"Change"

We are off to a fabulous academic year, with many exciting activities planned. The second Todd Lecture Series event will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 7 p.m. in Plumley Armory. David M. Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office and president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, will be our featured guest. Mr. Walker's talk, Comeback America: How America Can Get Back on Track, will address our country's current fiscal crisis. He will discuss lessons from history and our modern-day financial challenge, measures that must be taken to right the country's financial ills, the importance of leadership and a call to action for our future leaders. It will be a timely topic for students preparing to go out into the world to begin their post-college lives. I encourage everyone to attend this significant lecture.

I have received complaints from several Northfield citizens who have noticed a large amount of litter along the banks of the Dog River. Norwich students need to be good neighbors, and also good stewards of the environment. Please make sure to respect the property and land surrounding Norwich and set an example of global citizenship by protecting our natural resources.

The two words that I am using to describe this year are "change" and "assessment." I am particularly interested in the improvements in the sophomore-training program. We need a robust program to develop these students into leaders. As juniors and seniors it will be their responsibility to lead the Corps of Cadets. Mandatory military Arnis training, two field training exercises, mandatory classroom training, serving as a fire team leaders and shadowing juniors and seniors in their present posts will produce students confident in their leadership abilities, who know how to properly care for and lead their troops. 

The Rooks are learning at a quicker pace under our new system of a sequential and progressive training plan than they did under the old system of fear and intimidation. So far, retention of the Rooks has been considerably better than anything we have seen in the past. More importantly, their outcomes and abilities to perform required tasks have greatly improved. The Rooks are doing much better in the classroom. For many of our Rooks attaining a commission is their primary objective. They know they must pass their courses and maintain a grade point average at an acceptable level for our federal government. A large number of our students are also considering graduate school; therefore high academic performance is their priority. We must find additional time during the day for studying and academic pursuits so that all of our students can reach their goals.

Our focus as upperclassmen and as faculty and staff is to provide an environment that ensures that our students can succeed academically and become the leaders we need them to be. The changes in the regiment are aimed at developing sophomore leadership as an integral part of a four-year progressive leadership model at Norwich. We will be assessing these changes over the course of the year to monitor our progress. One of the goals of NU2019 is for Norwich to become the highest quality senior military college in the country. We are well on our way to that distinction, but in order to reach the goal we will need complete alignment of the faculty, staff and student body.

Our upperclassmen are doing an awesome job, both in training Rooks and leading sophomores to a higher level of personal and unit standards. Keep up the good work.