The utility of three military colleges, funded undergrad degrees; Officer trg & the need for a degre

[Humphrey Bogart]

250 million bucks?!?  Wowza - compare that to the annual operating budget of a CMBG and I now have a target for cuts!

Can be done at Toronto/Kingston (think Shrivingham)

UNB and UofC have fine Defence Studies Programs.  Real graduate schools are found all over the country (and on the internet).

DRDC?  Defence Contractors?

I'm not arguing that we can go without all these capabilities, but I suspect there may be ways to achieve efficiencies.

Agree that we can achieve efficiencies, if you read the Withers Report you will find that most of it has fallen by the wayside.  When i was at the College they began implementing it but then for whatever reason they stopped and the College began reverting back.  I suspect their were some people who were not so happy with some of the changes taking place:  4th years living off campus, loss of distinctive RMC uniforms (3b's but for RMC), loss of traditions, etc...

On the point of graduate schools, yes there are lots of great graduate schools out there both offline and online; however, RMC's post-grad programs are narrowly focused towards DND which I believe means they are not without Merit.  The undergraduate studies at RMC mean we can take our best and brightest we produce and stream them into these programs as well.

The top cadets academically in my class, instead of doing what I did and head to the Infantry School, they remained at RMC and continued their education.  One such individual I know, was a reservist who paid to goto RMC he did his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering, he then stayed and did his Masters in Nuclear Engineering and following this was accepted as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University in the UK.  Thats a solid 6 years that we got out of that guy and some solid research to boot that we probably would not have gotten had he not had the option to come to RMC.

I get it RMC is an institution which looks big and fat and juicy but I see a value in it.  Not least of which it is able to draw on a lot of very talented people who otherwise would probably not be interested in the military but end up giving something back (I am not talking about myself btw I took Political Science aka basket weaving  >  )

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

250 million bucks?!?  Wowza - compare that to the annual operating budget of a CMBG and I now have a target for cuts!

Can be done at Toronto/Kingston (think Shrivingham)

UNB and UofC have fine Defence Studies Programs.  Real graduate schools are found all over the country (and on the internet).

DRDC?  Defence Contractors?

I'm not arguing that we can go without all these capabilities, but I suspect there may be ways to achieve efficiencies.

When I read the $250 Million tab I was shocked too.... if we took the 800ish cadets at RMC and just sent them to civy U it would only cost $8-10 million (at $10,000 per student per year), so it would seem to be a huge savings... perhaps the college could be the Div HQ......

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Btw to add to my number 250 million, my understanding is a portion of that is also endowment money so it doesn't all come from DND's pocket, should of clarified that initially and the college also is  a lot more then the just the cadet wing.

You also have to account for everything on top of the cadets.  Like I mentioned above a large portion of that money is actually endowment which all universities receives and is directed at funding research.  The budget of the cadet wing is actually quite small hence why it is a Lieutenant Colonel that is Director of Cadets which I mentioned earlier.

The College is more then just the Cadet Wing, much more, hence why it is so expensive.  This is why a 1* oversees it; however, like Infanteer said above do we need all of this extra stuff?  That is what we need to decide.  Their are a 1000 cadets but over 5000 part time students and 600 postgrads along with 200+ staff.  A lot of research is done at  Do we want a Military College that does all this extra stuff or just educates Cadets?

 

[Strike]

DRDC?  Defence Contractors?

Most of the projects done at RMC are offshoots of, or in partnership with DRDC.  When I was going to school the big projects were biodegradable chaff, ceramic tiles for armoured vehicles and bioremediation of PCB contaminated soil as part of the DEW-line clean up.  And this was just the Chemical Engineering department.  In fact, the Environmental Sciences Group, based at RMC, was the lead agency in charge of managing the DEW-line clean up.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Most of the projects done at RMC are offshoots of, or in partnership with DRDC.  When I was going to school the big projects were biodegradable chaff, ceramic tiles for armoured vehicles and bioremediation of PCB contaminated soil as part of the DEW-line clean up.  And this was just the Chemical Engineering department.  In fact, the Environmental Sciences Group, based at RMC, was the lead agency in charge of managing the DEW-line clean up.

RMC is also heavily linked with other civi schools as well.  I know the Defence Management, War Studies and Public Administration programs are linked in heavily with Queens and we get a big boost from sharing research with them.  It was because of this partnership that I was able to take a couple of classes at Queens.

 

[dapaterson]

I believe the $250M includes Reg F pay as well.

If we want research scientitsts, we can hire them at lower cost than using military personnel.  Someone who goes from RMC to RMC to Oxford is not a CF officer- they're an academic in uniform.  No experience outside the limestone walls does not serve the individual well, and does not serve the larger CF.

RMC is not going to go away; there is not and will not be political will to close it.  But the programs need to be scrutinized and reduced to the minimum CF requirement (so long, MBA program); the rank structure of the command elements needs to be right-sized (the CF is about 50% over its 1997 target for General and Flag officers); and a return to Withers to judge success/failure and look for further improvements.

The target of 40% ROTP RMC is too high.  DEO is the more cost-effective officer production system.  RMC needs to shrink its intake- which reduces PY demand for support, reduces funding requirements, and reduces infra costs.

 

[Edward Campbell]

My only problem with RMC's graduate programmes - I was a sponsor of graduate students but this was 15+ tears ago, so ... - was that I didn't like the idea of fairly recent RMC graduates returning to RMC to study with the same profs who had taught them in their undergrad programmes. I preferred my people to go elsewhere and be exposed to new, different ideas. I was sponsoring an engineering degree but I was still impressed with the broader range of views in our field (Eng Phys) in other universities.

I did send an officer (Civvy U graduate) to RMC for his Master's and I was pleased with the work he did and the research in which he participated. But, since most of the officers I sponsored (I was in charge of a small, specialized directorate for a very long time) were, themselves RMC grads, I sent most to Civvy Us.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I believe the $250M includes Reg F pay as well.

If we want research scientitsts, we can hire them at lower cost than using military personnel.  Someone who goes from RMC to RMC to Oxford is not a CF officer- they're an academic in uniform.  No experience outside the limestone walls does not serve the individual well, and does not serve the larger CF.

RMC is not going to go away; there is not and will not be political will to close it.  But the programs need to be scrutinized and reduced to the minimum CF requirement (so long, MBA program); the rank structure of the command elements needs to be right-sized (the CF is about 50% over its 1997 target for General and Flag officers); and a return to Withers to judge success/failure and look for further improvements.

The target of 40% ROTP RMC is too high.  DEO is the more cost-effective officer production system.  RMC needs to shrink its intake- which reduces PY demand for support, reduces funding requirements, and reduces infra costs.

I don't know if it is necessarily too high and you are right DEO is definitely the more cost effective solution but now we are getting into a quality vs quantity issue again which is are the officers that goto RMC vs DEO of a higher quality.  Personally, I have heard that argument before and I think it is a bogus one and the institution doesn't make the man. 

I don't agree with your first point though, the person I spoke about paid for his own way through RMC as a RETP student, he then committed to continuing his education which contributed to research projects undertaken by the CF.  I also don't necessarily believe that everyone needs experience "outside the limestone walls," did Steve Jobs ever spend time outside the Limestone Walls?  Nope he had two jobs CEO of Apple and CEO of Pixar, one of which he turned into one of the most profitable companies ever.  Their is a value to having professional academics in uniform (smart people doing smart things) and we only have to look how the corporate world harnesses brain power to see it.

E.R. Campbell the point you just brought up is def a drawback of RMC  graduates returning for post-grad and perhaps we should consider whether it would be better off sending our graduates to other universities to pursue post-grad.

 

[dapaterson]

My critique of "limestone walls" was similar to ERC's complaint of students going to a single school.  Few reputable universities hire professors who do all their degrees in the same schools; intellectual monoculture from sole-source schooling is something to be avoided.  Education should be broadening, not reinforcing institutional bias.  There's the added benefit of exposing more people to the military - sending post-grad students to St Fx, Waterloo and UBC gives the non-military students there exposure to the military.

But I also have concerns about driving military officers from degree to degree to degree without exposing them to and getting them experience in the military.  I don't want brilliant academics permanently entombed in professorships or research chairs, while wearing the uniform.  There is much to be said for real-world experience as well as theory - and the real world of a military officer must include time outside the world of academia.


(And note that Steve Jobs never graduated from university  ;D )

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

hahaha well played Sir!  ;D

I think what i was trying to say is we have certain people that are very good at certain things i.e. Academics.  Do we want to throw them into the meat grinder or develop them more, sort of like how we stream soldiers and officers except this would be a stream setup towards Academia? 

I believe the value of RMC lies in the continuity it provides the officer corps.  You have a significant group of young officers who graduate from our schools every year with a commonality in the way they think and act and I believe this is the real value of the military college.  Could we achieve this more efficiently? 

 

[jeffb]

I believe the value of RMC lies in the continuity it provides the officer corps.  You have a significant group of young officers who graduate from our schools every year with a commonality in the way they think and act and I believe this is the real value of the military college.  Could we achieve this more efficiently?

If RMC delivers this, which I do not think it does, you say that like it is a good thing? Why would we possibly want an officer corps without breadth and depth of experience and knowledge? I work with numerous RMC grads and there is no commonality in how they think and act. Can you honestly tell me that as an infantry officer you think and act the same way the MARS or Logistics officers you went through the college with?

 

[Infanteer]

I believe the value of RMC lies in the continuity it provides the officer corps.  You have a significant group of young officers who graduate from our schools every year with a commonality in the way they think and act and I believe this is the real value of the military college.  Could we achieve this more efficiently?

Eeeeehhh.  Wrong.

I see no sign of this in the Army - the battalions and regiments to the real grunt work when it comes to socializing officers. 

 

[McG]

The 1* oversee's the entire operation of the College which is much more then just the Cadet Wing. 

200+ Staff
1000+ Full-time students
5000+ Part-time students
660 Post-graduates

How many of those 5000 part-time students were doing OPMEs and will no longer exist to justify the general at the top?
... and I'd question anyone using those part-time students as though they were posted strength to justify the rank at the top.  No other CF school has rank inflation based on the size of transient population; RMC does not need it for students who are not even on site.

 

[McG]

I see no sign of this in the Army - the battalions and regiments to the real grunt work when it comes to socializing officers. 

... and the respective branch/corps schools.

 

[jeffb]

I believe the value of RMC lies in the continuity it provides the officer corps.  You have a significant group of young officers who graduate from our schools every year with a commonality in the way they think and act and I believe this is the real value of the military college. 

Eeeeehhh.  Wrong.

I see no sign of this in the Army - the battalions and regiments to the real grunt work when it comes to socializing officers.

And thus the value of RMC has been disproved. QED. Shut the doors.

In all honesty, I think the real value of RMC, and ROTP in the wider sense, is providing an avenue for young Canadians to serve their country while getting a pretty good education without gaining mountains of student debt. The downside of RMC is the "national treasures" crap that gets thrown around. {uggh, I was going to delete that last sentence.} What I was going to add onto it though was that in my experience this only goes to the head of a few graduates. Most RMC grads that I have had the pleasure of working with are no different then DEOs or CEOTPs. (in the good way)

 

[Journeyman]

The downside of RMC is the "national treasures" crap that gets thrown around.

Oh man, is she still getting passed around Champlain? She's got to be getting pretty long in the tooth by now....

What?  Oh......nevermind......  :-[

 

[ballz]

RMC takes a bunch of people out of high school and locks them into another high school-like environment for 4 more years. In my unit, those of us officers who did not go to RMC have noticed a difference between those that did and didn't based on this, especially when we see new officers show up. For most it only seems to last a year or two after they graduate as they are now living like adults so they mature, some stay locked in the high school mentality for long after they get into the battalion, but that can be said for some percentage of all adults anyway.

All this to say, I don't think anyone should underestimate the immense amount of peer pressure and judgement the young 2Lt must have felt going through this at RMC. IMO, this is both a product of our society which tends to easily victim-blame and emphasizing with the perpetrator ("he held so much promise," "this will affect his career forever," sounds like at least one person is saying the same kind of rhetoric about Mr. Whitehead as they do about that high school quarterback that gets accused of sexual assault), and a product of RMC maintaining a high-school type of environment for what are grown adults.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

RMC takes a bunch of people out of high school and locks them into another high school-like environment for 4 more years. In my unit, those of us officers who did not go to RMC have noticed a difference between those that did and didn't based on this, especially when we see new officers show up.

I know!  Everyone that goes to RMC is all screwed up, there must be something in the water! 

Stop generalizing!  You don't help the situation not to mention that those other officers are now your regimental brothers.  Sounds to me like a little bit of envy!  Then again, this military is full of backstabbing careerists that will use any crisis to further their own personal agenda.  : 

lets not act as if DEO Pat Platoon in Gagetown is the model of dress and decorum either  :nod:
   

 

[ballz]

I know!  Everyone that goes to RMC is all screwed up, there must be something in the water! 

Stop generalizing!  You don't help the situation not to mention that those other officers are now your regimental brothers.  Sounds to me like a little bit of envy!  Then again, this military is full of backstabbing careerists that will use any crisis to further their own personal agenda.  : 

lets not act as if DEO Pat Platoon in Gagetown is the model of dress and decorum either  :nod:
 

Wow, apparently I hurt your feelings. I assure you I don't envy anyone, I actually don't care too much about RMC right now as I was busy discussing sexual assault. You don't see me running around trying to find out why someone else got extras or put on admin measures or might be charged for this or got jacked up for that or... getting all offended because someone said something I consider negative toward my alma mater.

I didn't go DEO nor did I ever spend more than 2 weeks on PAT Pl, unless you count block leave between Ph III and IV, but I did go to a civilian university. I matured a lot more in 4 years of living on my own without a babysitter at all times making sure I paid my rent and ate my vegetables, realizing that I no longer had to care about fellow classmates being judgemental because I no longer had to spend any time with them if I didn't want to, than I did in the 3 years of high school prior to that. Kind of off topic but the RMC candidates who created this shitstorm for heckling this Lalonde character reminded me of grade 11 or 12s that decided they were going to take the substitute teacher for a hard ride. Coincidence?

As I said, most of the RMC grads take a year or two to realize they no longer eat, sleep, and breathe under the same room as their peers and  quickly stop caring so much about what other people think. For most people though, that year or two happens in their first year or two out of high school, where as for most RMC grads, they spend an extra 4 years in that environment. Most RMC grads I know describe it as such. Is it really that hard to believe?

Anyway, all this tending to your scuffed knee is detracting from my original point and the question of how much this points to the leadership at RMC. This Second-Lieutenant most likely felt immense pressure both for societal reasons as I mentioned (victim-blaming and perpetrator emphasizing) and also because of the environment at RMC (as I have now discussed more than I originally wished to). Just my guess. So how much of that blame lays on RMC leadership? I am unsure. I believe if you treat people like kids they will act like kids, but that seems to be rampant within the Canadian Army at least.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I apologize that I lost my cool for a minute, what I have trouble with though is that I think RMC Cadets (Past, Present and Future) get a bad wrap.  There are a lot of RMC haters out there but it's not going to be the institution that takes the brunt of all this negative publicity, it's going to be the cadets, 90% of whom are good people who are just trying to serve their country.

I applied to RMC because I wanted to be an officer, not because I wanted to go to RMC.  It was a means to an end for me as it was for most of my peers as well.  People who go to RMC should feel proud when they graduate from the school; however, most don't because when they get to a unit and someone finds out they are a ring knocker .... "oh you're one of those" ... yep that was said to me just this past Friday, by a civilian worker at my unit no less, someone who isn't even a member of the profession of arms. 

The feeling surrounding RMC has always been negative, especially within the military writ-large.  Thus, any chance people get to knock the institution, they do so willingly.  This only has the effect though of hurting our most valuable commodity, our people, most of whom are hardworking officers who slave away doing important but largely thankless jobs. In this regard, the negative aura that surrounds RMC is quite similar to the aura that surrounded the Airborne Regiment prior to it's disbandment.

It's the perception of elitism, something which is a direct contradiction to Canadian values, which allows this attitude to fester, regardless of whether the place, person or thing in question is truly elite or not.  RMC is certainly not elite and the cadets that go there are no better or worse than their DEO counterparts but there are some advantages to RMC which are for another topic but also ties in to your question about whether the leadership holds some of the blame.

If we talk about the leadership of RMC, it must first be stated that RMC is controlled by the military.  The Commandant is a 1* General and answers to a 2* General in charge of CDA.  CDA in turn answers to CMP who is a 3* and is soon to be Chris Whitecross, the GO placed in charge of the sexual misconduct TF (a coincidence? maybe).  There are some other players i.e. Alumni, Academia and the Senate but it's a military organization.  The current CDS is an RMC Graduate and was the Commandant of the school at one point so if we are blaming the leadership for this then our entire CoC from the top on down is at fault.

RMC has been allowed to exist in isolation for a very long time because you've got a substantial portion of the military who think it's a waste of time and money and want it to disappear for good (just like the Army wanted the Airborne to go away) but you've got a minority of officers that went there that is large enough that the institution must be maintained.  These two factions can never come to an agreement on what to do with the place so it's been allowed to exist in stasis mode with the raison-d'etre of the school remaining largely unchanged since the 1960's.

Sandhurst isn't even a year long, involves zero academic credit earning courses, and the graduates are still accused of many of the same negative things as RMC grads. 

The difference between us and them, IMHO, is that the one and only way in to the Officers' Mess in the British Army, apart from some CFRs, is Sandhurst. For all arms and services. It's kind of like the way the US Marines pout everyone through the same basic training together, then they go on to specialize. Although some go through with degrees earned in civvie U, RMAS is a common leadership development experience for 90% of the British Army's officer corps.

IMHO, as a result the British don't tend to suffer from the same inter-mess struggles that you see sometimes in the CF resulting from the RESO, DEO, MilColl (are there others?) matrix. From what I've seen, the US Army has similar issues with the West Point vs. Everyone else dynamic.

We should fix that, somehow.