PME: Too few civilian academics? Or too many? Here's how to get to 'just right'

By Joan Johnson-Freese

Best Defense office of saving PME

My
recent book on Professional Military Education (PME), Educating America's Military, advocates including
experienced career academics in administrative positions at the nation's war colleges,
which, currently, rarely occurs. But the October 2012 Navy Inspector General
(IG) report that resulted in the firing of the president and provost
at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) largely faulted civilian academic
administrators for the myriad issues they found there. Though these
recommendations may seem to contradict each other, I would contend otherwise.
Rather, I contend they point out unaddressed difficulties PME institutions face
while attempting to commingle two very different cultures as they aim for
ambiguous goals, thus setting up circumstances that consistently lead towards
extremes, rather than getting it "just right."

There
are important differences between war colleges and the NPS. Admiral James
Stavridis stated his view on war college goals in his 2011 convocation speech
at the National War College. "I knew what I was good at...but also sensed what I
did not know or understand well: global politics and grand strategy; the
importance of the ‘logistics nation'; how the interagency community worked;
what the levers of power and practice were in the world -- in essence how
everything fits together." The goal of the war colleges should be to educate
students in the areas beyond their comfort zones, to broaden their horizons
from largely technical and operational backgrounds. The NPS, on the other hand,
offers graduate technical degrees in areas such as engineering and
oceanography. According to the IG report, more than 42 percent of entering
students have a background in liberal arts. Faculty composition is an important
ramification of this difference. Whereas war college faculties can be and are
significantly populated by individuals, including active duty and retired
military officers, with little or no academic background in areas they teach,
it is more difficult to bluff your way through teaching an engineering course
than it is a history or economics course. To accomplish their mission, the NPS
inherently needs and is therefore dominated by, a higher percentage of civilian
academics.

But
what are their missions?

Here
is where similarities between problems found by the IG and problems I cover in
my book converge. The number one recommendation in the IG report is: "That
SECNAV determine the mission, function and task of NPS." Likewise, on page two
of my book, I question if: "War College goals are clear, and whether
articulated goals are then supported by practices and processes at those
institutions." The military wants a highly technical-educated officer corps;
Congress, through the Goldwater-Nichols Act, requires that officers be educated
for "intellectual agility." All schools must constantly demonstrate "relevance"
or risk being seen as low-hanging fruit in budget battles -- which means they
are constantly expanding their missions and programs -- and all education
programs are to be executed at breakneck speeds to get valuable officers back
into operational billets, with no failures. The IG report references education
as being seen as "a pump and not a filter" part of the NPS's mission.
Throughput drives all PME institutions, as the graduation rates at the war
colleges are near 100 percent, and the Santa
Cruz Sentinel reported a similar rate of 98 percent at the NPS.

A
shift in the NPS 2008 Strategic Plan, toward research, and an apparent coup of
civilian academics over pushed-aside military officers was determined to be at
the heart of the NPS's issues. The IG report documents flagrant violations of
regulations in the use of government funds, and states the NPS prioritized
research over teaching. But who are these "civilians"? The president was a
retired Navy vice admiral. Civilians come in many different varieties,
including retired military, practitioners with no academic experience, and
academics with administrative experience and those without administrative
experience. A civilian academic is not simply someone not in uniform, or with a
doctorate, and broad-brush blame seems to serve little constructive purpose.

While
career academics are notoriously bad administrative managers -- preferring to
focus on their disciplines -- their expertise is critical in providing students
a valuable educational program. I argue that just as pilots are certainly
included in designing and executing pilot training programs, and doctors in
military medical programs, experienced, career academics similarly ought to be
included in PME academic administration, including curriculum design and
delivery, as well as hiring and promotions. But academics are product oriented,
frustrating the military which is process oriented. Nevertheless, the two
cultures must work together. If they don't, it can result in -- as suggested in
both my book and the IG report, quoted here -- an organization operating
"neither as a Navy command nor the universities it strives to model itself
after."

Apparently
the NPS president was isolated from those who could advise him on process
violations by layers of administrative bureaucracy, created by the ham-fisted
civilians to push aside the hapless military officers. (That the military
officers would allow that to occur seems curious and raises other questions.)
While I have no basis for comment on the intent of the administrators running
interference between the president and his staff (the IG, the JAG), I have no
doubt about its existence. Administrative bloat is an issue that needs
attention at all PME institutions. Too often, these positions are created as
rewards for those considered "team players" by PME power holders, of whatever
variety.

The
IG report succinctly points out the tensions that exist between military and
academic cultures, and it's about time. A war college civilian colleague
recently conveyed an exemplary story. He had used the word "tension" to
describe relations between civilian and military (retired, in this case)
faculty in a meeting and was pulled aside afterward, and censured for such. It
doesn't exist, according to "team players." Tension, however, can be useful if
managed correctly. In fact, this military-civilian tension is the innate
advantage any war college possesses to fulfill the likes of legacies such as
Luce, Mahan, Spruance, and Turner.

Faculty
at PME institutions must live by DOD and service rules. Most individuals I know
fully understand that, but problems arise when policies are ambiguous, with
rules arbitrarily imposed depending on leadership desires and the legal officer
in place at any given time. I was once told by a legal officer that legal
officers take one of two positions: that it is their job to find legal ways for
individuals to accomplish their mission, or that it is their job to say "no" to
any question or request as a default position, to protect the organization. The
person telling me that readily (and proudly) admitted she took the latter
approach. Having worked at three PME institutions I have experienced the same
rules interpreted different ways within and between institutions -- with one
legal officer telling me that something for which I had written approval to do
in a different PME institution he considered illegal, and threatened legal
action.

The
irony of the IG report is that it assumes a cut-back in research emphasis will
result in more attention to teaching. But the need to graduate officers quickly
and easily -- the "pump, not filter" issue -- is not entirely or even primarily
a function of research being prioritized over teaching. In PME, the issue is
largely one of students being "too big to fail."

Also
noted in the IG report is that many NPS faculty are tenured, with the
implication that job security gave them the ability to ride roughshod over the
military. It is certainly true that faculty without tenure at other PME
institutions would be unlikely to challenge policies. In fact, faculty, typically
on three- or four-year contracts, become too cowered to challenge anything,
including the pressure to be a pump, not a filter. Tenure policies can vary
dramatically between and even within PME institutions. The Air War College had
tenure, dropped it, reinstated it, and then dropped it again, giving those on
tenure-track contracts the draconian choice of foregoing tenure or receiving a
one-year contract. Rules can change quickly, often, and opaquely.

The
IG report raises important issues. Some can be fixed by organizational process
changes. I fear, however, that rather than comprehensively addressing the
institutional problems, a knee-jerk reaction will follow to demonstrate
activity in addressing the multitude of recommendations made, likely to include
some activity with counterproductive results. Already, I'm told, consideration
has been given to requiring each and every faculty presentation or potential
publication to go through a substantive review process -- one that goes beyond
checking for security violations, which is within regulatory purview but
irregularly required -- though there is no office at the NPS capable of doing
so in a timely manner. That will present a very real chill on the faculty's
ability to act as a faculty.

Overreaction
has already set in. Ostensibly in reaction to some small number of groups/organizations
holding or paying for conferences at what the Navy considered exorbitant rates,
Naval War College faculty wishing to attend any conference or workshop must now
get approval external to the institution. Inattentiveness or lack of personnel
to process these requests for approval has already resulted in faculty,
including myself, having professional trips cancelled. In my case it was a trip
to attend a meeting of the Space Studies Board of the National Academy of
Sciences, funded by that organization. I took vacation time to attend. Another
chill on a faculty regularly acclaimed as "world class." This seems
inconsistent with General Dempsey's white paper on education to "attract and
maintain civilian and military faculty members who are among the very best and
brightest of their contemporaries." Creating pre-publication review processes
and erecting hurdles to academic conference participation guarantees to
undermine the chairman's goal.

The
tensions inherent in trying to kluge together two very different cultures can
be managed, but requires acknowledgement of legitimate perspectives on both
sides and a clearly stated mission. Denial and quick fixes help no one, not the
students who attend these institutions, nor the nation that pays for their
extended scholarships.

Joan Johnson-Freese is
a professor and former department chair at the Naval War College. She is the
author of Educating America's
Military (Rutledge, 2013). The
views expressed here are strictly her own.