Q&A: James Sweizer

Written by Christian Sheehy

EDUCATION SUPPORTER:
Preparing Today's Military Students to Meet Tomorrow's Challenges



James Sweizer
President-Elect
Council for College and Military Educators

As vice president of military programs, he oversees outreach activities to more than 25,000 active duty students in the military community and serves as the main liaison between the university and Department of Defense agencies.

Sweizer has an extensive 25-year background in military adult continuing education, having served as a guidance counselor and education services officer at a variety of overseas and stateside military installations, including Grand Forks AFB, N.D.; Pease AFB, N.H.; Bitburg AB, Germany; Soesterberg AB, Netherlands; Carswell AFB, Texas; Barksdale AFB, La.; and the Pentagon. He was named chief of the Air Force’s Voluntary Education Program in 1999. In this capacity, he was responsible for the development and implementation of policy for off-duty voluntary education, dependent education and veterans’ benefit programs.

He served on the advisory boards of Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC) and the Military Installation Voluntary Education Review (MIVER) and as the chair of the University Continuing Education Association’s Military Division. He currently serves as presidentelect of the Council of Colleges and Military Educators (CCME), the largest professional organization serving the postsecondary educational needs of the military community.

Sweizer earned a B.A. in psychology from Minot State University and an M.A. in education from North Dakota State University. He is a graduate of Air War College and Harvard University’s Institute for the Management of Lifelong Education.

Sweizer was interviewed by MAE editor Christian Sheehy.

Q: Please provide readers with a brief history of CCME.

A: Whenever you get a group of education services officers [ESOs] together, something good is bound to happen. This is what occurred back in the early 1970s when a number of California-based ESOs met to exchange ideas on how to best serve the educational needs of their respective military communities. From this impromptu meeting came a vision of conducting a state education symposium that would attract members from the military and academic communities. Thus was born the California Community Colleges and Military Educators Association [CCMEA], which held its first conference in 1973.

As the organization continued to grow over subsequent decades, the leadership of CCMEA felt compelled to change the organization’s name in 1994 to the Council of Colleges and Military Educators [CCME] to more accurately reflect the membership it served. Soon thereafter, CCME broadened its mission and became a regional organization, serving the needs of the military community in the western states. The popularity of the annual symposium continued to grow in the new millennium to the point where CCME is now worldwide in scope. Annual symposium sites over the years have included Santa Barbara, Long Beach, Palm Springs, Monterey, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Seattle, Albuquerque, Tampa and San Antonio.

Presently, CCME continues to foster strong partnerships among the services, colleges and universities and academic-related vendors. It remains a powerful voice in the realm of DoD voluntary education and is currently the only professional organization dedicated to meeting the training and development needs of military educators.

Q: How has CCME evolved regarding the way by which it supports the DoD Voluntary Education Program?

A: I view CCME as an education broker with a primary objective of keeping our constituency abreast of the latest developments in the DoD Voluntary Education Program and higher education as a whole. We also promote and highlight best practices among our partner academic institutions. Personally, I think we’ve made great strides over the past few years in reaching out to our individual members and institutions to learn more about their needs and opinions on key issues. In the past, we relied on the experience and knowledge of our executive board members to bring relevant issues to the table. For the most part this method met the needs of our members but was lacking in obtaining critical input from our key constituencies. More recently, we have focused on acquiring more specific feedback from the military and school communities in order to create a more vibrant agenda for our annual symposium. We’re accomplishing this primarily through the efforts of our two vice presidents, who represent the military and academic institution community respectively. The vice presidents’ charter is to engage with the service chiefs, school officials and military members to determine what our two distinct yet likeminded communities want to hear from each other. Additionally, we added a member of the National Association of Institutions for Military Education Services [NAIMES] to our executive board. In representing over 25 of the top academic institutions serving the military, the input obtained from NAIMES will add immeasurably to the scope and importance of topics addressed at the annual symposium.

Also, the unprecedented growth of our organization over the past five years has led to an increase in interest by schools and education- related corporations to participate in our annual symposium as sponsors and exhibitors. This year we have over 75 schools and corporations registered to exhibit, and 45 serving as sponsors for the symposium in Honolulu. I mention this because the participation of exhibitors and sponsors is extremely important to the survival and efficacy of CCME.

The sponsors help keep CCME financially solvent and provide the additional funding needed to conduct a first-class and professional symposium each year. The exhibitors are important at so many levels. Much like the sponsors, the exhibitors lend great financial support to CCME, but their real value relates to the networking capabilities they bring to the conference. Considering we cannot possibly cover all of the key issues, topics and best practices in a short three-day conference, the face-to-face activity in the exhibit hall serves to fill the gaps and gives our attendees a chance to leisurely explore the plethora of academic programs and services offered by our academic and corporate partners. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have a vibrant exhibit hall that brings together all of our constituencies in a professional setting. It is an important aspect of our symposium and a key method by which we promote new and innovative ideas to our key influencers and students.

Q: As 2009 begins, what do you see as the role of CCME?

A: As mentioned in the response to the previous question, I think CCME will take on a larger role as a broker organization that pushes relevant information to its membership, DoD partners and student servicemembers. Thanks to the efforts of our last two presidents, Lou Martini and Kathleen Connolly, we have emerged as more than just an organization that plans an annual symposium. Starting with Lou and continuing with Kathleen, we engaged and refined the services of two professional organizations, Exhibits Promotions Plus and CVENT, in the planning of our annual event. Their forward-thinking decision and action cleared the way for all CCME board members to be more than party planners. It really took us from being a “mom and pop” volunteer event planning group to a more professional issues- and networking-related organization. My goal in 2009 is to continue the visionary thinking of our past presidents and work with the executive board to solidify the position of CCME as a premier organization for all those who serve in the military education community.

Yet, we must not rest on our laurels. We want our members not only to seek us out each year to learn more about the issues and improve their job skills but to rely on us as a powerful voice and ombudsman organization on key issues. Now that we have partnered with NAIMES, I think CCME can make a difference on influencing DoD education policy, public law and state legislative priorities.

Q: Now that CCME appears to have taken on a greater role as an organization for professional military educators, what are your specific goals and objectives for your tenure as president?

A: My primary goal is to make CCME the premier meeting place for all of the services’ annual training and networking. Although various service-related organizations conduct one-day workshops at the annual symposium, there is no reason why we cannot accommodate the majority of their training needs through longer pre- or post-conference workshops and meetings. I think we do this by keeping registration fees reasonably priced and conducting the annual symposium at easily accessible and affordable locations. The selection of Nashville, Tenn. for the site of our 2010 conference meets these criteria and should prove to be a very successful and well-attended event. If you think about it, what makes more sense than to conduct a department’s training at a venue that will have top experts present, key issues discussed, and enable your functional group to network with the key suppliers of educational programs?

My next priority relates to DoD’s Worldwide Education Conference. As many of your readers know, the Department of Defense conducts a magnificent triennial conference that was last held in 2006 and attracted over 1,500 participants. That same year, CCME also conducted a well-attended symposium. Obviously, having two major conferences in the same year becomes problematic, especially when fiscal year travel and per diem dollars for the military is likely to become more constrained in the out-years. Last year, we started informal talks with DoD officials to discuss the possibility of merging our two conferences every three years. I will make it a goal in 2009 to continue these discussions and formalize an agreement that would preserve the current board structure of CCME while joining forces with DoD entities in hosting a first-class triennial event that combines the talents and vision of our two respective organizations.

Another goal I have in mind is to encourage more individuals to serve on the CCME Board. Although the executive board is elected by the general membership, we have numerous committee positions that become available each year. Historically, some of these positions have been filled by dedicated individuals for many years. Although there is certainly a legitimate argument to ensure continuity in any important position, I personally believe that a measure of turnover is a good thing and generates new ideas and strategies. Additionally, I believe encouraging shorter terms of service will attract more government employees who seem to endure increasing budgetary constraints each fiscal year. To this end, I will make new appointments to key committees and hope the board will continue this trend in the future.

Last, I would like to continue refining the role of our vice presidents as key liaisons with the communities they represent. Their interaction with key government and school officials will be paramount in building a meaningful annual conference agenda and securing the top subject matter experts to address key issues and trends.

Q: What challenges do you expect to encounter as CCME president?

A: Other than attempting to reach an agreement on merging the CCME annual conference with DoD Worldwide, I don’t foresee any major challenges for the upcoming year. Of course, there are always challenges when your organization is in a growth mode while at the same time you’re trying to improve the way in which you conduct business. A perennial challenge for any sitting president and the board is to ensure the organization remains financially solvent. Contracting out event management activities to the two professional organizations mentioned earlier will certainly help us achieve long-term financial stability. However, the need to acquire new members, sponsors and exhibitors will always remain a challenge. We’ve been fortunate to historically have solid performers on our Sponsor and Exhibits committees, and it will be even more important for future key players in these positions to work even harder as CCME grows in an unprecedented manner.

Another challenge is to ensure CCME serves as a meaningful home and meeting place for other like-minded organizations such as the various state Advisory Councils on Military Education and NAIMES to mention a few. We would also like to extend an offer to other military education organizations such as the Commission on Military Education and Training to make CCME their home.

Q: What forthcoming changes in online education do you anticipate in 2009 that will facilitate servicemembers’ abilities to further their careers?

A: The growth in online education both globally and within the military is phenomenal but not surprising. I remember the days while serving as the chief of Air Force education in the Pentagon when my department was under constant pressure to explain how we were going to take care of the educational needs of Air Force members assigned to overseas locations where courses were not taught in a traditional classroom manner. My response then focused on the new emerging technologies that would be deployed to the military community by our partner academic institutions. You just have to look at the staggering number of current military online enrollments to realize how the schools serving the military came through on this issue.

No doubt, participation in online education will continue to increase in the military, but I feel the top schools serving the military community in this capacity need to take full advantage of technological advancements to make the classroom a more interactive learning environment. Many schools are now enriching their courses with video content, using social networking sites to encourage academic discourse and building virtual communities using programs such as Second Life. Of course, successful deployment of new technology depends on the hardware capability of those trying to receive it. For our military members assigned to forward deployed areas or on ships, this means support from their respective service in providing adequate hardware, software and bandwidth if full exploitation of these new technological advances is to be realized.

I also expect the Air Force and Navy to tweak their existing programs that cater to online learning such as the Air University Associate-to-Baccalaureate Cooperative program and the Navy College Program Distance Learning Partnership and anticipate the Army and Marine Corps will continue to upgrade their GoArmyEd and Academic Explorer portals respectively.

Finally, I think many universities offering online programs will be more proactive in soliciting the support of members of Congress to amend the language in the Post-9/11 GI Bill law, which excludes online learners from receiving a housing stipend.

Q: Besides the challenges associated with the unprecedented growth of online education, what other key educational issues do you see emerging within the military community?

A: Anyone who has ever worked for or interacted with military organizations knows one thing: change is constant. Considering leadership at all levels within the military are reassigned every two to three years, new ideas and processes promulgate the landscape. These “new” ideas normally take the shape of new policies or public law, which impact education center personnel, school officials and the students we serve.

Probably one of the most significant developments over the past decade has been the services’ transition from a low-tech, paper-based education operation to one that is highly automated and virtual in nature. Specifically, the deployment of servicespecific portals, automated TA processes and specialized consortiums have aided servicemembers but caused some concern among academic providers that must allocate funding and manpower to comply with the demands of these new systems. These issues have been presented and discussed at conferences in the past, and I’m sure the dialogue will continue in the foreseeable future.

Circling back to online education, there was much debate at last year’s conference in San Francisco relevant to the quality of online study and completion rates as compared to traditional classroom delivery. Undoubtedly, this will be a continuing key issue as online enrollments within the military continue to increase. In fact, there are several general and concurrent sessions scheduled at our upcoming conference dedicated to addressing these very same issues.

Finally, there seems to be a general uneasiness with the proliferation of academic institutions in the military community. Although competition and increased academic offerings to military students is generally a good thing, some institutions have engaged in aggressive marketing tactics, which oftentimes draws the ire of education services officers, and I don’t blame them. I served as an ESO for 13 years and expected all MOU and visiting schools to follow the proper protocols. Officials at Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC) have made this issue one of their priorities, and I’m confident the top academic providers will assist SOC in this effort by applying more peer pressure on those schools that engage in questionable marketing practices on military installations.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: The incredible success of CCME is due to the tireless efforts of all those serving on the executive board. Although the names of all who serve are posted on our Website, I would like to publicly acknowledge the service of the following individuals and personally thank them for their many years of service and dedication to the cause of CCME.

Kathleen Connolly, Lou Martini, Belinda Jones, Linda Frank, Jocelyn Groot, Amy Moorash, Bonnie Orvick, JJ Jones, Rich Little, Cristina Dewey, Ginny Newman, Doug Barr, Misty Isak, Billy Wells, Valerie Halseth, Mebane Harrison, Val Vera and Bill Alexander.

I’m excited and honored to be the incoming president of CCME and am looking forward to seeing and visiting with all of my friends and colleagues in Honolulu! ♦

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