Here's a response to my call to shut down West Point
from Col. Cindy Jebb, Ph.D., a professor in the social sciences department
there:
There has been a great deal of
discourse prompted by Tom Ricks's article that calls for the dissolution of West
Point. Perhaps because Mr. Ricks has
only seen a glimpse of West Point, he fails to understand the institution and
its contributions. To appreciate West
Point and its multidimensional value, one must grasp that it is much more than
the sum of its programs, its graduates, and its faculty.
I would like to provide another
voice, one with experience that Mr. Ricks lacks: West Point graduate with 27 years of service
in the Army, a PhD from Duke University, and a professorship at West
Point. Furthermore, I am the co-chair of
West Point's Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) Self Study. MSCHE is a regional, peer review commission
that accredits institutions of higher learning. Because the brightest students and the best faculty want to work at
excellent institutions, colleges and universities seek MSCHE accreditation or
its regional equivalent.
The MSCHE perspective values a
holistic approach to learning. Tom Ricks
misses much of the extraordinary work conducted around the Academy that plugs
into key offices at the Pentagon, Training and Doctrine Command, and Combatant
Commands as well. Why do these offices
seek out West Point? West Point is a
genuine academy in the classical sense. It brings together the best minds, from
all academic disciplines to forge new ways of thinking and to solve issues of
national and international importance, while simultaneously focusing on the
personal and professional development of its students and faculty.
(Read on)
West Point embraces two cultures,
academic and military, and there is a synergy that develops when an
institution, guided by the concept of Duty--Honor-Country, coalesces with the
mission to produce highly educated leaders. To do this, West Point selects the best faculty members, both civilian
and military; ensures that they excel at the best graduate school programs in
their fields; and continues to develop them professionally. Subsequently, all faculty members engage
academe through conferences, publications, and other outreach venues, and apply
that continued intellectual growth in the classroom, to academe, to army
problems, and to national issues. This
environment is unique and produces a symbiosis that cannot be duplicated
anywhere else.
The core of the professional cadre
is our rotating military faculty whom we select usually after company command
and then send them to the best graduate school programs in the world. Most receive master's degrees and some earn
PhDs, and they serve in classrooms with small groups of approximately 15
cadets, teaching, learning, and mentoring during a two or three year assignment
before returning to operational army assignments. They also pursue scholarship beyond the
master's level. They become West Point's
"second graduating class" because they leave West Point after teaching, mentoring,
and learning ready to take the reins of positions of high trust and responsibility
in the army. Civilians comprise
approximately one-fourth of the faculty and virtually all have PhDs. They serve as mentors, scholars, and teachers
as well and collaborate with their military faculty colleagues, thus enriching
the faculty experience. A third faculty
flavor are our senior military professors who have excelled as field grade
officers, earned a PhD, and have dedicated themselves to West Point, collaborating with senior
civilian faculty, to mentor cadets and
faculty, shape the curriculum, conduct outreach, and lead and govern the
institution.
Just yesterday, COL Bill Ostlund,
the Deputy Commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment visited, and he
mentioned three points that highlight the importance of an institution that
embraces both academe and the military. First, he said he gained important
credibility among Afghan tribal and religious leaders precisely because they
knew that he had taught at West Point before his arrival in Afghanistan. He was introduced everywhere as COL Ostlund,
the former professor. Second, COL
Ostlund mentioned that officers competing for assignment in the Rangers have
very similar military experiences, and many times what separated the
exceptional candidates were their academic achievements. Finally, he mentioned that good decisions
grounded in discipline, morality, and ethics determined victory more than
anything else. West Point is truly the
bedrock of our profession's moral and ethical grounding, and it is at West
Point that we embrace the axiom of choosing "the harder right, rather than the
easier wrong."
So does our nation need West
Point? The institution does more than
produce platoon leaders. It produces
strategic thinkers, which is now necessary even at the small unit level. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke's Basketball Coach,
has said that the hardest part of coaching is teaching people how to
think. West Point is driven to do just
that, that is to teach current and future leaders how to think, not what to
think.
Mr. Ricks uses dollars and cents to
measure effectiveness. How does one put
a dollar figure to such graduates as Senator Jack Reed, Coach Mike Krzyzewski,
Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Petraeus, and so many, many others? How about the non-West Point graduates who
taught at West Point such as Generals Pete Chiarelli and Kip Ward, Medal of
Honor recipient Jack Jacobs, Deputy DHS Secretary Jane Holl Lute, COL Bill
Ostlund, and again so many others? Young
men and women can be educated at many institutions of quality, and they can
prepare for service as army officers elsewhere. At many colleges and universities, faculty ponder important issues and
influence the thinking of those who lead us. And those values that make this nation a bastion of freedom are not the
invention of West Point. But nowhere
else do these values, intellectual energy, and mission of producing leaders of
character come together with such purpose.
Every day I feel at once humbled
and honored to serve at West Point, and now even more so as my son will soon
join the Long Gray Line that continues to offer this country its long held
traditions, while always out front creating new ones that reflect who we are as
a people, as a nation, and as a trusted officer corps.
Seriously, I do take her point about West Point's
"second graduating class" being the younger faculty. I've seen this in other
contexts, such as Marine boot camp, where the younger drill instructors are
molded into solid NCOs. But I get a little suspicious whenever people who are
spending the taxpayers' money tell me not to worry about dollars and cents. I
think there is an argument to be made for West Point, but it tends to be, as
here, that the value is hard to quantify.
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