Review of Specialized Degree-Granting Graduate Programs of the Department of Defense in STEM and Management (2014) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
5 Principal Findings and Recommendations
5 Principal Findings and Recommendations
Pages 108-122
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From page 108... ...
Chapter 4 offers alternatives to current graduate education solutions designed to ensure highquality graduate education outcomes for DoD employees and military members. Finally, Chapter 5 summarizes the contents of the report and consolidates principal recommendations under six themes.
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From page 109... ...
This difference appears to be reflected in overall management and tracking of the two workforce components, with the civilian component largely managed locally with strategic oversight provided via the inaugural DoD Strategic Workforce Plan.1 Although rudimentary today, it is encouraging to note that the plan offers a frame work for the future. Education is distinguished from training in this report in accordance with the adage, "Train for the known, educate for the unknown."2 Unlike training, quality graduate education outcomes require robust support by research programs, a re quirement sometimes overlooked by DoD decision makers.
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5. Enhance AFIT and NPS graduate education outcomes by increasing institu tional collaboration through partnerships and effective distance learning methods.
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The world's technical knowledge base and the technical complexity of modern warfare are rapidly increasing. By increasing its investments in graduate STEM+M education, even as the total workforce decreases in an increasingly constrained budget environment, DoD can continue developing and exploiting advanced tech nologies as key force multipliers.
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From page 112... ...
AFIT and NPS each have important value propositions that yield significant return on DoD investments. Value-added elements include graduate programs built around defense-based curricula and supported by military-relevant graduate research, the formation of multiservice and multinational intellectual networks that aid students throughout their military careers, and infrastructure and policies that facilitate sensitive and classified research.
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From page 113... ...
Therefore, it ap pears both AFIT and NPS have sufficient faculty numbers to deliver accredited graduate master's degrees and certificates. Based on the committee's graduate STEM education expertise, to include leadership and evaluator roles with ABET accreditation bodies, NPS and AFIT teaching and research methods are pedagogically consistent with other leading universities.
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From page 114... ...
aggressively use Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Funds (DAWDF) or "DAWDF like" funds for the entire STEM+M workforce, by obtaining authorization from Congress either to expand existing DAWDF to include all STEM+M workforce pro fessionals or to establish similar funding to educate those not covered by DAWDF.
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From page 115... ...
should create a new category of Priority Military Tuition Assistance for science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and management graduate education and do the following: 4 DoD, Fiscal Years 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan Report, Fall 2013, http://dcips.dtic.mil/ documents.html. 5 From DoD, Fiscal Years 2013-2018 Strategic Workforce Plan Report (2013)
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From page 116... ...
• Allow military tuition assistance funds to be used at the Air Force Insti tute of Technology (AFIT) and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)
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From page 117... ...
Active, high-quality DoD research programs • Provide critical elements of the student's graduate education, • Identify future education needs before requirements are specified, • Exposes students early on to emerging technologies and new scientific and engineering discoveries, • Instill a culture of lifelong learning in the students, • Attract and retain quality faculty for all DoD educational institutions, • Enhance the national visibility of DOD institutions, and • Often result in cost savings and new capabilities for DoD. Ensuring that AFIT and NPS are allowed to maintain active research programs and encouraging them to achieve international recognition in selected, DoD-rele 6 NSF, for instance, currently pays $12,000 per year.
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From page 118... ...
By jointly sponsoring research and teaching activities, and by continuing to maintain and broaden their partnerships with DoD laboratories and civilian re search universities, AFIT and NPS can provide a wider range of degrees and prob lem-solving perspectives to their students and enhance the quality and relevancy of their research. Both AFIT and NPS understand the elements of effective, qual ity methods of distance learning (DL)
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From page 119... ...
Based on the committee's graduate STEM education expertise, to include leadership and evaluator roles with ABET accreditation bodies, NPS and AFIT teaching and research methods are pedagogically consistent with other leading universities. Finding 4-2.
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installa tions or that otherwise possess unique partnering benefits. They should lever age distance learning tools and methods to exploit these partnerships, and in conjunction with DoD laboratories, provide a wider range of quality degrees that are available at remote locations (i.e., not Dayton or Monterey)
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From page 121... ...
In addition, AFIT and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) should consider offering joint degrees, or joint courses, taught in person on one campus and by distance learning on the other.
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From page 122... ...
The Air Force Institute of Technology's (AFIT's) chain of command should be changed, perhaps to resemble the Naval Postgraduate School, with its own board, budget, accreditation, and program authority, in order for AFIT to maximize its value to the Department of Defense and the nation.
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