
Jeff
Dyche, who used to teach at the Air Force Academy, asserts so in an article
I read yesterday. At the academy, he writes, "Learning for the sake of learning
was all but anathema. ... Combine this
attitude with a faculty that may comprise a group of the least educated college
instructors in the entire country and you have the basic framework of the US
Air Force Academy."
Dyche, who now teaches
at James Madison University, adds that at the academy, it seemed to him that
academic work "took a back seat of military training, athletics, religiosity
and ... 'character building'."
I also
didn't know that all faculty members are required to be in their offices at
7:30 am, even if they have no morning classes, and that civilian faculty have
to fill out time cards every week.
When
I read articles like this I wonder why we still have military academies, if
they aren't producing officers any better than those from ROTC and OCS routes.
It seems to me that the academies are producing bright but undereducated
officers at great expense. As Dyche notes, it costs taxpayers five to ten times
more to produce a service academy officer as it does a ROTC officer.
Published on June 07, 2012 04:09