions for our purposes must be made because education entails much more than that simple concept—it also prepares us for dealing with the unknown in combat. For our purposes here, though, higher education generally refers to a university education that qualifies the degree holder to work in a professional field. Further education generally includes postgraduate studies focused on a master’s or doctoral degree. As one of the youngest Service schoolhouses, where does that place Marine Corps University (MCU) on the degree-granting spectrum and what is our responsibility to the servicemembers who attend?
No comments:
Post a Comment