The above scenarios, involving Cadets Ashley Clegg and McKenzie Arns on lasers and law and Cadet Josiah Gibson on hypersonics, are only a sample of a list of\u00a0complex work that cadets<\/a>\u00a0now undertake at the Army\u2019s premiere university.<\/p>\n The work has not-yet-minted\u00a0Army officers<\/a>\u00a0looking deeply at technical and ethical questions and producing solutions,\u00a0Brig. Gen. Shane Reeves<\/a>, dean of the U.S. Military Academy, told Army Times.<\/p>\n The institution continues with its centuries-old basic military leadership and liberal arts education, the foundations for critical thinking needed even more than in the past, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t intellectually coddle them, we can\u2019t afford it,\u201d Reeves said.<\/p>\n The academy promotes an open forum to discuss tough questions. Cadets must be pushed in a way that they\u2019re uncomfortable with intellectually, Reeves said. Faculty expect disagreement in the classroom and want students to argue with each other, but support those arguments with evidence.<\/p>\n The combination of advanced educational tools and approaches with the age-old enlightenment thinking gives future Army leaders advantages in the classroom but, more importantly, also on a future battlefield.<\/p>\n And, Reeves noted, military observers are seeing the reverse play out in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you watch the Russians in Ukraine, what\u2019s been most shocking is the second the Russians hit an obstacle, the second that their young officers hit a wall\u2026they froze, they didn\u2019t know what to do,\u201d Reeves said. \u201cAnd all of the sudden, they had to call up senior leaders, colonels and generals to try to get momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n Reeves pointed to the \u201cvery robust\u201d noncommissioned officer corps in the Army and U.S. military at large as the bulwark of what makes it successful. He also pointed to the expectation that U.S. generals have for young officers to think their way out of a problem.<\/p>\n West Point also has a storied history of training young officers to fill military and civil engineering roles in the early years of the U.S. Those engineering problems have only gotten more complex.<\/p>\n What\u2019s happening now at West Point, Reeves said, is a move toward more collaborative, project-based learning and strategic-thinking. A lot of that is mirrored across higher education.<\/p>\n In past decades, colleges operated on a transactional model, where students came to a class, listened to a lecture and were assessed on what was shared. Now, across the academy, students at an undergraduate level are doing deep research, giving them \u201capplied learning\u201d experiences that were formerly reserved for graduate-level education.<\/p>\n Reeves said the shift has helped fuel \u201cintellectual curiosity\u201d and provided \u201cdisciplinary depth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey like to be challenged and challenging cadets with opportunities to grapple with, what I would consider real world problems for real world customers,\u201d Reeves added.<\/p>\n Not every new second lieutenant is going to go straight to working with missile laboratories upon graduation. They\u2019ll still be expected to serve where and how the Army needs them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe develop them to be selfless servants who have to understand followership and how to be led,\u201d Reeves said.<\/p>\n But, Reeves noted, the larger, ongoing talent management efforts across the Army are better matching soldiers with areas of interest and expertise that serves both their capabilities and the Army\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n For example, the academy graduates 40 to 45 cyber officers into the force each year. That\u2019s a job that didn\u2019t exist a decade ago.<\/p>\n \u201cCadets as future officers are going to be making decisions under the stress of combat and therefore, they have to be able to evaluate between perspectives through well-reasoned analysis,\u201d Reeves said.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/7EVJ5QM5UVAVZHEJBUDP7D3LDM.webp\")