“Any society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” — Thucydides (4th Century BCE)
When thanked for my service, I respond saying that my 34 years in the Air Force were an honor. My service included extraordinary opportunities: a bachelor’s from the Air Force Academy, a master’s from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and a doctorate from Oxford University. Trained as a rescue helicopter plot and chief functional check flight pilot, I spent nearly a decade boring holes in the sky in Hawaii and the United Kingdom. I was also involved in several harrowing life-saving missions.
Additionally, I earned qualifications as a behavioral scientist, aircraft maintenance officer, race relations instructor, and equal opportunity and treatment officer. In 1996, the U.S. Senate confirmed my selection as the Academy’s 63rd Permanent Professor. I led the Academy’s Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership for nearly a decade.
Military academies have a unique role in American higher education. Many of the skills necessary to be an effective classroom teacher apply to effective leadership. Thus, each year, nearly a thousand newly commissioned 2nd lieutenants entering service are joined by about a hundred field grade officers who complete brief tours of the Academy faculty. The academic departments at the Academy are teams of inspired amateurs rather than seasoned academics—what we lacked in credentials and publications was offset by our work ethic and team orientation.
As one of the lucky few officers selected to complete doctoral studies, upon returning to the Academy in 1986 I led my department’s faculty development program. I used my research skills to explore teaching and learning. I helped develop our first classroom instructor critique and led a comprehensive interdisciplinary project assessing the contributions of each core course to the Academy’s educational outcomes: basic knowledge, critical thinking, and positive attitudes.
Contrary to stereotypes of military leaders, General Bradley Hosmer, Rhodes Scholar and first Academy graduate to serve as the Academy Superintendent (viz., president), was a brilliant scholar and impeccable commander. Noting West Point’s succinct statement of values—McArthur’s “duty, honor, country”—General Hosmer wanted to identify and express the Academy’s core values. I was one of several junior officers who facilitated the process. We conducted many focus groups with Academy constituencies—including the dining hall waiters.
Consensus emerged that integrity, service, and excellence were our three core values: “Integrity First; Service before Self; Excellence in All We Do.” The Secretary of the Air Force was so impressed that she adopted these as the Air Force Core Values.
Having recently been required to admit female cadets, General Hosmer replaced the anachronistic “Bring Me Men” at the entrance to the cadet area with our core values. I didn’t realize then how much these words meant. Like any educational institution, we had our share of petty disputes and disagreements. With the end of the draft, the officer core was becoming more politically conservative. It was not always easy being one of the few liberal faculty members, but swimming against the current builds character—and endurance. I never doubted that those who disagreed with my politics were decent, honest, professional officers and competent educators.
I worked hard for the faculty members who worked for me, garnering many doctoral sponsorships for capable officers—both male and female. My department embraced the opportunity to hire more female faculty members and, in compliance with a congressional mandate, more permanent civilian faculty members. Together, we achieved many successes; we were proud of our accomplishments.
The Academy’s development of innovative student-centered pedagogies, a comprehensive educational assessment program, and the application of many “total quality” tenets gained national attention. I was invited to present programs, conduct workshops, and participate in educational innovations such as Western Governors University, the Urban University Portfolio Project, Regional Accreditation Reform, and the annual American Association of Higher Education conferences. At a national assessment conference, a mentor and friend suggested I retire and move to higher education administration.
She told me my skills were needed at a small liberal arts college in Kentucky. It had wonderful students and a truly extraordinary mission. However, its president had alienated many of the faculty, the school had performed poorly on its last accreditation site visit, and its graduation rate had declined steadily. She did not know it was where I was born.
I applied to become Berea College’s academic vice president. My visit to campus the following month went well, and 85 percent of the faculty voted to offer me the position. However, it did not take long for the differences in leadership style between the president and me to emerge.
My approach to leadership involved decentralization, intellectual diversity, and development; the President’s was just the opposite: centralized authority, viewpoint alignment, and continuous competitive selection. Despite these differences, our efforts were often complementary. During my first four years, the graduation rate increased from 45 percent to over 60 percent, a program of providing each student with their own laptop was successfully implemented, the Entrepreneurship for the Public Good program was established, and a comprehensive academic assessment program was developed. Despite having faced probation after its previous accreditation visit, the college passed its 2005 re-accreditation visit with no adverse findings and many laudatory comments.
Unfortunately, this was not to last. When the president retired, just three of us senior faculty remained to cover our twenty psychology courses and other general studies while advising close to 100 students. We managed overloads and summer classes to keep up with demand. In gratitude for finally receiving approval to hire, we welcomed three new female junior faculty members over the next three years, two of whom were openly lesbian.
Additionally, I confronted the dean for fostering hostility within the department. He had quietly approved regular outside employment for one grievant, who worked every Friday as a therapist in a nearby town under the pretense of a “special project.” He apologized privately to me via email. I documented the discrepancies in the Title IX process and sent it to senior administrators. I opted not to make it public, but neither the president nor other senior administrators responded—later claiming the president had not read it because it was “an attachment.”
My hearing was a fiasco. Since none of the grievants signed a complaint against me and refused to testify, the dean assumed the role of proxy grievant, witness, investigator, and prosecutor. He also was the direct supervisor of all members of my faculty panel and all faculty witnesses. The survey itself was the only evidence against me.
Although many charges against me alleged harm to students, no students testified against me. Two sobbing sociologists falsely claimed that it was unethical to include real events in surveys. A parade of weeping women with little or no research experience claimed the survey was a “dismissible offense,” and urged the panel to dismiss me from the college. The panel agreed with the dean and his witnesses, and the president acted on the panel’s recommendation. A review by the Board of Trustees noted that they would have handled the situation differently than the dean but supported the president’s decision to fire me.
My case has been in federal court ever since, with a recent partial reversal of a lower court’s summary judgment in favor of the college.
Conclusion: Today’s military is in good shape. It continues to be the most effective fighting force in the world. It is led by well-qualified officers who are well-aware of their obligation to protect and defend the Constitution and of consistently good character. I wish it were the same for higher education.
Image of the fountain on a fall day at Berea College by IMCBerea College on Wikimedia Commons
This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
