Review of Specialized Degree-Granting Graduate Programs of the Department of Defense in STEM and Management (2014) / Chapter Skim
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3 Value Proposition for Department of Defense Institutions Offering Advanced Degrees in STEM and Management
3 Value Proposition for Department of Defense Institutions Offering Advanced Degrees in STEM and Management
Pages 42-82
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workforce recommended that DoD expand its STEM workforce with technically qualified U.S. citizens and non-U.S.
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The Air Force and Navy established the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)
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In 1945, a board of officers "recommended that the Army Air Force establish a technological school under the immediate supervision of the Commanding General, Air Technical Service Command, using the existing Army Air Force Engineering School as a nucleus for expansion to accomplish the recom mended action." The Army Air Forces Institute of Technology was officially opened on September 3, 1946. The Army did not establish an equivalent institution when the Air Force became autonomous, but chose to rely on mainly civilian universities for their graduate education needs.
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level in 1965.7 Overview of the Naval Postgraduate School NPS is accredited by the Senior Commission of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges of the Higher Learning Commission, a regional collaboration of higher education 4-year and graduate institutions. The university is operated by the U.S.
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SOURCE: Data from the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Naval Postgraduate School.
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Based on the committee's graduate STEM education expertise, to include leadership and evaluator roles with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation bodies, NPS and AFIT teaching and research methods are pedagogically consistent with other leading universities.
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SOURCE: Data from the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Naval Postgraduate School. Finding 3-2.
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. SOURCE: Data from the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Naval Postgraduate School.
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SOURCE: Data from the Naval Postgraduate School annual reports provided on its website. Research Enterprise Consistent with their graduate level education mission, both AFIT and NPS maintain internally funded research programs in support of master's thesis and Ph.D.
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CRADA, cooperative research and development agreement. SOURCE: Data from the Air Force Institute of Technology.
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There are several UARC research institutions, such as Lincoln Laboratories, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, located near top-tier civilian institutions, where classified academic research might be performed. This same capability exists in many government laboratories, such as AFRL, the Army Research Laboratory, and the Naval Research Laboratory, which also have several civilian university affiliations.
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DoD students deserve the best education possible -- one that combines the academic excellence of leading civilian universities with military-relevant teaching and research activities. 24 Naval Inspector General, letter with the subject "Command Inspection of Naval Postgraduate School," dated October 22, 2012.
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The cost of DoD schools includes military personnel and other ser vices not provided at a civilian institution. This fact makes it difficult to accurately estimate the true cost to educate students at AFIT and NPS at a level that would bear the close scrutiny of a trained accountant and serve as a comparison to other education providers.
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including civilian pay, base support costs, present value of facilities, and reimbursements. SOURCE: Data from the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Naval Postgraduate School.
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Table 3-6 summarizes the financial information for AFIT and NPS by broad income and expense categories. All DoD graduate degree institutions, including AFIT and NPS, have estab lished rates they charge for students not covered by their direct budgets.
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The value proposition offered in subsequent sections addresses the need for DoD to maintain in-house graduate institutions rather than educate its military and civilian employees solely at civilian institutions. Comparing Value Propositions of the Air Force Institute of Technology, Naval Postgraduate School, and Civilian Institutions The United States has many excellent public and private civilian universities.
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As mentioned earlier, the correct de cision depends on the circumstances surrounding a particular educational need. Continued education of DoD military and civilian personnel at both DoD in-house and civilian institutions would optimize the benefits of both institution types across
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15 Provides a DoD environment where culture, Limited exposure to private sector best practices. processes, network, technology, among other factors, produces a more informed stakeholder/buyer NOTE: AFIT, Air Force Institute of Technology; AFRL, Air Force Research Laboratory; NPS, Naval Postgraduate School; STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; STEM+M, science, technology engineering, mathematics, and management.
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The strategic benefits of an AFIT and NPS education, along with the trade-offs listed in Table 3-9, are discussed below.
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Civilian institutions offer little or no control over the con tent and scheduling of their courses; however, larger civilian institutions may offer a greater diversity of course choices.
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Potential trade-off. Less structured processes for curricula development and approval may make AFIT and NPS more susceptible to short-term fads than civilian institutions.
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Completion Project report.31,32 Potential trade-off. At many civilian institutions, graduate students are ex pected to participate in many activities beyond coursework and research.
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S trategic benefit. Essential military research, such as weapons research, has been discouraged by civilian institutions as inconsistent with their missions and culture.
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Business processes of universities may be more adaptive to these changes than DoD institutions whose business processes have been finely tuned over the years to match their sponsor's fund ing processes.
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14. Provides avenues for students with marginal undergraduate grade-point averages and non-STEM+M degrees to obtain a relevant and connected STEM graduate experience.
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The Department of Defense (DoD) should recognize and support the comprehensive value proposition offered by the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Naval Postgraduate School.
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ON THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION Traditional measures of academic institutional quality in civilian universities generally rest on the quality of the students and the faculty. The widely cited U.S.
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As described in the previous section, in-house DoD education institutions possess unique characteristics that make them difficult to assess for quality using these conventional methods. The quality of DoD graduate degree-granting institutions should not be framed using only conventional meth ods for the following reasons: • DoD institutions focus primarily on research-intensive master's level pro grams and less on doctoral programs, in contrast to most of the highest-quality civilian institutions.
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In fact, traditional measures serve an important role in fostering broader educational credibility, as well as quality, in several key areas of institutional performance such as competitiveness in intel lectual output and in success obtaining external research sponsors. The calculus for quality at these DoD institutions is different, however, than it is for civilian institutions.
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Inputs Activities Immediate Immediate Mediating Mediating Intermediate Intermediate Mediating Mediating Longer‐Term Longer‐Term Outcomes Individual Outcomes Organizational Outcomes Students Factors Factors • Previous educational experience • Obtained career Students guidance • STEM classroom • Perceptions of or online Students Students Students Internal to DoD quality of options learning • STEM‐related • Self‐efficacy • Enhanced • Empowering • Willingness to • Research knowledge performance relocate • Self‐confidence leadership • Conference • Skills • Productive participation • STEM • Adequate • Enhanced knowledge and research resources to • DoD‐specific research • Collaborative support DoD Policies skills -- job research abilities leadership professional match • Service‐specific • (For some, STEM‐ • Collaborative abilities p development guidelines and id li d management leadership counseling • Life‐long Well‐prepared training) abilities learning culture • Identification of STEM workforce in STEM workforce • Career Services and DoD needs mentoring • Service and civilian tuition Faculty Faculty Faculty Faculty External to DoD benefits • Teaching • Research • Adequate • Productive Strong National • Changes in Defense Time provided for • Time provided for • Research p products tenure in research threat threat education, e.g., 3 • Conference • Innovation, position • Fruitful environment years for Ph.D.
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In this case, given existing DoD policies and resources together with educational experiences of DoD uniform and civilian personnel, this model identifies expected immedi ate, intermediate, and longer-term outcomes from DoD-managed graduate degree institutions. The model could be applied to all DoD institutions, going beyond STEM+M institutions.
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These observations are listed in Table 3-10. To illustrate the assessments in Table 3-9, the currency of DoD career coun selors' knowledge about offerings and the quality of educational programs within DoD institutions and in civilian institutions is one of the first key influence points about which more information is needed.
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to appropriate educational programs 3 Appropriate preparation NPS and AFIT well positioned for Less of an issue unless sent to AFIT for students without STEM this, not for education at civilian or NPS undergraduate degree to pursue institutions STEM graduate degrees During Educational Experience 4 Well trained and research-active A challenge for AFIT, NPS and Depends on caliber of civilian faculty possibly all DoD institutions institutions used. 5 Educational experience match to Inevitable challenge Unclear if a problem subsequent DoD assignments 6 Adequate support for research, Problems due to budgets and Problems due to budgets and conference travel and other process process professional development activities After Educational Experience 7 Match of students' educational Inevitable challenge Unclear if a problem preparation to subsequent assignments 8 Ongoing professional support Little or none Local or none 9 Ongoing support of DoD Excellent at both AFIT and NPS Little or none at civilian institutions collaboration about research unless local and personnel needs with DoD educational institutions, e.g., Air Force and Navy panels advising on research and skills needs to AFIT and NPS NOTE: AFIT, Air Force Institute of Technology; DoD, Department of Defense; NPS, Naval Postgraduate School; STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; SWP, strategic workforce plan.
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INSTITUTIONAL ORGANIZATION CONSIDERATIONS Command Structure of the Naval Postgraduate School The NPS president reports to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) , as shown in Figure 3-3.
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and to have the school report directly to the Navy CNO (better resourcing and ownership of mission) .38 In short, "stability leads to innovation which drives capability."39 Command Structure of the Air Force Institute of Technology The AFIT chancellor reports directly to the Commander, Air University (AU)
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In 2000, the AFIT Board of Visitors stated that if moving AFIT under the CSAF was not feasible, then AFIT should realign with its largest single customer, the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) , which would return AFIT to a chain of command similar to what it had FIGURE 3-4 Organizational structure for the Air Force Institute of Technology.
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Education, however, is unique in how budgets impact their 40 Report of Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Study For Senate and House Armed Services Committees, submitted to Congress on February 25, 2002.
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They are quickly faced with cutting entire programs, such as graduate education at civilian institutions. In addition, the impact of significant budget cuts to education are typically not seen with the normal Program Objec tive Memorandum cycle, perhaps several cycles.
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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. If DoD does not wish to have AFIT report directly to the CSAF, it might choose to align AFIT with AFMC, its largest customer -- a solution the AFIT Board of Visitors recommended in 2000.
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Conferences for disciplines such as computer science, cyber warfare, computer-based STEM, and other key competen cies for DoD are the primary outlets for learning what others are doing, publication, and peer assessment of research, including educational pedagogy. This is severely limiting DoD educational institutions on many fronts, including perceived quality (not visible among their peers)
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, and, especially, business processes. CONCLUDING REMARKS AFIT and NPS are quality educational institutions with relevant and robust research enterprises that enhance their educational missions.
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