Q&A: Gary A. Woods
EDUCATION INNOVATOR:
Establishing the Basic Game Plan
Gary A. Woods
Director, Educational Opportunities
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Personnel and Readiness
Establishing the Basic Game Plan
Gary A. Woods
Director, Educational Opportunities
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Personnel and Readiness
Gary A. Woods is the director of Educational Opportunities in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and serves as senior staff advisor for higher education policy and programs for the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy. Previously, he was chief of DoD Continuing Education and served as the associate director of Community Support for the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Personnel Support, Families and Education.
Woods has more than 37 years of experience in education and training. He has worked on college campuses and on Marine, Navy, Army and Air Force installations in the United States, and overseas. This included positions as center director and adjunct history professor for Chapman College; education counselor, and branch chief for Army Continuing Education; education specialist for the Army Recruiting Command; base education officer, Major Command Education Staff member, and major command director of Education and Training for the Air Force; then as chief of Voluntary Education.
In his current position, he supervises professional staff responsible for DoD’s Voluntary Education Program, DANTES, Distance Learning, Spouses- and Troops-to-Teachers Programs, licensure and certification initiatives, as well as the Military Spouse Education and Career Development Program. He has served on numerous interagency, DoD, service, community and professional steering committees and task forces. He has also worked with congressional staff on issues related to voluntary education, distance learning and transition assistance.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in European history from Wichita State University, a master’s degree in medieval European history from Wichita State, a second in education from Chapman College, and an honorary doctorate in higher education administration from Park University. He is a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for Management and Leadership in Education, Air War College, DoD’s Senior Executive Leadership Program and the Federal Executive Institute.
He is recipient of numerous government, professional, and community awards and honors, to include the Nathan Altschuler Award for Excellence in Education, two U.S Air Force Awards for Meritorious Civilian Service, the California Colleges and Military Educators Association’s President’s Award, and the City of Westlake Village California Citation for Outstanding Civic Service.
He has written professional articles on accreditation, distance education, professional development, and state Advisory Councils on Military Education. He has made major keynote presentations at education and training conferences and professional meetings, and has been the commencement speaker at college and university graduation exercises. He has also played a leadership role in numerous professional and community volunteer organizations.
Gary Woods was interviewed by MAE Editorial Coordinator Diana McGonigle.
Q: What is your role as Director of Educational Opportunities?
A: Basically, I’m a coach, quarterback, linebacker and cheerleader, all rolled into one.
As director of DoD Educational Opportunities, I have oversight responsibility for several high visibility programs such as voluntary education, DANTES, our efforts with the Department of Labor in the area of licensure and certification, and now our new spouse career development programs.
In that capacity, I’m involved in program conceptualization, establishing the basic game plan for where we’re headed, ensuring the right support is in place, and for running interference for staff. That ensures those responsible for the programs involved leverage their skills so they get the job done. That way we continue delivering quality programs and products for our service personnel and their families.
Front burner examples of what we are working at present include developing and fielding our military spouse initiatives, which include our Spouse Career Advancement Accounts, our Military Spouse Call Center, our Spouses-to-Teachers Program, as well as expansion of our education and testing programs overseas.
We keep all of the right people informed and involved. That includes internal DoD leadership, interaction with leadership at all levels across the services, partners in other government departments and agencies, as well as congressional staffs keenly interested in what we are doing to develop and deliver the projects they are interested in.
Overall, the role is quite unique. Designing the play, oftentimes changing it on the field, taking a hit or two now and again, ensuring the play unfolds properly, and then getting the team and their projects across the goal is key to successful delivery of meaningful programs for our military and their family members. Doing that is what makes all of this so challenging and so fulfilling.
Q: What are some of the goals for your office?
A: We know that the off-duty, voluntary education program has long been linked to better recruitment, increased morale, improved job performance, enhanced readiness, fewer discipline problems, and better retention. So, ensuring the availability of affordable, quality educational programs for our personnel and their spouses is right up there at the top of our list.
Another of our goals is to ensure that military spouses are provided educational and certification and licensing opportunities that help them obtain portable careers that will translate into professional positions as they move from installation to installation with their military host. We have been working closely with the Department of Labor [DOL] and with partners in industry to ensure this becomes a reality for interested spouses.
We are also interested in providing our military personnel licensure and certification opportunities that will benefit their military careers and ultimately help them find continuing employment in the same specialty when they retire. We are working with DOL to identify targets of opportunity that ensure our military have the option of preparing for these dual track careers while they are still in the service. We are encouraging our partners in academe to provide the coursework and licensure programs needed to do that.
Q: Are there things going on in DoD education that our readers might be interested in?
A: Probably one of the more exciting things we’ve been involved in recently, from the DoD education services community’s perspective, has been the launch of the Military Spouse Career Advancement Account [CAA] Demonstration Project. DoD and DOL are working together to ensure spouse access to the education and training resources needed to establish meaningful long-term careers that will contribute to the military family’s fiscal bottom line.
DoD and DOL have identified several high-growth industries that show long-term potential for those interested in high profile career opportunities. These include financial services, education, health care, information technology and construction work. Anyone interested in finding out which states and bases are part of the CAA demonstration project, eligibility criteria, a broader explanation of the careers involved, what type of funding is available and who to contact locally to apply for the program can check it out at http://caa.milspouse.org/. Those with additional questions can go to the Career section at www.militaryonesource.com and then contact a Military OneSource counselor at 1-800-342-9647 if they want more specifics.
On another note, a DoD/DOL Credentialing Working Group has been working another initiative that will be benefit our military personnel. The Working Group has been studying military job specialties that might have linkage to high growth civilian careers that require licensure and certification. They are taking a close look at the current training for military occupational specialties to determine what learning experiences could be added to the existing curriculum, or what voluntary education programs could be provided in addition to those courses, which would result in licensure or certification for the servicemember. A few examples of the careers being reviewed are automotive technology, cooking and food services, computer technology and medical technology.
Also, as reported at recent DoD education conferences, more and more of our military students are taking coursework at a distance. Depending on the service involved, participation ranges from between 50 to 60 percent of the enrollments for which we issue tuition assistance. Fifty to 60 per cent of over 800,000 enrollments means there’s a whole lot of distance education going on. That’s big business. And several of the institutions offering these courses, and recouping tuition assistance for them, have no relationship with the department or the services that outline the delivery and quality expectations that we have of institutions who deliver coursework and degree programs to our personnel on a campus or on an installation.
As a result, we convened a distance learning study group a couple of years ago, made up of representatives of academe and the services. That study group was asked to identify the specific criteria that institutions providing coursework at a distance would have to agree to before they would qualify to collect military tuition assistance for coursework they provided our personnel.
Those criteria have been duly vetted and will be added to DoD directives in the very near future. Institutions providing programs at a distance, not already operating on a military installation under an existing memorandum of agreement [MOA], will have to agree to the quality and delivery criteria before they can provide or bill the services for coursework provided military students. This will bring distance programs in line with program criteria for which on-base and centrally-contracted institutions have been operating under now going on 40 years.
Q: Do you think the tuition assistance program is underutilized, over utilized, or just right?
A: You have to recall that voluntary education is just that, voluntary. To that end, we want to make sure that academic programs are available on-campus, on-base, on-ship and on-line that support the personal and professional education and personal development goals of our servicemembers. At times, those goals could revolve around the mission of any given installation since personnel assigned there could choose to pursue certification and degree programs that focus on their military jobs, programs that help them with career advancement within the military. But then again, they could well choose to pursue degree programs and coursework that prepare them for a career in a totally different academic area. But that’s okay; the intent of the program has always been to accommodate both.
In any event, what we do is make the funds available to help them attain their educational goals. This makes them better soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines; and we are all for that. We know that the better educated they are, the better they are at analyzing situations on the job, better as leaders, and thus much better prepared in helping us ensure mission success.
Many of these military personnel are the first members of their families to obtain a college degree or professional certification. Obtaining an education makes them better servicemembers while they are in the military and better citizens after they return to the private sector. Importantly, from our perspective, we are helping create tomorrow’s military and civic leaders today.
Whether tuition is under-utilized, over-utilized, or not, is not the question. If deployment precludes military personnel from continuing their coursework, if distance programs are or are not readily available at their deployed locations, or if the servicemember decides to sit out a few terms, that’s okay. We want to make sure that they take care of personal, family and mission needs when, in their judgment, that’s what they need to do. In turn, we will make sure that tuition assistance is available when they decide to resume their coursework.
Q: Are there incentives to take particular courses or programs?
A: As I noted earlier, the intent of the military tuition assistance program is to provide funding that military personnel can use to pursue the educational goals of their own choice. In some instances, that might not be job related. In others, it might well be.
Some of the services fund degree programs closely tied to military specialties that servicemembers are training for. As an example, the Navy works closely with a community college in Florida, with the college offering coursework that, when upon successful completion, results in receipt of a Navy rating as a cook, but which also generates college credit applicable to an associate degree in a related academic area.
The Army does something quite similar with its College of the American Soldier and its Career NCO Degree Program. Both help maximize the use of military training and resulting academic credits validated by the American Council on Education, coupled with other required academic coursework, to help soldiers obtain degrees they can use on the job as well as after they retire. The Air Force does much the same with career-oriented Community College of the Air Force associate degrees.
There is also the new language program that the department has implemented. As part of the President’s National Security Language Initiative, DoD revised policy to ensure personnel interested in learning key languages, determined as shortfalls by the department, are able to use military tuition assistance to build language and cultural proficiency, without having to pursue a specific degree. This allows individuals who already have a degree, who otherwise wouldn’t qualify for tuition assistance for coursework at the same level, to hone their language skills to the benefit of the service and the nation.
In short, where we have the need, and when the program is compatible with the intent for which the military tuition assistance program was implemented, we have and will also continue to support the efforts of the services to provide programs that link the academic and career aspirations of the military student, and to provide educational programs that will contribute to that goal. But, if on the other hand the student wants to use TA to pursue a degree totally different from what they do on the job, that is fine too.
Q: Is accreditation a problem in voluntary education?
A: The Department does have some concerns that touch on accreditation. That concern mostly involves the transferability of coursework provided by institutions accredited by one accrediting agency to institutions accredited by another. That has actually been an ongoing concern for quite some time.
In 1999, DoD determined that it would no longer be the arbiter of what courses and educational programs would be eligible for federal funding. Servicemembers eligible for tuition assistance, like veterans receiving educational funding to pursue academic programs of their choice, were subsequently authorized to use tuition assistance to attend courses of instruction and pursue degree programs from institutions accredited by any accrediting agency recognized by the Department of Education.
We in DoD are interested in ensuring that our personnel can take coursework from any accredited source, and transfer applicable credits recommended by the American Council on Education [ACE] to any other institution eligible for tuition assistance, whether that institution is regionally or nationally accredited. Since we pay a large percentage of the servicemember’s overall tuition costs, we don’t want the student to have to take and then have to pay for the equivalent learning experience over and over again; that is a waste of their time and the taxpayers’ money.
Yes, we know that higher academe is concerned about the quality of the credits provided by institutions accredited by other accrediting agencies. But we leave the determination of the validity of that accreditation to the Department of Education, and the academic equivalency of the education provided by institutions accredited by those accrediting agencies to ACE.
We ask, no, we encourage academe to take the next logical step and at least accept in transfer, sources of accreditation aside, credits that meet the recommendations of equivalency set forth in the ACE Guide. If they do that, we believe that their concern for the quality of the learning that has taken place will have been addressed, tested and met. They win and the students win.
Q: What trends do you see in voluntary education?
A: As most everyone in voluntary education is aware, the department and the services are looking for ways to leverage centralization of operational services and student support, via the web, at a distance, any way we can with efficiency and with the proper economies of scale. Army has reduced staff worldwide and is computerizing and centralizing as many of its operational processes as possible. The other services have done, or are contemplating doing the same where it makes sense.
In late 2005, the deputy under secretary of defense for military community and family policy established a joint committee, made up of the services’ chiefs of voluntary education, to address this very issue. The joint working group looked at a wide variety of opportunities where they might find certain savings by centralizing some of the operations that many of them were contemplating doing in isolation. Basically the committee identified five areas where we might anticipate some consolidation in the future: credentialing, in-state tuition initiatives, deploying joint education centers down range, Website resource management, and standardization of memoranda of agreement with institutions that offer programs at a wide variety of locations. Two or three of these are quickly becoming front burner issues.
As an example, in support of our efforts to provide more career development opportunities for their spouses, we will be expanding our outreach to industry groups to form broader relationships that provide them access to funded training programs that lead to licensure and certification and then professional career opportunities and jobs on the other end of that process.
Also, a senior member of our staff will soon be turning their efforts to implementation of joint education opportunities for personnel serving operations headed up by CENTCOM and AFRICOM. We are in the early stages of that process, but we want to ensure servicemembers in each of these theaters of operation are provided the full range of joint educational opportunities per guidelines set forth for our Tri-Service Overseas Voluntary Education programs.
We are also looking at ways to consolidate information gathering and reporting processes across the department and the services that would give us instant access to the data we need to make sound judgments that impact the voluntary education program. There’s a lot on our plate and it will all eventually fall in place, one step at a time.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: Yes, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our continued interest in the role that the state Advisory Councils on Military Education [ACMEs] play around the country as educational advocates for military personnel and their families. For decades, ACMEs have successfully addressed the academic needs of their military residents by networking with governors, state legislatures, state education agencies, and academic leadership providing programs for our military, to establish and pursue an agenda supportive of the educational needs of the military constituents within their states.
Those interested in becoming more active in higher education circles serving military personnel and their families should check the ACMEs’ web site for contacts that can help them become more involved in this effort [http://www.dantes.doded.mil/dantes_web/organizations/acme/index.asp].
And, of course, this interview would be incomplete without my thanking a couple of groups that we just don’t thank often enough. So “Thank You” to all of the education services professionals serving at the service headquarters, major command and regional offices, and in our education centers world wide for your untiring efforts, under sometimes trying circumstances, to deliver the very best education programs possible to our personnel and their families. And by all means, an accompanying hearty “Thank You” to the many colleges and universities and their staffs, who, over the past six decades, have provided diverse, quality educational offerings to military personnel and their families, in often hard-to-get-to, out-of-the-way places.
Each time we face a new need or a new challenge, both of you are there to help. We could not operate the world’s largest continuing education program in the world without your unfailing dedication to our nation’s troops and family members. Thank you! ♦
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