Cadet Command boldly changing ROTC program

Wow, lots of changes for sure. In my opinion these changes look to be long overdue. General Smith hit the nail on the head in that this program needs to evolve. Not having any changes for 30 years is not good. I'm excited for the cadets and very interested to see how this progresses. On another note I find it interesting that AFROTC is trying to find ways to shorten training to keep from paying cadets while this new program in AROTC looks like its going to cost quite a bit more due to more travel, food housing and payroll to cadets.
 
There will also be order of merit changes for cadets when they fill out their "dream sheets" indicating what branch they want to serve in. Emphasis will be placed on leadership, Smith said, not just a cadet's grade point average. And more weight will be given to cadets who choose difficult academic majors.

Man, just a little too late to help me out:cool:

But, it will be interesting to see how different this will make the ROTC experience. It sounds like the newer classes are going to have wildly different experiences than their older counterparts. The changes, while drastic, do seem like they are well thought out and heading in a good direction.

And as far as that bit about the contractors, many of my cadre that are contractors are also Guard or Reserve officers that have one or more deployments under their belt. Just becuase they are not active does not make them any less capable as an instructor or teacher, but it would appear CC believes otherwise.
 
One question I had concerned the CIET that would take place for every cadet between the Freshman and Sophomore year. Will this include both Contracted and Non-Contracted cadets. Given that non-contracted cadets have no obligation to stay with ROTC until their Junior year, it seems spending that much money to send them all to this training could be risky.

It looks like AROTC has increased their budgets during this time of sequestration, unlike other ROTC programs that are feeling the pinch. Maybe Army had the better Poker hand at the table.
 
On air fares alone, I should think CC would save money by moving it from WA to KY. On the fares from FL, VA, CA the savings averaged $1,600, cilvilian rate. 5 out of 6 SMC are on the East coast, so is my DS.
 
I would imagine that only contracted cadets would attend this training becuause of the potential monetary loss the Army would incur.

It looks like AROTC has increased their budgets during this time of sequestration, unlike other ROTC programs that are feeling the pinch. Maybe Army had the better Poker hand at the table.

It seems to me less like AROTC increased its budget than it is shifting its funds around and using its money more wisely. It is closing programs, centralizing training, awarding less scholarships, and seems to be awarding scholarships on a more "economical basis" when it does award them.

For example, in the FY13 class at my BN, there were 9 scholarship cadets at a private school that graduated. This pool of scholarships at the private schools in the BN is essentially gone now, however, with the majority of scholarships being awarded to the cheaper state schools.
 
On air fares alone, I should think CC would save money by moving it from WA to KY. On the fares from FL, VA, CA the savings averaged $1,600, cilvilian rate. 5 out of 6 SMC are on the East coast, so is my DS.

Good point. Perhaps, by moving it to KY the Army saves big time, thus can afford extra summer programmers.
 
One question I had concerned the CIET that would take place for every cadet between the Freshman and Sophomore year. Will this include both Contracted and Non-Contracted cadets. Given that non-contracted cadets have no obligation to stay with ROTC until their Junior year, it seems spending that much money to send them all to this training could be risky.

It looks like AROTC has increased their budgets during this time of sequestration, unlike other ROTC programs that are feeling the pinch. Maybe Army had the better Poker hand at the table.

I was thinking some of the same things. From what I understand from my son, there is very little that is "mandatory" for non-contracted MSI's in his battalion. So, that's one issue. But also, non-scholarship MSI's and MSII's often rely on summer employment since it is hard to have even a PT job during the school year with classes AND ROTC. Financial aid packages assume a certain amount of student earned income. A four week camp in the middle of summer would be a hardship for many.
 
Additional Summer Training

The additional summer training will also interfere with full time summer research and internships expected for many of the STEM majors.

No OML points are currently given for most of these full time summer research and engineering internships that Chemistry and Engineering majors participate unless they are through Cadet Command. It is just a bullet point on their accessions packet.
 
The additional summer training will also interfere with full time summer research and internships expected for many of the STEM majors.

No OML points are currently given for most of these full time summer research and engineering internships that Chemistry and Engineering majors participate unless they are through Cadet Command. It is just a bullet point on their accessions packet.

They will still have their sophomore to junior year summer to participate in internships and research if they so desire. Internships and research are generally not required to achieve an undergraduate degree. To be competitive in the civilian job market, they are definitely necessary but not for ROTC.

It will make it more difficult for these majors, surely, but CC seems to be making improvements to reward STEM majors for their additional effort beyond what was done in the past. Hopefully, CC will work out these teething problems before they implement this plan, but if they do not then STEM majors will continue to work around ROTC as they have done in the past.
 
They [STEM majors] will still have their sophomore to junior year summer to participate in [full time] internships and research if they so desire. .

*edited* to correct a misread of the post I quoted. True, rising Juniors could secure a full time internship. However, more critical is the rising Senior 6 week internship. That is now possible because of the only 30 day LDAC, but will not be possible going forward for rising Seniors with an LDAC anticipated (per another post here I cannot now find) extending to 7 or 8 weeks. And THAT summer after Jr. year internship is critical for cadets set on Reserves or Guard who plan to pursue a technical civlilian career after college.

So clearly, some implementation issues will still need to be worked out, as always.
 
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How would they do that Junior year considering the uncertainty of LDAC dates? It would seem almost impossible. With the longer anticipated LDAC, I'm not sure you could fit an internship in even if you could hand select your LDAC dates.

DS was home six days Junior to Senior summer. They will find ways.
 
MS Credit Hour Increase and Funding

This change apparently includes an increase of total MS Credit hours...though I may be misinterpreting the 'Transforming the Curriculum' slide. I wonder how many cadets 104R will go from 8 to 9 semesters to graduate. This may result in a longer ADSO from the cadet for the additional semester of scholarship tuition.

I would be surprised if increased funding is available for all these changes.....increased summer training, Active Duty cadre, ........When does Major General Smith PCS or Retire? :shake: Some are good ideas but with the current funding constraints we shall see.
 
This change apparently includes an increase of total MS Credit hours...though I may be misinterpreting the 'Transforming the Curriculum' slide. I wonder how many cadets 104R will go from 8 to 9 semesters to graduate. This may result in a longer ADSO from the cadet for the additional semester of scholarship tuition.

I would be surprised if increased funding is available for all these changes.....increased summer training, Active Duty cadre, ........When does Major General Smith PCS or Retire? :shake: Some are good ideas but with the current funding constraints we shall see.

This is a great point. Those commuting to AROTC from other colleges may not have all the credits accepted at their own college.
 
I doubt that they would be doing press releases of all this if the funding aspect was not already thought of. The moving to Fort Knox has been discussion for a couple of years.


And if you look at it, the transition takes place over the next 3 years.
 
And THAT summer after Jr. year internship is critical for cadets set on Reserves or Guard who plan to pursue a technical civlilian career after college.

So clearly, some implementation issues will still need to be worked out, as always.

You are right that the internship between junior and senior year is more critical, especially as many of the "good" internships in the STEM world are only open to upperclassmen.

I get the feeling that many cadets are just going to have to find a way to work around this problem of obtaining that critical intership in some way or another because the Army seems set to pursue this course and I have not seen the Army as all that likely to make too many exceptions for people(even if they are STEM majors, which the Army claims to want more of).

Maybe STEM majors as a whole group could take those internships before senior year and attend LDAC after graduation and become EOCC's?
 
One question I had concerned the CIET that would take place for every cadet between the Freshman and Sophomore year. Will this include both Contracted and Non-Contracted cadets. Given that non-contracted cadets have no obligation to stay with ROTC until their Junior year, it seems spending that much money to send them all to this training could be risky.
Another question is, what of the 3-Year AD winners? Are they obligated to go, despite not having been contracted yet?

... makes me curious to see what cadre has on CIET ... will go digging for information.

It will definitely be interesting to see how CC will handle this over the years to come. Very surprised that not much has changed over the past 30 years (... then again that does explain the LBEs/rucks issued ....)
 
This is a great point. Those commuting to AROTC from other colleges may not have all the credits accepted at their own college.

Even those who attend college at the "home base" of the battalion do not always receive credit. My son's school only recognized 1 credit per semester for ROTC, and that's because they count PT as PE.
 
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