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A Dispatch from the Army War College
After my post on Friday about Montana Senator John Walsh’s attempt to blame on PTSD the fact that he plagiarized large segments of his master’s thesis at the Army War College, I received this bit of insight from a current student in that same program, which he has generously allowed me to share with you:
I liked your post on John Walsh. I would only note that the part about the difficulty of the Army War College’s masters degree program is wide of the mark. While I thought your comment hilarious about VDH writing a 14-page paper so quickly (and that is probably no exaggeration), the war college program is in fact quite rigorous. I know. I am in it. This is run to the standards of a graduate-level civilian university, not a typical Army training school.
Of course, I didn’t mean for the original post to imply that the Army War College was some sort of diploma mill. I was just surprised that 14 pages — the length of Walsh’s paper — was sufficient for a graduate-level thesis. That’s neither here nor there, however. What’s truly interesting is what follows.
Published in GeneralThroughout the program, students write scores of scholarly essays between 500 and 1,500 words in length, fully referenced and cited to Chicago Manual of Style standards — as well as scores of 250-word, properly cited discussion forum essays. We read hundreds of pages of materials each week from professional journals, lectures and books, such as Eliot Cohen’s Supreme Command. We are drilled and drilled to cite our sources and to avoid plagiarism. Walsh’s paper was not his first rodeo, to use George W. Bush’s endearing Texas phrase; it was his final rodeo. By that point, after two years, one has no doubt about the academic standards required. You don’t make unintentional mistakes when you fail to cite. You are taking willful action, probably out of laziness (and perhaps, exhaustion) when you steal as much as he is said to have done. The course is stressful, but PTSD has no role in any plagiarism, especially among students angling to make general officer one day, as Walsh was.
The war college program is fully accredited and rigorous. When students are found to have plagiarized after graduation, the school grinds offenders’ names off the class plaques for each year that adorn the outside of walls to the college. It is an honor to make it to that wall and an immeasurable disgrace to have one’s name removed from it.
I can tell you, as one at the war college, that we are revolted to learn of such conduct as is charged here. We work immensely hard at this school. We take honor and integrity seriously. The vast majority would rather drop from the course than earn a degree by cheating. What Walsh is alleged to have done cheapens our own degree if it stands. And we see some of that impact in your post, which takes a light shot at our program based on Walsh’s paper. He is not representative of the quality of work at our school. Since 1990, only six students have had their names subject to the plaque grinder, on account of plagiarism.
Jon Tester says Walsh is a soldier, not an academic. What Tester is saying is that we cannot expect soldiers to complete an advanced degree program without cheating. Perhaps he is channeling his inner John Kerry: if you study hard in college, you get a good job; if not, you end up in the Army. In opposition to this strained view of military officers’ competence and potential, note the thousands of soldiers have shown they can become scholars as well and successfully complete an academic curriculum without cheating. A spot at the war college is highly coveted and only a small percentage of the brightest military officers gain acceptance into the program. It boggles the mind to smear them as somehow handicapped by the nature of their military profession from being able to adhere to simple academic requirements.
I can tell you that there will not be any “circle the wagons” actions at the war college to support a former student in the way Democrats are circling the wagons to defend a fellow party member. Walsh was one of our number but it appears he has separated himself from our number by his willfully deceitful actions. We will want nothing further to do with him. Senator Walsh will receive due process. The academic review board will be impartial. But its members recognize the school is vastly more important than any one man, however exalted a position he may now have reached, and it will not whitewash his conduct if its review determines plagiarism.
The fact that the arguments above were considered proof of the academic rigor of the Army War College pretty much proves the critics’ point. A 500 word (also known as a single-spaced page) to 1,500 word essay is not a serious academic enterprise, even if full citation is required. 250 word assignments are not essays (at least after about fourth grade). They are either a long paragraph or a few short ones.
I’m gratified to hear that the War College places a high importance on academic honesty, but I don’t think that was the focus of many people’s criticism.
Senator Tester’s response is diagnostic of the pathology that is the Democratic Party. First, a complete indifference to issues of personal honor. Second, partisan interests trump anything else and third, the new class snobbery. In this instance, the class issue was invoked as a defense that the plagiarizer was a mere soldier (of whom there are minimal expectations) not an academic (higher status). The notion that being a senior officer in the United States Army carries a lower moral burden than does a tenured professor of LGBT Theater Studies is beyond bizarre.
These are the same people who are genuinely baffled that anyone would be upset that Ms. Clinton used four American coffins as props while delivering a convenient lie exposing Benghazi to the families of the victims. Smoking, “Redskins”, a failure to be enthused about homosexual marriage or owning an SUV are occasions of “moral” outrage but violations personal honor are invisible.
I thought that the indifference to matters of honor might have peaked back when President Clinton was supposedly persecuted for a “hummer” rather than a larger breach of honor. I was wrong. The Obama legacy is going to be much worse.
The arguments are not proof of academic rigor. They are offered as proof that the man knew and had followed the rules of proper citation. Therefore, his failure to do so in his final thesis is proof that his plagiarism was willful and worthy of severe consequences.
I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, but the letter begins by asserting that the War College is academically rigorous and that it is run to the standards of a civilian graduate program. The workload cited contradicts that claim.
Not necessarily; perhaps, the assignments were short and many to insure that the students were thoroughly familiar with the ‘citation’ process ( like learning to drive a ‘stick shift’).
We’re talking about graduate school here. Graduate students (for that matter, high school students) should already be thoroughly familiar with the citation process.
‘SHOULD’ is a word that is hard to define, by today’s standards.
I’m making a point about academic rigor. I am saying that, pretty much by definition, a graduate program which feels the need to teach its students how to properly cite the sources they use for their papers is not academically rigorous. Beyond that, I would say that a program which grants a master’s degree on the basis of a 14 page thesis is not academically rigorous, regardless of how many shorter essays are assigned.
The Master’s Degree awarded by the Army War College should not be compared to any advanced civilian degree. Those selected for the War College are consummate professionals who have 20 years of experience practicing their craft. All students already must have one previously-earned advanced degree, many have two. Some are PhDs. Any who think that these guys are not operating in an academically rigorous environment has a fundamental misunderstanding of that environment.
Imagine taking a cadre of similarly experienced college professors, with 20+ years of experience, all rated as highly successful, motivated, and proficient, and throw them together for a year to learn as much as they can from each other and the faculty. Throw into the mix that all these guys know they will be competing against each other for future advancement. Just because the school is accredited to award advanced degrees, does not mean that it should be regarded as a civilian academic endeavor.
So is it rigorous or not? If so, that dooms any hope the War College has of ever receiving an invitation to join the SEC.
Have you ever read Norman MacLean’s, ‘A River Runs Through It’?