Act 1: A Chair of a Program
As I returned to West Point, I learned several things:
- An academy professor position had opened in the department. This is the Army equivalent of tenure. If selected, I would spend the remainder of my time in the Army at West Point and my branch would change from Signal Corps (25) to Academy Professor (47D) – one of the smallest branches in the Army. These positions are very competitive with 30-50 highly qualified applicants.
- I was assigned as the information technology program director with responsibility for the IT program including the West Point core class, CS105 Introduction to Programming.
- West Point had started a once a decade review of the core curriculum and had decided to add a second information technology program to the core curriculum, CS305. Thus, my team and I would have to build the course from scratch.
Academy Professor
The competition for the Academy Professor position was fierce due to the high quality of the applicants. Many of the applicants were more experienced and outranked me. I was certain of this as many of them were my friends, colleagues, and people I admired. It was pretty high stress as evidenced by a highly qualified applicant who walked into the closet as opposed to the exit door as he exited an interview. Just as in civilian academia, tenure is life changing. In the end, I was fortunate to be selected as a young Academy Professor. Implicit with the selection, I was promoted to Associate Professor in a similar manner to civilian universities. I had the equivalent of military tenure at West Point. What was I going to do with it? As time would tell, a lot.
Information Technology Program
Being assigned as the program director for the information technology program was awesome. I got the a core course, several interesting electives, and about half of the computer science faculty would work for me. The eight-week New Faculty Development Workshop would be my responsibility so I could influence the teaching approach in the department. Finally, there is something special about teaching the first programming class to every student attending West Point. After listening intently and acting intentionally over the course of the first semester, the team and I started to make changes and learn.
One of the more interesting research projects was exploring student perspectives and experiences learning their first programming language. Like many other programs at this time, we were using Java as the first language. It is an objected-oriented language which requires somewhat advanced understanding (eg streams and pipes) to do simple things like print. We saw a lot of syntax errors and student befuddlement on the resulting error messages that the compiler generated. From the student perspective the error message read:
Error 8: Missing semicolon somewhere in the world. Figure it out.
Cadet perspective of common Java compiler errors
To exacerbate the situation, this is West Point and the introduction to programming class was tough. The final project was programming a real robot with real sensors to navigate and maze. This is a very difficult task for even experienced programmers as you have to deal with a lot of uncertainty and maintain state information. Your code had to be efficient. My novice programmers had to write a 300 line program to effectively control their robots which was daunting.
Experienced professors knew (or thought they did) where the students would experience difficulty and would focus on those areas. We tried sharing that wealth of knowledge with the new faculty and generated a top 10 list of cadet programming errors but that did not work. We were missing something.
At this point, Rusl Flowers, Jim Jackson and I did something unusual. Rusl wrote a Java compiler specifically for teaching CS105 with more informative and hand-crafted error messages (some of which were pretty sarcastic) to assist cadets in addressing syntax errors. He also built in extensive logging so that we could capture the frequency of programming errors. We learned that the faculty were right about 50% of the time on the areas cadets were having difficulty. Having real data to student difficulties in programming assignments was transformative. Crafting error messages for a novice programmer was similarly impactful. We shared what the real top 10 programming errors were and we were about to significantly improve teaching and student success in the course.
One of things I really liked about West Point and the technology program is we developed assessments for all sections of a course jointly and we graded those courses jointly. For final exams, we did not go home until about 550 exams were graded and entered into the student information system. This minimized wide differences between different sections of the same course. Having visited and observed more than fifty universities, this process appears to be quite rare.
The department was able to secure some additional space and the decision was made to move the technology program into the new space. We created a bullpen area for active collaboration and mentorship of the junior faculty who worked in the information technology program.
Another cultural aspect of teaching at West Point that I really liked was the formal coordination between a course director and its prerequisite courses directors. This minimized assumptions about what was being taught in supporting classes and built bridges between courses so that they were integrated. Related to this, major assignments between all core courses were deconflicted. I will pause for you to climb back into your chair. Yes, West Point deconflicted major assignments so that they were spread over time and the academy did not unintentionally crush cadets.
More than the Information Technology Program
After a couple of years as the information technology program chair, I added the information systems courses to my portfolio. This was a collaboration between between the department of electrical engineering and computer science, department of behavioral science, and the department of systems engineering. Leadership rotated every year between the departments. It expanded my leadership portfolio and exposed me to jointly offered programs. There was a little bit more politics but only a little bit more. Each department saw the information systems major in a different perspective and how it contributed to the parent department. We made modest but positive progress during my year leading the initiative by finding middle ground between computer science and systems engineering. Behavior Sciences was more interested at stability and the status quo.
It would set the stage for me learning an important political lesson. Organizational resistance to change is normal. That resistance to change, however is not uniform across the organization. In military terms, there is go terrain, no go terrain, and slow go terrain. In terms of organizational resistance to change terrain map:
- Go Terrain: Some parts of the organization are ready to innovate and move forward. Work with them.
- Slow Go Terrain: Some parts of the organization are hesitant to innovate but you can move together forward incrementally and should. Work with them if you have capacity. Nudge them towards Go Terrain.
- No Go Terrain: Some parts of the organization are so resistant to innovate that it is not worth the political cost to innovate. Spending political chips on no go terrain is frustrating at best and political suicide at worst.
Of course, different initiatives and projects have different value to the organization. You have to balance the organizational resistance to change terrain map with the strategic value of the initiatives to the organization. That is the calculus of organizational leadership.
Run when you can, walk when you can’t run, ignore the swamp and always move forward.
This perspective has served me well in subsequent leadership positions.
Modifying the Core Curriculum
The core curriculum at most universities is decades old and based on the influence of the Prussian model of education. Given most changes to the core curriculum are win-lose and shift power and revenue at universities, changes to the core curriculum are incredibly rare. Through good luck or bad, I have experienced two core curriculum changes.
West Point reviewed its core curriculum in 2000 and decided to add a new core course in information technology. It was to be IT305 , Advanced Information Systems. I was to build it with a core director I would select. I also needed to build a political consensus on the course across the academy as not everyone was convinced West Point needed a second course in information systems or technology. This would be politically sensitive.
COL Gene Ressler, COL Steve Ressler, COL Gary Krahn provided sage advice on navigating the political landscape and the background on the decision so that core course could be built in alignment with intent. It was to be a course that taught all graduates how network systems work by having the students build a client server architecture. This would be very challenging as this would be a core course where students of all majors take the class. The diversity of the students and difficulty of the course material would provide a real challenge and require exceptional course design leveraging all of the skills that the yet to be determined course director and I possessed.
Not surprisingly, there was significant competition to be the course director for the new core course. There were two really viable candidates and while it was close, I selected MAJ Douglas Wolfe to be the course director.
Doug, Joe Puett, I and the other professors assigned to teach IT305 built the first version of the course. Teaching how to do the client side interaction was straightforward and built upon their previous experiences in the freshman programming class. Teaching the server component was more difficult but manageable by non majors. Teaching the database component was the most difficult part. We scaffolded this learning because ultimately, we did not care if they could program. We wanted them to be able to critically think and understand the implications of building a network based system. While successful, no course is static and empowered through student feedback, we continued to improve the course.
It is interesting to revisit the Military Academy twenty years after the introduction of a second core course in information technology. There are still two core courses in information technology but they focus now on cybersecurity. It seems appropriate given the current cybersecurity environment and demonstrates that the United States Military Academy continues to evolve its core curriculum to meet the needs of future military officers.
Act 2: A CIO of an Academic
After an additional year as the Information Technology and Information Systems Program Chair, COL Don Welch announced his retirement and the role academic associate dean for information technology would become available. The position reported to Brigadier General Dan Kaufman, the Dean of the Academic Board.
At this time, there were three chief information officers at West Point and they all worked independently of each other:
- Chief Information Officer, G6: The G6 reported to the Superintendent (university president), had a staff of 12, and a budget of about $1 million. His or her responsibility was to set technology policy for West Point.
- Director of Information Management (DOIM): Every Army installation has a DOIM and they provide standard technology services for every installation. Of course, the technology needs of a national university like West Point far exceeded what a standard DOIM could provide.
- Associate Dean for Information Technology: The Associate Dean handled the needs of West Point beyond a standard military installation. With a budget of about $40 million and a large staff, the Associate Dean provided all the services and technical leadership the faculty, students, and staff needed to run West Point.
Just like the Academy Professor position, the competition for the Associate Dean position would be keen. Just like many opportunities in my life, I would be very junior compared to other applicants. For me, it was the best fit for my leadership and talent at West Point. I believe that became apparent throughout the interview process one afternoon, BG Kaufman asked me to his office, conducted a last interview, and offered me the position. I readily accepted and got to work.
The relationship between the G6, DOIM, and Associate Dean was professional and similar to what Rick Howard and I encountered back in the early 1990s. Each organization did their own thing. I worked to build relationships with LTC Bill Philbrick and the G6 and at the end of the day, we all three became friends and allies in advancing the Military Academy. There are several vignettes from my time as academic CIO.
Trust, Technology, and Advancing Education
The fabled Goldcoats were one of the organizations reporting to me. They were responsible for helping the cadets and repairing their computer systems. We implemented a system guaranteeing same day repair of cadet computers, a loaner system while it was being repaired, and a supporting system through which cadets or faculty could check on the status of any repair. While this seems like a customer success engagement, it had an academic cultural impact. The faculty came to trust that the students would always have an operational computer and changed their courses to take advantage of the computers. Over the next couple of years, a number of final exams moved to using computers as a component of the assessment because the professors could trust that every single student would have an operational computer.
World’s First Active Phishing Training
Like other organizations, West Point struggled with phishing attacks. We tried several different approaches to address all of which failed. In desperation, Aaron Ferguson, Ron Dodge and I built a system to do active phishing training. We published the first paper in the world on the approach and had we been smart, we would have patented the approach. It was a very effective approach at West Point.
Raising Funds
About a third of my budget came from harvesting unused funds about to expire Armywide. We starting building contracting vehicles 2 months ahead of the end of the fiscal year all of which could be executed almost instantaneously. With a governmental spending model of spend it or lose it, we were the Army’s preferred account within 72 hours of the end of the fiscal year and received tens of millions of dollars every year because we built a reputation for preparing and executing flawlessly.
It was also during this time that I started visiting the Pentagon to attempt to convince the budget managers and technocrats that my annual budget was too low. I was successful and had our technology budget doubled. I was not aware of it at the time, but I seem to have a knack for increasing technology budgets and innovating. This increasing funding significantly has occurred in all three of my technology roles as described in other portions of this website.
Computers R Us
My unit handled issuing 1,100 computers to the incoming freshman in one day. This was typically done in one or more sally ports in the barracks area with several semitrucks trailers full of new computers. All of the computers had to be operational by the end of the day. This computer purchase was fiercely competed for by IBM and Dell. While competitive, Dell won every year I was academic CIO. Both companies confided that they were willing to take a loss to win this contract.
Towards the end of my time as academic CIO, I became eligible for promotion to Colonel. Because I was an academy professor I knew the five folks eligible and knew there was only one Colonel promotion that year. I was not the most senior as it was my first look. I was again fortunate and was selected for my last promotion to Colonel. I was thrilled to have BG Pat Finnigan, the Dean of the Academic Board, as the promoting officer.
Act 3: A Vice of a Dean
When BG Kaufman retired in 2006, both of his Vice Deans (COLS Barney Forsythe and Stas Preczewski) decided to retire as well. Both had been strong supporters and both encouraged me to apply to be the Vice Dean for Education. In a civilian university, this would be the equivalent of a Senior Associate Provost. The Vice Dean for Education was a Professor, United States Military Academy position (PUSA) or in Army vernacular, a 47A position. There were subtle differences between a PUSA and my position as a 47D. The 23 PUSA positions are established by congressional law, serve until age 65 (normal Army retirement rules do not apply), have some autonomy from the regular Army, and at their retirement ceremony, are promoted to Brigadier General. I applied, competed for the position, and was one of the three finalists. My longtime friend, Dan Ragsdale, was selected as the Vice Dean for Education.
After the announcement, BG Pat Finnegan asked me to his office and offered me the position of Vice Dean for Resources, responsible for human resources, finance, facilities, information technology, and research for the academic program. I foolishly told him no. He reminded me that he was a general officer and normally the word Sir is in any response. I added the word sir and reminded him I could retire at any time. He said his wife Joan would talk with me and she did. I agreed to serve until BG Finnegan retired in 2010. I served until May 2010 and BG Finnegan retired in June 2010. In retrospect, it was a great assignment and I am forever indebted to BG Finnegan for believing in me for a strategic leadership position at West Point.
Tightly Coupled Leadership
BG Finnegan met with the Vice Deans (Carver, Lauderman, and Ragsdale) daily at 0800. Dan went first and is gifted by the gift of gab. Kent and I were typically more concise, focused and less entertaining. As a result, BG Finnegan let Dan talk as long as he wanted to. Some days there were missions that needed to be accomplished immediately and we determined who was do what to whom. Some days everything was moving along normally and we could focus on more strategic endeavors to advance the Academy. This tightly coupled leadership is common in the military and much less common in academia.
Neither Athens nor Sparta
In 1979 John Lovell published a book entitled, “Neither Athens nor Sparta: The Service Academies in Transition“. It is a good read and succinctly summarized the tension between the academic, military and physical programs at West Point. We had to balanced the Army’s immediate needs during a time at war (skills) with planting the seeds that would address the long term needs of the Army (critical thinking and developing habits of the mind). Different leaders have different perspectives on where that balance point is so this was an active discussion at West Point.
Funding went to the academic, military, or physical program based on those different perspectives. Aside from those developmental domains, there was also an active discussion between the traditionalists who worked to uphold the academic rigor and traditions of the Military Academy and the modernists who were open to new technologies and learning approaches. Occasionally BG Finnegan and the Vice Deans would have to intervene when the traditionalist or modernists went too far. I will give you two examples:
- The Department of History viewed themselves as guardians of the academic reputation of the Academy and the freshman history course had a heavy reading requirement of 50-200 pages of reading per lesson. This is fine. What was not fine was the first assessment (which indicated course rigor) was not until after ten weeks in the course or 3,750 pages of required reading (on average). By the point, it was impossible for students make adjustments or recover from a poor performance and not surprisingly, the course had a very high D/F grade rate. BG Finnegan intervened over the howls of protest claiming academic freedom, academic rigor, and the traditions of the Academy. The midterm was moved to prior to eight weeks and the D/F grade rate lowered to indicate a more reasonable course.
- The Department of Physical Education viewed themselves as educators of physical courage. In addition to the water confidence course, they amplified the required swimming class to include a jump off a 40 foot tower, swim across the length of the pool in full gear with simulated storm conditions, and made it a graduation requirement. The assertion was this was a test not of swimming but of physical courage and all Army officers should have physical courage. There are a plethora of reasons why this is a really bad decision. Let me list them for your consideration:
- Face Validity: The requirement was more difficult that the swimming requirements of the Naval Academy or Coast Guard Academy. What?
- Graduation Requirement: How is jumping off a 40 foot tower in a storm in full gear any measure of success as an Army officer?
- Duplicity: West Point already has a challenging water confidence course. What is this focus on swimming? Shouldn’t we have a focus on say, hiking, as opposed to swimming?
- Blatant Discrimination: Not surprisingly, those cadets, say African-Americans, from an urban setting who did not know how to swim struggled the most with this requirement while kids like me who could swim at 3 and waterski at 5 had no difficulty with the requirement.
Again, BG Finnegan intervened and worked tirelessly to address the misalignment of the new requirements against the mission of the Military Academy. I was pleased to note as I built this page in 2024 that the water confidence course and the 40′ tower of terror are no longer a graduation requirement.
Jefferson Hall
West Point decided to build a new library in the early 2000s and my predecessor Stas Preczewshi had procured the majority of the money for Jefferson Hall. That funding was subject to annual review and there was $12 million in margin of excellence funding still needed to enhance the building that the Army would not fund. Thus, I spent a bit of time working with Todd Browne to raise the $12 million and give tours to folks who were interested in either giving West Point money or reallocating the $72 million to their pet project somewhere else in the Army. I also had to oversee the actual construction of the building and met regularly with the onsite construction manager. A couple of interesting stories from this project:
- LTG Buster Hagenbeck and BG Finnegan worked tirelessly the scenes to secure and protect the funding from Pentagon bureaucrats and other senior Army commanders who wanted the money for their base. I attended a world-wide meeting between all the three and four-star generals to finalize facilities funding. GEN Dick Cody was the host of the meeting. A surprising exchange took place between GEN Cody and LTG Hagenbeck so as to defeat the Army bureaucrats. As a young Colonel, I was shocked by the exchange until I learned that it had all been pre-coordinated. GEN Cody, recently retired, attended the opening of Jefferson Hall a year later as the keynote speaker.
- We explored building a connecting bridge between Jefferson Hall and Bartlett Hall seriously. We could not raise the necessary funds but we would have moved the special collections office to Bartlett Hall and put up an spectacular display of special collections in that connecting bridge.
- In a walk-through two weeks before the opening, the Superintendent’s wife did not like the carpet and told us to change out all of the carpet prior to the opening. This was an impossible task and in an act of tact and rationality, the Superintendent told us quietly to leave the carpet as it was.
- The very top of the building is the Haig Room with a very large outdoor deck. It is reserved for important events and the retirement of general officers. I was given an exception to policy due to my role in building Jefferson Hall and allowed to retire from the Haig Room.
Bartlett Hall
In 2006 as we were working Jefferson Hall and a possible bridge to Bartlett Hall, I discovered that a project had been on hold since the 1970s to renovate Bartlett Hall. I contacted COL David Allbee, the Superintendent’s staff, and my contacts in the Pentagon to understand why the project had been delayed so long. The Superintendent’s staff and Pentagon were unaware there even was a project and COL Allbee had all the details and was very frustrated in the delay to fix a 1913 building that had not been renovated in 40 years. I nudged and then pushed and the project took off.
Since the renovation was occuring after 9/11, the building requirements around hardening the building against attack were significant. Because the building was historic, there were architectural design components that had to remain the same as we modernized and hardened the building. This meant, for example, the design of the mosaic windows had to remains as we replaced the windowed with bullet resistant glass. The end result was a two-phase, seven year, $182 million project.
My job was to get the project going and get the money. My task was also to give guided tours of the existing building to general officers from around the Army trying to steal the funding and thwart their efforts. I succeeded in all of these tasks. COL Russell LaChance and John Harke from the Chemistry and Physics departments respectively, led the effort to maximize the effectiveness of the funds and design the interior of Bartlett Hall. For the physics and chemistry classrooms, this involved designing learning spaces that combined classroom and laboratory space.
I participated in the sledgehammer ceremony for Bartlett Hall in 2009 but would not see the results of the full project until more than ten years later when I visited West Point as a member of the Association of Graduates Advisory Council. COL John Hartke was now the chair of the department of physics and nuclear engineering and took us around to see the impressive building.
Foreign Travel (without a Gun)
West Point prepares leaders for a lifetime of service to the nation. As part of that service, the odds of visiting or living in a foreign country are very high. There was an initiative in the late 2000s to provide the opportunity for every qualified cadet to have a foreign experience be that a semester abroad, advanced academic summer experience, or a CTLT experience. COL Rick McPeak led the initiative and was successful in receiving $9 million. My role was to administer the program across all of the programs at West Point and coordinate all of these experiences in the military, academic and physical programs.
About 85% of the cadets were able to take part in one of these experiences. Pause and think about 85% of students having a foreign experience in truly extraordinary. For a small group, it was a semester abroad. For a larger group, it was deployment to an Army unit as part of the Cadet Leader Development Training program for six weeks. Finally, there was a growing segment of cadets taking advanced academic, military, of physical opportunities that ranged from three to six weeks. About 15% of the cadets had challenges with one of the developmental domains or just with their schedules and could not participate in one of these experiences.
Overall, the project was a tremendous success and widely lauded in higher academia. I don’t believe we measured it but suspect these international experiences focused on understanding culture, language, and people enhanced our graduates and their success after graduation.
Underperforming Cadets
One of the challenges of a service academy like West Point is that there is no transfer program. We start with a certain number of cadets and we cannot refill the positions created by cadets leaving for a variety of reasons. Because of this environment, West Point moved from an attrition model to a developmental model in the late 1980s. With the advent of long term wars in Afghanistan and Iraq simultaneously, the pressures to graduate officers ready for a deployment into a combat zone grew. As such, LTG Buster Hagenbeck, BG Finnegan, and the Vice Deans (Carver, Lauderman, and Ragsdale) were heavily involved in initiatives to intrusively intervene to mentor underperforming cadets and transition them to highly performing members of the Corps of Cadets. LTG Hagenbeck was inclined to be more punitive (forced study sessions on Saturday) while the reset of us were more developmental.
Faculty and Space Reallocation
If the words “faculty and space reallocation” does not send a wave of terror and foreboding through your body, your name might be Custer right before the Battle Little Big Horn. If you thought modifying the core curriculum was perilous, try moving faculty positions, senior faculty positions, between departments. Try reallocating existing space. One department knew they were going to have trouble with classrooms and addressed the issue by scheduling blocking a classroom for the entire semester for each one on one meetings between a single instructor and single cadet. MAJ Dave Dinger and some Systems Engineering faculty assisted with building very impressive predictive models based on student enrollment that helped inform the discussion.
All of the seniors leaders in the academic program were VERY involved in trying to modify the model to reflect the disciplinary uniqueness of their department if they were losing space or faculty positions under the model. All of the seniors leaders in the academic program were VERY involved trying to keeping the model the same if they were gaining space or faculty positions under the model while lamenting how long they had barely survived with such meager and unfair resourcing. Ultimately, the models and the conversations with senior leaders informed BG Finnegan and he made a leadership decision where no one got everything they thought they should but it moved the academic program in the right decision.
Pentagon Wars
One of my principal roles as a Vice Dean for Resources was to routinely engage with the Pentagon and specifically the budget office. It was a challenging conversation almost all the time. The military in the Pentagon budget office were in charge and were reasonable people but they were on short 1-3 year tours with tremendous pressure to control the budget during a time of war. The majority of them were not academy graduates. The majority of folks from the academies had been doing this work for a really long time and were constantly trying to graduate officers who served the Army for the long term.
A great example is one of the Pentagon budget officers asked West Point to move the class size in Thayer Hall from 18 to 36 so that only half the professors would be needed. This superficial analysis ignored 99% of the classrooms at West Point were built for 18 students and the cost of remodeling all of those classrooms would be astronomical. Another example was the Pentagon asking West Point to accept 10-15% more cadets without resources because we were a nation at war. We did what we could but setting arbitrary goals without collaboration is a sure-fired way to get feedback. I had to build an excel spreadsheet so that the Pentagon could make data informed decisions regarding enrollment, cost, capacity.
There was a secondary tension internal to West Point between the Superintendent’s staff and the Dean’s staff regarding who can visit or talk with the Pentagon. The Superintendent’s staff was growing in size and capability while the Dean’s staff was relatively static. I was the last Vice Dean of Resources able to directly engage with the Pentagon budget office. Once I left, our discussions weakened and thus, I believe, you saw significant cuts to the academic program after 2010.
Fundraising and Margin of Excellence
Part of my role was coordinating the academic program’s submission for funding to Association of Graduates during their advancement campaigns. I worked closely with COL(R) Todd Browne. The Army provided sufficient funding to run the Academy but could not afford all of the extra activities that would benefit the cadet experience. The margin of excellence program created a mechanism exactly like advancement offices at other universities to address these needs.
For the $600 million campaign in 2006, the academic program represented more than $400 million of the campaign. We collected all of this information in massive Excel spreadsheets that were prioritized both locally and globally. After the campaign, my team did the normal staff supervision to accept and execute the advancement funds provided for specific projects. These projects had a tremendous impact on the cadet academic, military, and physical programs.
Finally, the Superintendent held a tailgate before every home game and I was a frequent table host to communicate what we were doing in the academic or technical fields. I typically received a readahead of who was going to be on my table and their background so I could tailor my discussions to their areas of interest.
I learned a lot about advancement as the Vice Dean for Resources. West Point enjoys tremendous support from its graduates and its benefactors and I got to see a world class advancement operation under the leadership of Todd Browne.
Full Professor
I continue to teach and publish during my time as an academic CIO and Vice Dean. In 2007, I was eligible for consideration as Professor and went through the credentials and promotion process at West Point. This process included both internal and external review and was just as nerve racking as promotion and tenure reviews at other universities. For military faculty, it was very rare. Of the 100 or so Academy professors, there were only 5-8 with the academic rank of Professor. Among the 23 congressionally appointed Professor, USMA, only 2-3 held the academic rank of Professor. I was fortunate and was promoted to Professor in 2007.
Controversies
There are two controversial events that occurred while I was Vice Dean. The first involved the legendary T Boone Pickens. He visited West Point to discuss how to increase the endowment funds of the Academy. His proposal was straightforward: take out life insurance policies on all of our students. Given our student population, they have a higher mortality and we should make a killing on advancement. We were polite but this proposal was dead on arrival and politely buried.
The second controversy involved legendary basketball Coach K and Bobby Knight. Both had coached at West Point and they were invited to talk with all of the cadets and faculty on leadership. The discussion when splendidly until we got to the first question directed at Bobby Knight: would you lie to save your life from a female cadet. Without pausing, Bobby Knight answered yes elucidating that he was the most important and successful person in the room. To prove he was the most important and successful person in the room, he invited his clearly chagrined wife to the stage. There was stunned silence in the room as Coach K bowed his head and looked away.
Best University in the Nation
During my time as Vice Dean, West Point was recognized as the #1 Public University in the nation by Forbes as well as well as the best Public Liberal Arts College by Princeton Review. We routinely crushed the National Survey of Student Engagement.
In Retrospect
In retrospect, serving in the office of the Dean of the Academic Board was a highlight of my Army career. Generals Kaufman and Finnegan were truly exceptional leaders and a pleasure to work for. It did not hurt that they were beloved by the cadets. We were able to make significant improvements to the Academy upon which subsequent leaders at West Point have built upon.
As 2008 approached, it was time for sabbatical. This would give me an opportunity to return to the operational Army as well as learn more about higher education through the American Council of Education Fellows program. You can learn more about these chapters in my military career on the Afghanistan, Iraq and Culture page and Forays into American Academia.