In re re: Mike F
Long Live Sosh...Originally Posted by Hacksaw
On a more serious note... I think our department in particular tried to make our curriculum as relevant as possible (might have been easier given the nature of AP/IR/ECON...
Personally I added a constraints based MGMT/ACCT culminating event to my course in order to get cadets to think about/apply the principles of MR/MC and how a balanced system is one of the least efficient of all (counter-intuitive to most) when you dependent events and random variation - which is at the core of just about every military problem. A former student, IN FLT LDR in 3-101... came up to me at the weigh-house while we were deploying to Iraq and finds me and says, "I get it... this is the Herbie (chokepoint), that's why you're here isn't it"... probably the best confirmation I got out of my time spent at USMA...
As a side note, when tasked with writing the plan for the Reconstruction & Stabilization of Northern Iraq (MAR -APR 2003)... I staffed the plan with SOSH (COL Meese - my mentor as well)... the point being that all the components that I wanted a read on resided in those floors in Lincoln Hall... While I might resemble the 2nd rate faculty comment, my contemporaries did not... and well to be brutally honest, I'd challenge just about any junior faculty member at an IVY league school to build the plan that we put together back then...
Humani Nihil Alienum
I sort of had 2 points - the first was that the competitive nature of the student body at the academies is a strong point. Cadets and Midshipmen may not all be as acadeically qualified as their Ivy League counterparts but many of them give those guys and gals a run for their money. They also,as a group, tend to be better rounded. Comapred to ROTC grads, it's a mixed bag (BTW I was an Ivy League ROTC puke myself). It is, I think along with OU Pres David Boren, the quality of undergrad students sets the quality of the institution far more than grad students or faculty. My second point was that the faculty I know (mostly sosh and dormer sosh as well as history) have been as good or better than any I've seen in universities. I would add that our fellow contributor Gian Gentile is nowat USMA challenging cadets and faculty alike.
). It was about four months before we graduated. The defendant was ranked third or fourth academically out of our class. He was one of the super over-achievers. He was accused of copying his roommate's work for one minor project. He was found guilty and kicked out of school.
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