JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
The director of the U.S. Navy Senior Enlisted Academy was in
San Antonio Sept. 23 to meet with the chief petty officer community and discuss
recent changes to the academy program.
Command Master Chief Petty Officer Rich Curtis said his Navy
Medicine Education and Training Command-sponsored visit was part of a 10-city,
24-day tour of fleet-concentration areas to answer questions and clear up
misconceptions about the SEA’s new format.
The U.S. Navy Senior Enlisted Academy, located in Newport,
R.I., is open to E-7 through E-9 from all branches of the U.S. and foreign
allied military services.
“I don’t want any myths or rumors about the changes to the
academy. Come hear it from the horse’s mouth,” Curtis said, referring to the
new “9-3 hybrid-model class.”
The SEA switched from a six-week in-residence program to the
new 9-3 hybrid model when academy graduation became a requirement for
advancement to master chief petty officer in November 2014.
The first nine weeks of class are now completed on-line
before travelling to the Naval War College at Newport, R.I., for the final
three weeks of in-residence classes. The 9-3 hybrid-model allows for more
quotas per year to accommodate the anticipated increased student numbers.
But the SEA is much more than a requirement for master
chief. Curtis, director since February, said it helps the senior NCO community
better bridge the gap between junior enlisted and officers.
“We’re told as senior NCOs to train those above us, and
train those below us,” he said.
To help bridge that gap, the Senior Enlisted Academy places
emphasis on leadership and communication. Curtis said the communication
emphasis is because it’s essential for senior NCOs to communicate clearly and
appropriately with officers, senior leaders and junior enlisted personnel. Junior troops also want to know why, so the
SEA teaches CPOs to explain some of the why.
“When a junior enlisted asks, ‘Why are we worried about
China, or why are we in the Middle East, or why are deployments this long,’
they are able to answer that why and bridge that gap. We build better leaders
and better communicators,” Curtis explained.
Academy graduates also learn to develop and present formal
speeches and senior-executive-level briefings to commanding officers and flag
and general officers. They are also taught social media awareness and use as a
leadership tool.
Curtis, a former submarine radioman who worked with Navy
message traffic, explained that he receives more emails in an hour than a CPO
in the early 1990s received in written “snail mail” in a year. Formal Navy
message traffic was the primary means of communication for the fleet. It was a
secure, structured, non-grammatically correct method where style was not as
important.
“Today, when I write a paper or an email, I have to be
conscious of my audience,” he said.
He also said senior NCOs must be aware of the non-intended
audience, referring to social media’s viral effect where countless people could
obtain and read the material.
“If it’s not articulated correctly, if it’s not written
grammatically correct, if it’s not written with some education and structure,
then what are you as a senior enlisted saying about yourself?”
Chief Petty Officer Alma Dubois was one of the San
Antonio-based CPOs who attended the presentation. She said her takeaway was “hope.”
“I had assumed the
program was closed off to chiefs,” said Dubois, Hospital Corps “A” School
instructor at the Medical Education and Training Campus. “Now I know that
chiefs can actually get in. I also got re-energized about furthering my
career.”
While the course structure of the Senior Enlisted Academy
has changed, little else has.
“Be prepared to put forth effort,” Curtiss said. “The
academy is a once-in-a-career opportunity. If you always look at it as the
academy isn’t this or the academy isn’t that, then you’ll miss the
message. I always tell the students,
‘It’s not what the academy isn’t. It’s what the academy is. That’s what you’ll
get out of it.’”