Every summer, the U.S. Army holds the Leadership Development & Assessment Course, a five-week course required for ROTC cadets between their junior and senior years of college. Between July 11-14, 2010, the course – located in Fort Lewis, Wash., less than 20 miles from Olympia – played host to 148 university faculty and staff members from around the country.
Jamie Cooper, associate dean of undergraduate academic affairs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, was the lone faculty and staff representative from George Mason University to make the trip. However, 33 students from Mason’s ROTC program took part in the course this summer.
This trip was a logical endeavor for Cooper, who works with ROTC students enrolled in many of the programs and degrees within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Every summer, students from around the country take on mental and physical challenges at the course, meant to test their leadership abilities and decision-making and simulate challenging situations that mirror the battlefield.
Cooper, along with the other university faculty and staff members, observed and even participated in some of the activities and spoke to Army officials regarding relationships between the ROTC program and universities. The program was designed to introduce the Army’s national ROTC program and its intricacies to faculty and staff who may not have been familiar with it before. With representatives from more than 100 universities and colleges in attendance, many shared their practices with each other. All hoped to learn more and better their own schools’ ROTC experiences.
“Essentially, they invite people who are involved in the academic part of the curriculum,” Cooper said. “I want to find out how we can better support ROTC students, because these are really good students.”
Mason has approximately 190 ROTC students enrolled for the fall, spanning a variety of majors, including history, criminology and government.
“Now that I know more about the program and its students, I hope to set up some discussions with the students who were at the Leadership Development & Assessment Course training,” Cooper said.
Cooper met with the cadets from Mason who attended the leadership course to talk about which classes helped prepare them for the experience. He also said he would provide them with questionnaires to gather some feedback on their coursework.
The discussions Cooper has sought after have already started.