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JBSA News
NEWS | Oct. 2, 2015

U.S. Navy Senior Enlisted Academy director visits San Antonio

NMETC Public Affairs

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.’”