Graduate students from the Global Studies and Public Administration programs, along with Dr. David Johnson, traveled to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College on April 20th. The excursion was an outreach effort on the part of the CGSC’s Department of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Operations and sponsored by the CGSC Foundation’s Simons Center for Interagency Cooperation.
A video introduction to the Command and General Staff College can be found at https://youtu.be/EH9n56zAA_Y.
During the visit, students received an overview of the Army’s professional military education system and the Command and General Staff College’s curriculum. The students toured the main instructional building, the Lewis and Clark Center, and sat in on classes within their disciplines. Some of the students attended a class on global economics and currency movement while others observed a table top exercise involving disaster response activities related to a rupture of the New Madrid fault. Our students also participated in a round table discussion with resident faculty regarding current national security issues and they received a brief tour of historic Fort Leavenworth guided by Dr. Mark Gerges of the Department of Military History.
The students completed their trip to Fort Leavenworth with a stop at the Simons Center, where they received an overview of the Simons Center (http://thesimonscenter.org/) and its support to the College. Several students commented that they wished that had an additional day to learn more about the College and Fort Leavenworth, including the Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library and the Frontier Army Museum.
We sincerely appreciate the efforts of our hosts, CGSC Professor and MSU PLS alum, Herbert Merrick, and Major General Ray Barrett. We look forward to future visits and developing closer ties with the CGSC.