Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 76

Officers who do not wish to pursue an MMAS,
contingent on board selection, would complete the
ILE common core curriculum at a satellite location. Officers attending satellites would be subject
to the same entrance examination standard as their
Leavenworth counterparts but would not be required

common core, rather than once a year as is the case
at Leavenworth. The availability of multiple starts
during the year, followed by completion of AOC or
a functional area qualification course, would enable
a flow of ILE graduates to the force throughout the
year. The third, and perhaps most intangible, oppor-

(Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College)

Students at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College participate in a class 23 September 2014 in the Lewis and Clark Center,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

to submit GRE scores. Some of those students would
have gained advanced degrees prior to ILE, while others
would not pursue an advanced degree for other reasons.
After completing the ILE common core at a satellite,
basic branch officers would then complete the AOC
through distance learning, while officers in functional
areas would be able to start their qualification courses
immediately after completing the common core, without having to wait until the end of the AOC.
A leaner CSC board would offer other opportunities. First, it would not preclude an officer’s attendance at SAMS or other service AMSPs, which are
volunteer courses independent of any centralized
Army selection board (and therefore independent of
the CSC board).16 Second, students attending satellites would have greater flexibility in starting the ILE
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tunity offered by a highly selective CSC board would
be protecting the satellites from being considered
dumping grounds for less-qualified officers. Selecting
officers who had attended satellite ILE courses through
centralized selection boards for command and future
schooling would also help preempt potential stigmas
associated with such attendance.

Change 3: An Attritional Model
for ILE
One method to increase rigor in PME, consistent with one of Army University’s goals, would be
to substantially reduce the obstacles to disenrolling a
student for failure to meet academic standards. Based
on experience with multiple staff groups in a two-year
period of teaching at Fort Leavenworth and Fort Lee,
May-June 2016  MILITARY REVIEW