Document created: 3 September 03
Air University Review, July-August 1975
To every man there comes in
his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder
and offered that chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and his
talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for
that work.
-WINSTON CHURCHILL
Officer professional military education has received much attention recently. In the Air Force it has taken the form of a visit by the Secretary of the Air Force to review the operation of PME; a conference of major air command vice commanders to review the roles of PME; a re-examination of the need for PME; a change in the curriculum emphasis of both Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College; and studies on the structure of PME in the Air Force. Most of this activity stems from difficult decisions that must be made concerning the allocation of scarce Air Force resources. Faced with severe budgetary constraints, a need to modernize weapon systems, and a reduction in officer strength, Air Force decision-makers have to re-examine organizational priorities and roles. According to some critics, PME is a prime target for reduction. After thoughtful evaluation, this may turn out to be true; however, there are several questions that should be answered before the cuts are made.
We need to recognize how PME helps the Air Force develop professional officers. How does it contribute to the Air Force? This article will outline some of the ways in which PME helps the Air Force maintain a more viable officer corps. First, we will examine how PME stimulates an officer’s professional growth; second, how PME stimulates personal growth, which results in greater commitment to our profession and last, how PME contributes to an officer’s professional advancement. The core of this discussion lies with three words: professional, military, and education.
Traditionally, professional military education has focused on professional growth preparing officers for future command and staff duties.1 These duties may range from the “nuts and bolts” of commanding a squadron or scheduling flying hours to the staff job of visualizing future worlds in which the Air Force must survive. However, certain subject areas relate to all students, regardless of future specialties. These subjects are common to our professional group as United States Air Force officers. Professional education, rather than providing skills for a specialist, provides preparation for the generalist. It is an education that increases the knowledge and understanding of attitudes and abilities common to all officers.
By simply looking at who we are—Air Force officers—we can identify areas for our professional growth and, therefore, our education. For instance, we need supervisory and managerial abilities, coupled with the personal skills of leadership. We need to increase our understanding of our own organization, how it operates, achieves its objectives, solves its problems, and integrates with the rest of the military establishment. We need to sensitize ourselves to our roles within our governmental structure and become aware of the economic, social, political, technological, and military aspects of national security. In other words, we need to grow professionally by learning more about the United States, the Air Force, and the skills of being an officer.
To grow efficiently, we need a place where growth itself becomes our daily objective. We need a school. In a school, our primary job is to learn; our energy is no longer consumed by duties such as scheduling flying hours, counseling subordinates, responding to short suspense dates, searching for spare parts, or training others to do a job. We can concentrate on gaining the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will sharpen the abilities we already possess. We can achieve the maximum growth of which each of us is capable2 and prepare to assume new responsibilities.
Part of our preparation is an increased awareness of how the Air Force is organized and operates. We have all participated in Air Force operations, but few of us have had a chance to reflect on how the “system” fits together. Through PME we have this chance. We learn who does what, whom they do it with, when they do it, how they do it, and—sometimes—why they do it. We begin to appreciate the complexity of the Air Force and some of the reasons for the problems we confronted during our previous assignments. We also see problems that are new to us.
We are vicariously exposed to Air Force problems, either through the structure of the curriculum or the experiences of our fellow students. Our peers bring a wealth of knowledge, perceptions, attitudes, and firsthand experiences. They have seen problems from various levels within the Air Force. They have worked the problems. They temper conceptual idealism with the cold, analytical pragmatism of experience. Through discussions with them, the school faculty, and senior guest speakers, we balance theory with the events of our world. In this manner we learn to appreciate our environment, people, and problems.
In today’s environment of fewer dollars, fewer people, and unchanged missions, our ability to manage our resources and solve problems is critical. Management problems are further exacerbated by our increasing dependence on technology. In the words of Morris Janowitz: “As the military establishment becomes progressively dependent on more complex technology, the importance of the military manager increases.”3 Advances in technology allow us to do more with less and do it faster, but our management systems are becoming increasingly complex. We have computer systems, personnel systems, security systems, operational systems, and planning, programming, and budgeting systems. We must have at least a basic awareness of what these systems can do for us.
An awareness of management concepts, coupled with an understanding of people, helps us apply common sense as we make decisions. The concepts of decision theory, economic analysis, and cost effectiveness help us analyze problems more logically and rationally. By combining these management tools with an understanding of ourselves and other human beings, we will make better decisions. And, after all, we are measured by the quality of our decisions.
But we must communicate our decisions. What good is the best answer to a problem if we are unable to help others visualize our answer? To grow professionally, we must continually practice speaking and writing, as we prepare to communicate with groups of various sizes, inside and outside the Air Force. What better place to practice these skills than in PME? The evaluation threat to our careers is minimal, and the time exists for a helpful analysis of our strengths and weaknesses. Such time would be a luxury in an operational unit.
In summary, PME does help us grow professionally. It is “dedicated to the proposition that the career of an Air Force officer is a profession requiring certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes . . . .”4 We broaden our professional knowledge and acquire skills and attitudes that help improve our managerial and communicative abilities. We prepare for more complex and comprehensive duties by acquiring cognitive information. We gain information about our organization, our systems, our professional group, our problems, and our skills. But this is only one aspect of contemporary professional military education. PME also plays a role in the area of personal growth. It helps us become more mature human beings.
There is more to education than simply academic excellence.5 Intuitively, most of us realize that a truly educated person is more than just a disembodied brain. He incorporates his technical competence into his total personality and recognizes that facts exist primarily for use. His capability to use constructively the data that professional education provides will depend on his maturity. Maturity, by itself, does not solve problems, but it opens alternative ways of applying facts that we have accumulated. In this sense, the ability to use information, an officer’s education is never complete.
Our personal growth is a continuing process. It is a process of constant change, re-evaluation, and reassessment of ourselves and the way in which we view the people and the world around us. Psychologist Carla R. Rogers discusses “significant learning” and some of the changes involved in personal growth:
The person comes to see himself
differently. He accepts himself and his feelings more fully. He becomes more
self-confident and self-directing. He becomes more the person he would like to
be. He becomes more flexible, less rigid, in his perceptions. He adopts more
realistic goals for himself. . . . He becomes more acceptant of others. He become
more open to the evidence, both to what is going on outside of himself, and to
what is going on inside of himself. He changes his basic personality
characteristics, in constructive ways.6
These “significant learnings” can occur anywhere. When viewed as a lifelong, continuing process, personal growth does not require formal education.
Personal growth can be enhanced, however, by formal education. This is illustrated by Dr. Douglas Heath, professor of psychology at Haverford College, in his “maturing model.” He outlines how people grow on interdependent dimensions and describes growth in terms of changes in cognitive skills, self-concept, values, and personal relationships. Because “growth is an organismic process,” a person who extends development in one dimension of his personality will begin to resist growth on that dimension until he has grown in other sectors of his personality.7 Formal education, then, can facilitate personal growth by stimulating neglected cognitive skills or by guiding a re-examination of values or personal relationships.
In fact, some educational philosophers view personal growth as the main goal of education. Whitehead describes the goal of education as developing the self; in Van Doren’s terms, the development of the skills of being.8 Whether viewed as the ultimate goal or not, personal growth certainly can be considered one of the functions of professional education.
PME provides opportunities, both structured and unstructured, for this growth. Most of the structured opportunities, such as research papers and elective courses, are designed to interface with the school curriculum. But they also provide a chance to investigate subjects of personal interest, thereby contributing to personal growth. Opportunities to obtain a graduate degree, in addition to helping prospects for promotions, provide many people with a chance to renew feelings of academic competence, satisfy esteem needs, and explore contemporary issues of personal and professional concern. By obtaining these degrees from civilian institutions, we are exposed to the perception of people in the civilian educational community. These new perspectives may make us uncomfortable, but they can help us understand the attitudes of other segments of our society. In other words, as we gain professional knowledge, we re-examine our self-concepts and values.
One of the most significant influences on our personal growth, however, is the unstructured contact with our peers. The members of a PME class have a wide variety of social and cultural backgrounds. We have different military and civilian experiences, different values, habits, biases, and different knowledge. We are from different races, religions, and sexes. In short, we represent a particular cross section of American society.
As we begin to exchange our opinions and ideas, we are challenged. This process occurs in seminar discussions, informal “bull sessions,” planning meetings, or at social engagements. It is a dynamic process. It is stimulated by questioning people who refuse to accept something that has no other rationale than “It has always been that way” or who refuse to adopt an idea simply because “I say so!” It is a process through which we can confirm or change previously held ideas or attitudes.
Through this process we gain insight into ourselves. We identify, evaluate, and refine our values. We learn that we are imperfect human beings who can reinforce and capitalize upon our strengths while working to accept, minimize, or eliminate our weaknesses. Gaining this insight can be pleasurable or excruciatingly painful, but it is invariably rewarding. We learn that despite our differing personal methods, strategies, and levels of maturity, most of us are striving to achieve the same goals for the Air Force and our country. With this realization of common personal goals comes a sense of unity, a fraternal bond with our fellow officers. This bond does not just happen; it grows as we share common experiences and develop our cognitive skills, self-concept, values, and interpersonal relationships. By helping us mature in these four areas, PME provides true education, creates a more professional officer corps, and develops the “whole person.”
The concept of the whole person is one of the links between PME and our professional advancement. PME, through its dual service of providing professional and personal growth, strives to develop the whole person. USAF promotion boards use the whole person concept to evaluate our potential for promotion. There should be a relationship between PME and professional advancement—as measured by promotion or more responsible jobs. Examination of the meaning of the whole person concept makes this relationship apparent. One key element of this concept—as viewed by promotion boards—is job experience and performance. Experience, then, is one of the major criteria for professional advancement.
One way to obtain experience is to actually perform the duty. But, since the number of manpower authorizations for a particular type of jobs—such as squadron commander—is limited, there is a limit to the number of people who can obtain on-the-job experience. If Air Staff experience were the only valid type of experience for selection to the Air Staff then the Air Force’s pool of experienced people would be relatively small. Without “new blood” from the field, the Air Staff would become a stagnant organization with little creativity or responsiveness. Also, the question arise, “If everyone must have on-the-job experience in a particular duty, who will be the first jobholder or replacement?” Obviously, for the Air Force to operate most effectively and still place a premium on an individual’s experience, there must be surrogates for that experience.
To use surrogates is to recognize the commonality of various experiences. The surrogate experiences can be substituted for actual on-the-job performance. They provide some measure of experience relevant to the job to be performed. They make the transition into the primary job and the assumption of associated duties less traumatic for both the Air Force and the individual. Some “surrogate jobs” are well known: the squadron operations officer who becomes the squadron commander, the wing-level staff officer who moves to the major air command staff and then to the Air Staff. But these types of experiences are not the only surrogates.
PME also provides surrogate experience, which is just another phrase for a particular type of professional and personal growth. Through exposure to the various areas of the school curriculum, exercises, and discussions, we accumulate a series of experiences. Therefore, through PME, we become qualified, in varying degrees, for a much larger number of jobs. We become more eligible for jobs of increased responsibility and the professional advancement that results from such assignments. But providing surrogate experience is not the only way in which PME helps us obtain jobs that foster our professional advancement.
Sometimes our PME classmates participate in the process of selecting people for particular jobs. This process can be agonizing, particularly when someone is trying to choose between two or three records that are apparently equal. In this case it is only natural for the selector to rely on his personal knowledge of the people. If one of the nominees for the assignment happens to be a PME classmate whom the selector remembers favorably, he will likely choose his classmate for the job.
This choice is a natural result of the friendships and feeling of unity that occur during a PME class. A fraternal spirit exists between the members of a particular class. This is similar to the feeling that exists between the members of any college class. It may be one of the reasons for the large number of service academy graduates among the general officer corps.
Becoming a general officer is certainly a measure of professional advancement in the Air Force and may be used to correlate PME with the promotion board results. As of 30 September 1974, there were 394 generals in the Air Force. Three hundred fifty-eight (358) of these officers, or 90.9 percent, have completed PME in residence. Specifically, 317 general officers are graduates of senior service schools; 34 Air Force generals list intermediate service schools as their highest PME in residence; while 7 list Squadron Officer School as their highest level of PME in. residence. Additionally, 19 generals list PME by correspondence as being higher than the residence PME they completed.9 Certainly, PME is not the only reason these people advanced so far in their careers. However, since such a high percentage of them have graduated from PME in residence, it can at least be inferred that PME helped qualify them for their professional advancement.
Does all this discussion mean that we will become generals by attending PME? Obviously not. But we can be assured that we will have an excellent opportunity for professional growth, for personal growth, and for professional advancement. PME does not make us wing commanders or general officers. It does not make us more mature individuals. It does not advance us professionally. PME does provide the opportunity for us to do these things for ourselves. It provides us with another chance to make ourselves more capable United States Air Force officers.
Air Command and Staff College
Notes
1. Deputy Chief of Staff Education, Director of Curriculum, “Data on Senior and Intermediate PME for all Services,” Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL., September 1974.
2. Air Command and Staff College, Curriculum Catalog, Class ACSC-75, 19
August 1974-6 June 1975, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL (thereafter cited
as Catalog ACSC-75).
3. As quoted in J. J. Palen’s “Education of the Senior Military Decision Maker,” The Sociological Quarterly, Spring 1972.
4. Catalog ACSC-75.
5. Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1961); Douglas Heath, “Educating for Maturity,” College and University Journal, March 1974, pp. 15-16, 21-22.
6. Rogers, pp. 280-81.
7. Heath, p. 15.
8. Ibid.
9. Dr. Farnham G. Pope, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel/Education (AF/DPPE), Headquarters USAF, Washington. D.C., telephone interview on 7 March 1975.
Major David R. Dent (M. A. P. A., University of Oklahoma) is a student at Air Command and Staff College. He has served as a security police officer, wing executive officer, headquarters squadron commander, supply squadron section commander, security police staff officer with Hq SAC, IG, and on the faculty of Squadron Officer School. He is a Distinguished Graduate of SOS. His next assignment will be with the Personnel Security Group, Hq USAF.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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