special event that occurred today and that is it is the birthday of Mrs. Armand Hammer. So we would like to wish her a happy birthday. Francis, once again Bill Lyon, I'll give him over to Bill Lyon who will take over from here. Bill? Thank you very much Bill. Mr. President and Mrs. Reagan, of course this is a great day for all of us I think here. It's been a beautiful day a beautiful luncheon together and a chance to be together and I would say that I think Willardine and I are most delighted that our children and grandchildren have had the opportunity to meet and be with the president and Mrs. Reagan. I thought it'd be inappropriate today if I talked about how great things have been with this great president and Mrs. Reagan for the past seven plus years. I don't think I should talk about how much interest rates have gone down and I don't think I should mention about how inflation has gone down or how unemployment has gone down. But I do want to talk to you about one piece of positively the most important piece of trivia that you will ever hear in your life and that was when I was graduating from high school when I grew up when I grew up we couldn't afford middle name so I didn't I wasn't blessed with a middle name and when infection that all of us have for the president Mrs. Reagan and what they've done for us long before as governor and then the presidency for the seven plus years has been unbelievable in changing the direction of this country and I'm just delighted to have the opportunity to present to you the president of the United States Ronald Reagan. Thank you all very much. Well again in addition to what Bill Smith said I think all of us are so grateful general William Ronald Lyon and his lovely wife for this particular occasion here I want to tell you when you just told that little story I pinched myself because I thought that you only got somebody named after you you were dead. On occasion I've tried to reassure some audiences that they won't I won't keep them here too long there are few stories that illustrate the problems of that it's I will make it like Henry the 8th said to each of his six wives I won't keep you long you know there's another story about that of the day in the ancient Coliseum in Rome Caesar and all of the multitude was there in the little huddle of sacrifices were down there in the midst and then the twelve hungry lions were turned loose to come roaring down on them and one fellow stepped out of the little group huddled there and said something quietly to the lions and they all laid down well the crowd was furious that they weren't going to see the show they'd paid to see and and Caesar was he had him sent for him bring that man up here and when he came up he said I want to know what is it did you said to them that made them act like that he said I just told him that after they ate there'd be speeches but I can't tell you Nancy and I are well first of all we're just happy to be here to any of you who haven't done it let me warn you that when you decide that you want to live for any length of period of time away from California you will live in a perpetual state of homesickness and we feel that way and it's such a joy to be here and to be among old friends and hopefully to be making some new friends the the cause that brings you here I've had a hard time getting over some self-consciousness about talking about it because it sounds like it's kind of an ego trip or something a library in your name and for encompassing the job that you've had for eight years or so but in reality I make myself look at it the way what it really is and that is that these presidential libraries are an important fact part of keeping available to the people of the land the history of this nation and not according to what you read in the morning times that you can get the innermost secrets and have the papers and that will be true of all of ours and sometimes with the flood of letters that comes in and I don't get to see them all you couldn't possibly read them all but a sizeable package or sent to me so that I have an idea of what what is on the on the people's minds and some of the questions are I mean some of the letters are so wonderful some of them a very great human problem and that's when I look for Fred Ryan and turn this over to him and our private sector initiative has been able to do something for these people and whatever it required this I think is new in our government the private sector initiative I really got the idea sitting beside an ambassador's wife of a European country I won't embarrass them by naming her but at our table the conversation had gotten around to something one of the great charitable things that's going on in our country and that we accept that is done in the various things like Easter Seals or whatever and very quietly she said to me in your country yes and I said well what do you mean what she said you're unique she said in all the other countries including our own she said the government does these things not privately as you do in your country well we started a private sector initiative to find out how many things we where we could help and I think Fred and now nobody expression on your face if I'm telling the truth I think we have in the computer over there now something like 3,000 programs he said yes 3,000 programs that were in some community they have found a way to solve a problem at the private level not turning to government yelling for help as this lady had said to me the government always did these things and so someone has a problem in their community they can contact our private sector initiative and they can ask about this and he can put them in touch with any number of people in communities around the country that have already solved that problem in their community and how they did it and they can actually contact the people for help in setting it up in their own community and just a short time ago there was a meeting in Paris France and that meeting there were Americans attending there they were all participants in private sector initiatives in our country and this was a meeting brought about by European countries that wanted to learn how do we do it and we went over and today private sector thing are in every one of those countries and when we went to the economic summit in Vienna no I mean Venice I always get the wrong country there in Venice I left one of our meetings to go over and appear at a group that was meeting and I looked at some familiar American faces out there in the group yes this was Italy setting up their entire private sector plan last year you people the people of America you contributed to education to charity to good all kinds of worthwhile programs eighty four billion dollars if the federal government had tried to do all those things instead it'd be eight hundred and forty billion dollars well I'm talking longer than I intend to do because I want to get back to what I started on and that was this library that all of this and all of the records and all of those those letters that personal correspondence and so forth all of that will be available for scholars and for people interested who want to come and find out what really did happen with regard to some of the things that are portrayed in in the media and so it is a worthwhile a worthwhile thing that I think perpetuates what we have in this country that is so unique you can't understand the thrill it is to stand up in front of a student audience and talk to them about the Constitution and they're looking a little vague at you when you're telling that there's every country in the world's got a Constitution I've read a lot I've read the Soviet Constitution it's got a lot of the same things about right to assemble and so forth these others have and then I'm able to say to them but the difference between our Constitution and all those other countries constitutions is so tiny it's overlooked but it is so great it tells the whole story and it's done in three words we the people all those other constitutions are documents in which the government tells the people of those countries what they can do our Constitution is by the people and tells the government what it can do and it can do nothing other than what is prescribed in that Constitution and does get their attention a little bit but the fact that you are so willing to help and to be a part of this movement and those that you've been introduced to you was participating in the on the staff and all it it isn't just a compliment to a an individual you know some people think they become president you don't really you're given temporary custody over an institution called the presidency and it's a very great honor but at the same time it's a very great responsibility and then this record will be there forever more unchangeable in the original documents and all the information and all that took place and I've talked a lot longer than I intended to talk and should have talked but sometimes you get a question about is it fun and then do you enjoy being president in moments like this hell yes but then you remember every once in a while when you're back in Washington what Lincoln said about the road to hell he said it's only a mile long down to a building with a dome on top somebody somebody once accused Lincoln of being too ready with jokes and so forth and laughter for the serious office that he held and Lincoln answered them very properly he said if I couldn't laugh I couldn't stand this job for 15 minutes so well I'm trying to think of a good get-off line here but I don't yes I do have have one our secret service agents sent me as a as a birthday gift a book and it is a compendium of everything Irish and it's gotten songs it's got poems it's got stories and true stories and jokes that they tell and everything of the Irish and one was a true incident of a little Irish girl six years old who came home from school with a note from the teacher and she'd been naughty and that night at dinner the family gathered around the dining table but she was at a little table with her back to them over in the corner of the room for being naughty and then they overheard her saying grace and pardon me Reverend for this they heard her saying thank the Lord Jesus for preparing a table before me in the presence of my name is the last time I told that story was at the Speaker of the Congress Jim Wright's table in the little party that he gives for st. Patrick's Day and I was invited there and I had to say a few words and looking around my table at Teddy Kennedy and a few other individuals I thought it would be suitable to tell that story


So, let's move on to the next presentation or demonstration, should I say. This is Lieke van Kompel, that has been working in Afghanistan the latest two years with training and development. And she will present learning and development in Afghanistan and online too. Thank you, Marpo, for the introduction. So as you all know, one of the main objectives of MSF is to provide free and quality care to our beneficiaries. Now, the free care part is taken care of by our donors, but for the quality we're highly dependent on the national staff, especially in a mission like Afghanistan where we have five big projects, working more than 2,000 national staff and only 100 expats. Now, suppose that you are an expat arriving in an African mission. There's a big chance you will hear something like the quality of our staff, the level of our staff is not sufficient yet to deliver the quality we expect of them, but at the same time nobody can tell you exactly how big this performance cap is and what it exists of. The best you get is this stuff is very good, this stuff is okay, and this stuff is not so good. So how can you then support your staff in a limited time you have available in your mission? In order to answer these recurring questions that we continue to receive from expats and because we realized there was a huge need to quantify the development of national staff and to link them to the operational needs, we started to develop an online learning and development tool. And I will show you now what it looks like if it can be switched to the online tool. So suppose that you are the biomedical manager arriving in an African mission. How can this tool help you? First of all, here you will have a list of all the stuff that you're supervising. So here we have one biomedical officer per project. You will have here the job description which we have harmonized for the mission, but what is more interesting you have per person, a logbook related to this position. And this shows you in one big overview what are the main skills that we expect a person to have in this position and they're subdivided in smaller tasks so it makes it easier to assess somebody's level. And this will ensure that different expats will actually assess the level of our staff in the same way. Once you have done it, and this is actually quick, a biomedical manager took in five minutes to fill in this form, you can see, I'll just go back to this person. If you go to the history, you can see the different assessments this person has had. And in the last column you can see how much progress this person made as compared to the last assessment he has received. There you see in green all the skills that have improved and in orange the one that remained the same or maybe even went down. However, what is more interesting is if we go to the monitoring part, we can see an overview of the department as a whole. So here we can see the individual scores of our staff, but so we can see how they compared in comparison to the rest of the team. But you can also see how the team as a whole is scoring on the different competencies that we need from them. In green you will see the skills that already very well developed. In yellow the ones that are okay but need some more attention. And in orange the one that we seriously need to consider or to look at. And this can give us quite important information in terms of development. So for example, in this case, we realized that it made maybe most sense to do more peer-to-peer learning because they all have their own strengths. So we can send one biomet from one project to another project to have this person trained. Or alternatively, if you want to train him as a group in Kabul, for example, you can immediately see that probably you will have to focus on the calibration skills and on stock and inventory skills because none of your staff already has sufficient skills in those two competencies. It can also help with career management. For example, we had a position open for reference assistant in Kabul. And this overview gave us immediately a snapshot of who of this person would be the best position to apply for his higher level position and coordination. On HQ level, it can show you what type of profile of expert you will need to send to the field the next time we send again a biomedical manager. And on top of that, to give an example of two years ago, we had an attack on the ICRC in Jalalabad. And as a result of that, MSF wants to reduce the number of experts with 25%. Back then, it was a big debate which departments actually can function without having the presence of an expert. If back then we would have had this snapshot per department, this would have definitely facilitated this question because you can immediately see which department could function temporarily without an expert. Nothing I quickly want to show you is that we also made a training library with all the trainings that have been developed inside the mission. It's not being done yet, but the idea is to link these trainings as well to the competencies they address. So if you know as a bio-med, I need to do a training calibration. The system can automatically provide you with a menu with all trainings that we have already available in the field of calibration. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel all over again. I can talk about this for hours, but I'll leave it like it is here. So thank you very much for your attention. So thank you very much for a very pedagogic and intuitive presentation and demonstration. So do we have any questions from the audience? Yes? So I really, I think this is such a great idea because exactly like you say, you turn up in a mission and people sort of say they're good, they're not. But it seems even this, you're still relying on expats to score them. Not necessarily. So basically you can decide who can score them. That can also be national stuff. It can also be outside experts. If you, for example, have a reference coming to the mission who's visiting the different projects, this person could do an assessment as well. But yeah, you are dependent at the moment as it is right now. It's mainly experts assessing, but at least you will never achieve I think 100% objectivity, but at least it's more objective than it is right now. But then if you have, I mean even in your small example, there were sort of some people who were saying it's gone up by 8% or down. I mean, we all know that we all have completely different opinions and relationships with national staff. And so is there some way that you can kind of do an agreement if there's big disagreements between two expats? Is there some way to factor in that? Well, we have this position of learning and development and the way I see this position is actually to make sure that there are not too many big gaps. If you see that there is a big gap between two assessments, that you start questioning. I mean, you can never take any numbers on a face value. You always have to put them into a context and see what doesn't mean. For example, in the case I just show you as well with people that have orange skills, maybe they just have been hired. So obviously they're not on the same level yet, but it's something that we need to monitor. But by breaking down the main skills into smaller subtasks, you cannot really, because then you will be lying. If you would give somebody a four while he doesn't score well or the other way around, you would not be giving an honest opinion about the stuff. So we try to reduce that by having this lookbook in place. But yet, there's always this margin, yeah. All right, so one last question to the gentlemen down there. My question is why are we only doing it for national staff, not for expat staff? I'm so happy you're asking that question. This is actually a question that we receive very often. Why don't we do it for expats? I cannot answer the question because I was only learning an available manager for national staff in Afghanistan. I think it's challenging with expats because they move all the time between different projects and different contexts. What can make the system work and why it's important, at least to have it for national staff is to make sure that they suffer less from the turnover of expats. And that's really the main reason we developed it there, because they constantly receive different opinions, have to rebuild their credibility again, even if there was, again, a new expat arriving in the field. But yeah. So thank you very much, Likian. Thank you very much, Barbara. Thank you.


Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines, Colombian President withdraws tax proposals following brutal repression of protests, hospitalisation of Thai protest leader intensifies the demand for the release of detainees, thousands join May Day of Action against a new policing bill in the UK, and in our video section, we take a look at the forced evictions of Palestinian families in the occupied East Jerusalem. In our first story, Colombia's President Iván Duque announced on May 2 that he will withdraw the widely condemned tax reform proposal that has led to major protests. Sunday's announcement comes after days of mass agitations against the reform and wider insecurity in the country. The protests began with the national strike which was held on April 28. As they continued, instances of heavy police repression were reported. Rights group Teblores stated on Sunday that it had received 940 reports of police brutality. It had further recorded 21 police killings and sub-arbitrary detention. 12 people sustained eye injuries and 4 protesters were victims of sexual violence. Incidents of police brutality were especially reported from the cities of Bogota, Pereira and Kali among others. The situation in Kali was among the worst, with at least 8 killings confirmed on April 38. Curfews were imposed and the military was also deployed in several places including in Kali. President Duque announced over the weekend that the military presence in cities would continue. Social organisations and trade unions across Colombia had been mobilising against the so-called Sustainable Solidarity Bill. It included policies such as a freeze on public sector wages, new taxes for low-income workers and a wad on staple goods. While the proposal is now being withdrawn, the leaders of the National Strike Committee have stated that the protests will continue. They seek to address broader issues facing the country including Indigenous rights, the 2016 peace accords, unemployment and inequality. There has also been a fatal crackdown on social leaders with at least 59 killed in 2021 so far. In our next story, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the criminal court in Bangkok on May 2. The demonstration followed reports that anti-government protest leader had been hospitalised following 46 days of a hunger strike. Parit Chivarak had spent over 80 days in pretrial detention as of April 29. He had been detained and the country's widely denounced royal defamation laws. He is facing 20 charges under the law which would carry a sentence of 300 years. He was among seven activists whose bail applications were rejected by the court on April 29. Seven demonstrators had also gathered outside the court on Thursday. Parit Chivarak's mother had stated that his health had been deteriorating and filed a bail request for the 10th time on Friday. However, this was rejected, leading her to shave her head in protest. Another 22-year-old protestor has also been on hunger strikes since April 2. Her lawyers reported last week that she had been experiencing declining health conditions including numbness. Lawyers have been seeking bail for detained activists over fear of the spread of COVID-19. At least 581 people have been charged since July 2020 in connection with a wave of anti-government protests across Thailand. Protesters have been demanding substantive democratic reforms and these include limits to the powers of the monarchy. They have also demanded the resignation of military-supported Prime Minister Prayut Chanocha. Protesters have been met with heavy police repression including tear gas and water cannons. At least 82 people have been charged under the royal defamation law so far. Activists have placed in pretrial detention for extended periods of time and their bail applications are consistently rejected. We now go to the UK, where renewed protests against a new policing bill were held on May 1, that is May Day. Tens of thousands of protesters took the streets for the may day of action as part of the Kill the Bill movement. Protesters have been mobilizing against the police, crimes, sentencing and courts bill for months. Introduced by the conservative government, the bill passed its second reading in parliament on May March. Over 600 civil society and activist groups have demanded that the legislation be dropped. They have argued that the bill will expand the powers of the police while placing marginalized groups at risk. Proposed measures include setting time and noise limits on protests and extending the maximum sentences for protest organizers. Sisters Uncutting Organization has also highlighted that the bill will expand the discriminatory stop and search powers. It will also criminalize unauthorized encampments, or so-called unauthorized encampments, which will lead to further prosecution of the Roma and traveler communities. Campaign Against Legislation has been organized by a coalition of over 40 activist groups. This includes Sisters Uncut, Black Lives Matter UK, and Disabled People Against Cuts, among others. Outrage grew following police violence against the protests for 33-year-old Sarah Evraar in March. Activists have argued that the expansion of policing will not keep women and other marginalized groups safe. This is due to the fact that police officers themselves have been violent against these groups. At least 9 people are arrested on Saturday as over 10,000 people gathered for the protests in London. Arrests were also reported in Newcastle and Bristol as protests were held across several cities. And finally in Palestine, we go to the Sheikh Jarrah locality in occupied East Jerusalem. Several Palestinian families were forcibly evicted by Israeli forces after a court order on May 2nd. These were among the 28 families who have been living in the area for generations. However, they were forced to vacate their homes after Jewish organizations filed a case claiming that the land belonged to them. Several progressive Israeli groups joined Palestinians to organize a sit-in protest against the evictions. However, the protesters were attacked by Israeli police and security forces. Here is the video feature of the situation in Sheikh Jarrah. That's all we have time for today. We will be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.


Okay, so the subject of this school is research. It's the hands-on, you know, school research, school and complex systems. Even the professional development work we've been doing has been focused on how to communicate your research more effectively in different formats. But many of us wear a different hat, another hat at the same time. And that is we're educators. We have students in the classroom. And so what I want to tell you a little bit about is there is some information, even as people who are primarily doing research, there's advances in understanding of how to teach science. It applies to engineering too. We have engineers, basically anything that's science, technology, mathematics, engineering, so-called STEM. There's research in more effective ways in how to teach these sorts of subjects. So I want to tell you a little bit about that. Three aspects first. How do you teach science more effectively? So I'll just give you one example. It starts from some experience that we've all had as students and that starts from the traditional lecture as the baseline. How do you improve upon that? I want to say a little bit about what is the science of science teaching and then although many of us are involved with research and maybe exclusively research, let's see, how many people actually do teaching as well? Raise your hand. Okay, about half of us in the room. And others who are researchers maybe as graduate students but you're doing research full time, it may be in your future that you will be teaching. Or there may be skills that you would acquire in the course of teaching that you would apply elsewhere. So I want to say something about how that teaching and a teaching experience really advances your career as a scientist and more generally just beyond the laboratory and the classroom. So everybody's been to a traditional lecture. We've had a number of these. Although I would say many of the lecturers have made the, broken up the lecture where someone stands up in front and talks and everyone sits and listens. The lecturers have been at the school have done a good job of breaking that up and getting you more involved. But I want to say a little bit about if you take the standard lecture and you're sitting in your classroom for 50 minutes or 70 minutes, you might ask the question, how effective is that as a medium by which you communicate information? So here's a story in a misspelling with a K. One teacher and Nobel Prize winner, this is Carl Wyman who is Nobel Prize winner in physics, won Nobel Prize for the discovery, experimental discovery of Bose-Einstein condensation. He was a lecturer and taught classes and he had this class in general physics and he was talking about subject of acoustics and gave as an example the example of a violin and said during the course of the lecture that explicitly told his students that when a violin string is plucked or bowed, it vibrates, but that isn't what you hear directly. What you hear directly in fact is the vibration of that string is coupled to a bridge, this wooden piece on the top, and then underneath that top piece of wood, the face, there's a post called a sound post which causes the back to vibrate. So in fact that's what couples directly, acoustically, creating the sound waves that you hear. So he's known to give very clear lectures, describe this very clearly. What he did was ask 15 minutes later, same class he asked the following question to his students, the sound you hear from a violin is produced, A, mostly by the strings, B, mostly by the wood in the back, C, both equally, or D, none of the above. 15 minutes later. So I'm going to ask you a question, not this question, I'm going to ask you this question, what percentage of that class do you think answered that question correctly? So we have five choices. Now each of you has, we're going to use this little device more than once. This is a way in which one can rapidly poll your students, if you have a large number of students, several tens or hundreds, this is a way in which as the lecturer you can get some feedback on the question that you posed.  So you produce basically the four answers, A, B, C, D, and actually in this case we have five. The fifth answer is this. So just show this. Now I'm going to ask that everyone, let's say, on the count of three, and this is also practice too, we'll all respond at the same time. We're going to do it in a way so that the rest of the people in the class won't be a little bit embarrassed about our answer, but we're going to preserve our anonymity. We're going to answer by, when I say one, two, three respond, you'll hold the card up next to your chest like this. So people won't be able to see how you respond. You can preserve your privacy that way. So again, the question is what percentage of the class answered the question correctly? Again, let me emphasize, 15 minutes earlier he said what the answer to the question was. Answer A, 90% of the class, B, 60, C, 30, D, 10, or E, none of the class answered the question correctly. So you had some time to think about it. On the count of three, everyone will hold up their answer card. One, two, three. So I would say the dominant answer in this class I'm just polling C. C is the dominant answer. I would say the next most is B. We have a pessimist back here who says zero. But I would say C and B. Some place between 30 and 60%. Here's the answer. 10%. Now you might say maybe his class was a little 8 o'clock in the morning, maybe they weren't awake. He's repeated this experiment over and over again to different audiences. So he's given many colloquia at universities and he's given a talk. He's posed a question and then said some statement about his research and then 15 minutes later asked the question to the audience. Something that he had said 15 minutes earlier. This is the audience with graduate students with professors, physics professors. What do you think the percentage of the audience answered the question correctly? A question that is not obvious deals with some subject that isn't really obvious but if someone tells you it explicitly the question is how much does the audience upon hearing that somewhat counterintuitive explanation. What percentage of the audience retains that? The answer is 10%. So this is a robust finding. It had nothing to do with the particulars of that class. That's exactly right because it has to be something that's not clearly, let's say, intuitive. The issue was that there was a discussion of, in the example of the acoustics for the violin, there was a discussion of why the sounding board in the back because and where, the mechanism just as I gave. So still I think somewhat surprising that it's true. So this is an issue. So the question is if you were thinking that when you explain something very clearly to the audience and you've discussed the chain of reasoning and you maybe let's take the worst case, 90% of your class doesn't believe you and that's what you do day after day, then maybe there's something that you need to be doing to try to make your lectures more effective. So that's really the point of this. So the upshot of the, so the reasoning behind why just passive lecture is in many cases can be so ineffective is that it is passive. That is when you're sitting there, you're listening, but maybe you're listening, maybe you didn't hear what the person said, maybe you're texting, the variety of different things that can be going on with an audience while the lecturer is basically communicating what the lecturer thinks is a very clear explanation. A way to improve the audience understanding, the student understanding is to get students more actively engaged. It is doing something active rather than just sitting there passively. And there are a wide variety of techniques for doing this in the classroom. One of these is known as peer instructions, very widely known in many, widely used in the classrooms in the United States not just for physics, but many types of different classes. How many have heard of peer instruction? Just curiosity, okay? So let me just sort of give you the idea. It can be done in a large lecture and we're going to go through an actual example which will be an actual question which is rather counterintuitive. So you can see how this procedure goes and how you take the traditional lecture and you make this change which I'll show you in a little bit with data. It helps improve student understanding.  So you're presenting information, but you break it up into segments. So when you think about it as being, let's say, in a 50 minute period, you have what we'll call a mini lecture. Okay? So our mini lecture for today is Fluid's Question from Fluid's Statics that one sees in many introductory physics courses and it's on buoyancy. So called Archimedes Principle. And so I'll give that lecture in less than 10 minutes and the point is, the idea is, is that when you have an object and it's immersed in a fluid, then the corresponding force, the upward force which we call buoyancy, is equal to the weight of the fluid that was, the volume of the fluid displaced. So here I have my object immersed. It displaced this volume of fluid and the weight of that amount of fluid is equivalent to the force, the upward force, the buoyant force on that object. Okay? And you could talk about it in more complex ways and talk about the pressure field and integrating around that. But that's sort of the classical statement of Archimedes Principle. Now if you have something floating, then basically the upward buoyant force, the buoyant force is the amount, again, the amount of fluids that's displaced, in this case the floating object doesn't displace its entire volume, but basically the volume below the waterline, if you will. Okay? So that's the basic picture and basic idea. Any questions about that? Okay? So I've given the mini lecture now, step two. So rather than keep going and keep talking to you about more ideas, the next step is to stop and pose a question. So here's our question. Sunk in treasure. So we've got a pirate ship that's floating on the sea and it's carrying a treasure chest. The treasure chest is dropped overboard and it sinks to the bottom of the should be ocean or sea. Okay? Now what happens to the sea level? Does it rise? Does it fall? Or does it remain the same? Okay? So again, think about this. This is floating, treasure chest on here, pirate takes it, flips it, drops it overboard, it drops, it sinks on the bottom, sinks to the bottom. What happens to the level of the sea? Does it rise? Does it fall? Does it remain the same? Okay? So you pose the question. The next step you give each person a chance to think about it. Okay? So each of you think about it, but you don't talk to your neighbor yet. You're going to think about it. But just like we did before, we're going to vote in a moment in the same way, again, preserving your privacy. I'll give you a little bit of time to think about it. Good audience, good student body, because most times students try to talk, then I have to shush them. Okay, so let me flip back to the question so you see what the answers are, the choices. And I'm going to get a hand to record sort of roughly what I see the numbers are, but I won't reveal them just yet. All right, on the count of three. Sorry? No, I'm not going to show them. I want to keep them here. Okay, on the count of three, let me see your response. One, two, three. Quite a mixture here. Okay, let's see. Okay, so if you just hold over a minute, let's see. The advantage of doing this is I can see pretty quickly. I can already see roughly the numbers, and that's why the colors allows you as an instructor to see is most of the class on board or do they measure? It's a good way to measure. I am colorblind, actually. These colors are saturated enough for me to be able to tell. Okay, so the next step is after that this is where the method gets its name, peer instruction. Turn to your neighbor, compare your answers, try to convince each other that you're right. So let's do that now, and you can talk. Chat with your neighbors. Sorry? Yes, you need to. Yes, that's right. No one's checking, no one's texting, no one's falling asleep. Okay, let's pull it back together now. Okay, so now the next step in this is after we've done this is to vote again. Okay? So now you've had a chance to chat with each other, and I'll say a little bit about what one typically finds in this, but I'll have to see whether you follow sort of the typical behavior of the audience of this question. Okay, so we're going to vote again. We're going to vote again. They're still discussing. Okay, are we ready to vote? Okay, you guys are great students. Just can't stop talking about it. This sort of level of discussion, this is what typically happens when you pose questions. I didn't see anybody texting. I didn't see anybody checking their email. Everyone was talking. So this shows you that part of why this technique is at least getting people engaged in the question at hand. Okay, so we're going to vote again. So same protocol on the count of three. Hold up the card of your favorite answer whether the C level rises, falls, or remains the same when the treasure chest is dropped overboard and sinks to the bottom. On three. One, two, three. Okay. So I'll tell you what I see. I'm going to do a rough count, but basically what I see is typical of what does happen. What is the correct answer? The answer is the water falls. Do you believe that? No, let's don't believe it just because I say it. Let's couple that with something else. Let's couple it with a demonstration. All right, so let me show you. We have here is our pirate ship floating on the sea. It is there and there. This is I dip this out of the Adriatic, nice and green. And so we have our floating ship. So it's floating. And I've got a roll of coins inside there. There's a treasure chest. Now notice the level of the water. The sea. The sea is right up the brim there. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the treasure out. Drop it into the sea and watch compare relative to that level whether it rises, falls, or remains the same. So I'm pulling it out now and dropping it back in. So it falls. So what's the idea behind that? Let me just say a little bit about that. So at this stage what you would do is you would recap. So let me just say what the results of the voting. When you first voted it was about an even split between rises, falls, and stays the same. I would say that afterwards that the falls answer did increase but there was still a fair number of rises and stays the same. But there was some progression in the direction of the correct answer. Now that doesn't always happen but that's in fact what happened in this case. And depending upon what happens in that case, let me show you just say something about that. Flip back to the slides that basically depending upon what the reaction is you'll change your response. So if students have had difficulty with that you continue with the discussion. If people are mostly correct after having gone through this process you move on. But that keeps the instructor keeps in touch with where the students are and so that gears the lecture much more to where the students happen to be in their understanding. So this is another important aspect. Let me talk about the recap of this. One way to think about it is why does the treasure, the treasure is not sinking here, it's sinking here. There's a difference in the buoyant force. There's a larger buoyant force in this case than here. It's equilibrium here so the weight of the treasure which remains the same balanced by the buoyant force alone here. When it's dropped to the bottom it sinks and when it remains at the bottom because now the buoyant force is less it needs an additional contact force from the ocean floor.  So you displace less fluid in the sea, the sea level drops. So that's the answer to that. Let me show you why there's something about some data on, does this have an impact? Let me indicate or show what the plots here are. This is a comparison of Stanford trying this technique out in a number of different classes well actually different level of techniques. So this is a standard lecture. They would ask a set of questions and then beginning so they would do what's called a pretest about questions in mechanics, force in motion. They would give the same test at the end of the term and they would ask the question of the total fraction that the students could have improved did they actually improved, did they improve on their understanding of mechanics. So there was a baseline score, they took the test again, on average there was improvement by the end of the term, that's what we would hope after a semester is worth of that class and possible gain that they could have had. After they instituted this sort of interactive engagement peer instruction they saw basically a double of that sort of gain and in addition doing something else, this is not addition, there are two techniques being applied here the peer instruction as well as a way of having students prepare for class in advance called just in time teaching. There's similar sort of data if you couple the peer instruction with lecture demonstration so called interactive lectures that also helps improve still more the understanding of students. So this is an example of data. Let me show you one more thing and then Joe I'll answer your question. This plot busy, it's not up to the standard but it's a very famous plot. It basically talks about again the same type of question. They have some sort of score initially and the question is how much of the total amount of their possible gain do they actually gain. Now the two classes of data here, one if they just have traditional lectures, there's some type of interactive engagement. Something to make the lecture more active be the symbol. So on average if you do something that makes students in your class more active in participating in class you get improvements in their learning understanding. So that's a very general result. Question? Yes. Why does it involve possibly because they're getting more effective at the way in which they give this test or maybe there's some transfer of information because they give the same test over and over. Could be some combination of those things but the point is that there is this between here where there's no communication from prior years that suggests that there's and this is the kind of thing that this plot also is more data from hundreds of different classrooms. Tens of thousands of students involved this sort of data which suggests that making the classroom, the lecture more interactive gets students more engaged. So let me say something a little bit, something about, yes Eva and you are retrieving it in an active way that you're actually engaged. So the whole point of learning is that you're engaged with mentally engaged in the material at hand and however you accomplish that you create the job of the teachers to create an environment in which that sort of mental engagement is more effective. And so that's really the underlying sort of science cognitive science. It has not just to do with the content but it has to do with how people learn. And so this is you can connect it to neuroscience that basically there's neurons connecting as you're learning, learning processes forming these appropriate network of neurons that requires engagement and the more you can make the environment, learning environment engaging the more effective learning is. That's really the underlying idea. Education research data has it's not quantum electrodynamics. It has lots of spread. So you have to sort of look at it with a grain of salt but if there are lots of repetitive studies you see similar trends then that gives you confidence just like in any branch of science that the findings are have validity. Professors may be getting better. Yes. So this is a very famous thing that people will say, you know, we all feel this, right? Here's that textbook which gets bigger and bigger every year. They cover the textbook, right? You know, the fact of the matter is if they're not learning it, they're not you can feel like you're covering it but if they're not learning it what's the point? Yes? It's not the amount that you cover, it's the amount that you uncover or something that effect. So these sorts of points are people are still struggling with. They struggle. There's a very important questions very, you know, unresolved I would say how do we make sure that they're learning what we need them to learn in the next stage but the question becomes if they're not learning and this is an issue. This is a common complaint one hears and instructors of advanced classes, didn't you have this course before and didn't you learn this material? So I think the answer lies in you have to find and judge the right level. You have to try to make the environment in which you're teaching more effective and you know and you try to coordinate as much as possible and identify what are the most important things that they need to carry on to the next level because simply because you are talking about the subject doesn't mean the students are learning it. And so let me this actually before I go on I have a couple of slides I want to say about that in a moment but I want to say something this technique I've told you about is one of many such techniques that have been developed through education research. I want you to, so these are really important places to take a look at resources that you can use in physics. So you know I know physics literature best. This is a repository compadre. It's called compadre. Here are the websites for this. You'll have the links that you'll be able to access when you download this. This has in particular this link leads to what's called a physics education research user guide. And it gives something like 60 different techniques. Everyone is explicated about their various levels of development but they have you know what is the research backing for this? How do you apply it? What is the appropriate level of student for which this technique is useful for? It's really very useful and comprehensive. If you're in teaching in others beyond physics in you know engineering there is a super set of this. Compadre is part of what's called the National Science Digital Laboratory and whether you're in engineering or you're in chemistry there's a whole set of the different disciplinary societies, different organizations have connected or put their education research literature developed techniques there. So I really encourage you to explore these too if you want to learn more about what are the possibilities. I've given you one such technique. There are many others. So let me say a little bit about the education research right? So we think about teaching as maybe an art or you know you're a born teacher. Now it's like anything else. You learn it. There is a theory there's evidence, there are experiments connected to theory it's not the level of let's say doing physics but it does give insight into how one can improve the science of teaching and learning. And let me just say a few things. First of all teaching isn't explaining this is kind of the major theme. A second major theme of this type of research is that experts, lecturers think differently than novices and I'll say a bit about that. And there's something that's called cognitive apprenticeship. I don't know if I'll say too much about this but the idea is the way that we learn. So it's actually built on the way we learn to do research.  You work in a small group under your supervisor. How do you learn from your supervisor? You watch what your supervisor does. You go out and do things under your supervisor's supervision. You make mistakes. He helps you correct. But after a while he does less and less of that as you get further advanced in your career. So that assistance fades and you become after some time after this period of apprenticeship you become an expert. And this is kind of the idea that underlies a lot of the education research innovations is to try to make the classroom more like that. Not a classroom where you're just talking and you're passively listening but to have it much more focused to create an environment where students can be mentally engaged and take on and become more expert like over time. As you mentioned I got a lot of these are from Ken Heller who's an education researcher in physics at University of Minnesota. So I want to just acknowledge that. But usually we think about I'm lecturing and the students are they're taking it in. So they're like a funnel. I'm funneling all this information in. Well we're frustrated because only 10% of the students learned it.  But students have a perspective. I don't understand what this guy is saying. He doesn't communicate very clearly. So everybody's frustrated. If you have this sort of picture of a structure speaks, students are supposed to learn and that's the nature because the lecture's giving a very clear explanation. And there's a lot of difficulties with this picture and one of the chief difficulties is that experts organize their knowledge differently than novices. So for example for doing a problem in mechanics. Block down an inclined plane. How do we think about it as physicist? Well we say what are the principles? What are the laws of physics? This is where we start. And what are sort of then with those laws what are the general conditions? Equilibrium, non-equilibrium? How do we set up the description? And then we talk about the particulars. It's a particular setting. What are the objects involved? There's a plane and a block. What are the interactions? That's the hierarchy. Starting from fundamental principles. Students don't organize their knowledge that way. They look at typically surface features. That's an inclined plane problem. There's a plane and so there's an angle in there. And it's only very late when they said okay and then there's some set of equations that I need. So there's the friction equation. So they have a very different way of organizing their knowledge. Now the job of instruction is to try to help guide students from their novice way of thinking to more expert-like thinking. And that's where making the environment more interactive. Again, not telling students but providing an environment where they are guided to engage in exercises which helps them learn to become more expert-like in their thinking. There's no other way. This comes from cognitive science research. And I'll say the picture is the following. The point of the lecture is to show to model the correct behavior, the expert-like behavior. But just like if you're learning to play golf or you're learning to play soccer, you don't become an expert at soccer by watching someone play soccer. But you have to know how the rules of the game are worked. So it is informative. It's useful. But it's the starting point. And then you have to create an environment where the students are actually engaged in doing those activities needed for that particular subject. So it can happen even in the classroom. That's why pausing and having students talk to one another, engage and respond to a question under the supervision of the expert. But it's helping the students engage rather than having the expert just continue to show. So now you're engaging them, coaching them. This happens in the classroom, in recitations, in laboratories. And then eventually fade that support away as they become more and more expert-like. So the degree to which instruction can be modeled in that particular way and redesigned. And naturally I would say the underlying objective of lots of education research is to create this kind of environment. I want to say one more thing about why is it worth spending time a common refrain that I hear from my colleagues in the department as well as some students is that I'm here to do research at this institution. And I'm doing a teaching, maybe doing what's called a teaching assistantship.  And I think, and others, particularly under the leadership of folks like Ken Heller, is that this is a lost opportunity. In fact, if we think about the teaching and the time spent teaching as a way to advance your career, there are lots of skills that can be learned in that sort of environment. And so it is sensible to think about ways to try to make that teaching assistantship be something or teaching experience. And I'll think thinking about TAs being an opportunity to practice a set of skills that are helpful in the lab in doing research and beyond in your career. Now in terms of career, I mean it's good preparation for employment. So the idea that, and this is also something that not everyone who is a graduate student becomes a faculty member. In the United States this is certainly not the case of only about 30% or so of the PhDs end up being faculty, but only about half of those in physics end up being faculty at PhD institutions. So that means 85% in the US of PhDs in physics end up being in a position different from their supervisors. So this is a broad issue preparing graduate students to become effective employees. There are lots of skills that you learn as part of teaching experience which can carry over to that. So for example if you're in industry, this is a poll that was from this publication which says what are the sort of skills you need to be effective in industry? Teamwork. So you've got to work with groups. Communication. These are sorts of skills that you can get lots of practice in, in a teaching environment. And government laboratory, so there was a talk by a supervisor, director at NIST, talking about the sort of qualities that it's important for physicists to have at government labs. And some of these are very much the kind that you would involve or acquire while doing research, but also while planning and organizing, teamwork, communicating in the classroom. So what we're doing at Georgia Tech and others at other institutions are engaged in trying to make our TA, what we call TA training, but TA career development much more tightly integrated as part of a career development experience, global career development experience for our students. And so there are various ways in which we're changing the way we're teaching our TAs, but one key thing is we're getting our faculty involved with this. In the past we would rely on basically having someone who is not a faculty member just run the TAs through a Friday before training, before the laboratory and recitation. And now we're moving much more to the model where faculty are taking charge of developing the TA training and because they are providing the model for the graduate students to show that this is important and also then to help them practice techniques that are important for them to be more effective in the classroom, but also to help them practice these real soft skills that are important for their life beyond the classroom, beyond graduate school. So with that I'm going to stop, but I just want to say one summary point is to try these sorts of, there's lots of opportunities and ways to try a hands-on approach to teaching too, so I encourage you to explore it. With that I'll stop, thank you for your attention.


Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Naval War College graduation ceremony. I'm Captain John Griffin, the dean of students and will be serving as the emcee for today's ceremony. You're welcome to take photographs at any time throughout the ceremony. We have official photographers taking pictures today and you will find these photos posted on our Flickr site. At this time, as a courtesy, please put your mobile phones on silent or vibrate. Please remain seated for the student procession. Please rise and remain standing for the arrival of the official party, National Anthem and Invocation. The National Anthem will be sung by Naval War College's own Ms. Julie Zekker. Commander Douglas E. Rosander, the Naval War College chaplain, will deliver the invocation. Let us pray. From ancient scripture, an intelligent heart acquires knowledge and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Merciful Lord in heaven, we ask for your presence with us today. Graduation marks a milestone in the life of each one being recognized for their many months of hard work and perseverance. These students have been stretched, challenged and tested. Thank you for their hard work and success. As a result of their time here, may they be better equipped to lead, serving our nation and benefiting others. Thank you for their instructors and mentors, as well as their families and friends who have encouraged them along the way. Now please be with those being recognized today for their achievements and keep them mindful of your presence through the one who saves. Amen. Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. It gives me great pleasure to introduce some members of our official party. Captain Richard Lebranche, U.S. Navy, Chair, Joint Military Operations Department. Dr. Michael Pavkovic, Chair, Strategy and Policy Department. Dr. Jay Hickey, Director, College of Distance Education. Dr. David Cooper, Chair, National Security Affairs Department. Dr. John Garifano, Dean of Academic Affairs. Dr. Louis Duncan, Provost. Dr. Mark Agenest, Forest Sherman Chair of Public Diplomacy, Strategy and Policy Department, and Co-Director of the Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups. And we're Admiral P. Gardner Howe III, President, United States Naval War College. Good day and welcome to all the guests at today's ceremony. Several years ago, we began a tradition at the Naval War College of allowing the graduating student body to nominate their guest speaker. For amongst all the talented professionals at the college. I would like to ask graduating student, Colonel Dennis Sullivan, to introduce your faculty guest speaker. Colonel Sullivan. Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of introducing our guest speaker, Professor Mark Agenest. I was in Professor Agenest's Strategy and Policy Seminar last spring. And like the rest of our graduating students, I enjoyed many of his S&P lectures. Professor Agenest is the Forest Sherman Public or Forest Sherman Professor of Public Diplomacy. And the S&P department is the college's Co-Director of the Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups. He earned his PhD from Georgetown University and International Politics. His academic accomplishments are extremely impressive and are listed in your brochure. And he also is a superb example of the high standard that the Naval War Call has achieved for its instructors. To go along with his academic accomplishments, Professor Agenest has also served twice downrange, serving as a senior civilian advisor to key military leaders in Afghanistan. And over the past two years, or correction, over the past year to both the junior and senior class, we have benefited from his Strategy and Policy Lectures. He could insightfully deliver a lecture on Thucydides as well, just as brilliantly as he could when on the Cold War, Vietnam, or the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. His lectures were almost always highly informative and kept his audience fully engaged. His presentations were always memorable. He's the only professor that could deliver a lecture on Kissinger and Detente that many of you may recall, and weave in music from the Bee Gees and pictures of John Travolta. In the seminar room, he was just as brilliant. His insights always brought out key points and challenged students to achieve excellence. Despite his large brain and clear genius in his topics, he was never intimidating or condescending to the students, though we did have to tolerate his Henry Kissinger infatuation. Ladies and gentlemen, Professor Marc Genes. Good afternoon. Thank you, Colonel Sullivan, for that effusive, highly flattering, and studyingly accurate introduction. I'd like to thank Admiral Howe, Dr. Duncan, distinguished guests, esteemed colleagues, proud family members, and most importantly, you students, for affording me the honor of speaking today at your graduation ceremony. Now, I first heard about the possibility of being the graduation speaker when the Dean of Students walked into my office about a month ago and told me that early polls indicated that Professor John Maurer and I were locked in a tight race for the honor. Now, I mainly began to worry. You have to understand Professor Maurer is a Yale-educated Ivy League scholar who's insightful and intellectually engaging lectures and legendary here at the War College. I, on the other hand, graduated from a state university where I majored in beer and coeds. I excelled in only one of those subjects. I'll let you guess which one. I then began breaking down the polling data because as a good political scientist, that's what I do. I desperately searched for a path to electoral victory. Maurer had a wide base of support among the Air Force, the Army, the Coast Guard, international and civilian students who wanted to hear the Churchillian brilliance of Professor Maurer one more time before they left this august institution. But I had my own unique strengths. My lectures were about propaganda. Henry Kissinger, Sam Adams manipulating the press and the masses. I even threw in an occasional bear joke. My electoral base was solid. I had the sailors. The biggest challenge was getting the Marines to learn how to spell Janest. It was a very, very tight race. Once I won, I had to figure out what I was going to say. And in the end, I decided to talk to you about when Brigadier General Randy George, a Navy War College graduate, asked me to come out to Afghanistan to serve as a civilian advisor to the 4th Brigade Combat Team in Jalalabad.  First, you're a captive audience and I never ever lose sight of the fact that you must listen to what I say. Second, more seriously, is education is a shared journey between student and teacher. My career has been centered on sharing my knowledge with students from the standpoint of an academic who spends his time researching in comfortable confines. In 2009 and 2011, I was given the opportunity to conduct my research while walking for a brief period of time in your shoes. I have often said that one of the truly wonderful things about being a professor at the Naval War College is that I learned more from my extraordinary students than they learned from me. Okay, maybe not this much this year. But generally, for most classes, it's very true. Third, for the past year, you've been living what we scholars refer to as the contemplated life.  Your time has been spent writing essays, reading scholarly books and articles, and engaging in intellectual combat with Sansa, Clausowitz, Mahan, Corbett and the plethora of great minds that you were exposed to over the course of your studies here at the War College. For men and women whose careers have focused on the harsh realities associated with violent operations on the battlefield, or even more terrifying experiences working at the Pentagon, your time at the Naval War College has been a very different type of unique challenge, forced to sit and listen to lectures by geeks like me, whom you used to beat up in grammar school, and you know who you are. We still have the scars from that. But for many of you, this has been as far outside of your comfort zone as was my time in Afghanistan. I know this because I felt the discomfort as I graded your final exams. So what insights can I possibly share with you regarding my relatively brief excursions in Afghanistan? First and foremost, Clausowitz tells us that no degree of academic study can possibly supplant the knowledge acquired from actually experiencing the battlefield. This is certainly true. I had no idea how tough it would be to cope with the grueling 18-hour workdays, the searing 120-degree heat compounded by 80 pounds of protected body armor while living on the ever-present threat of confronting my own mortality. Yet curiously, I was more prepared for this than I actually thought. After all, I had been raised on the mean streets of Newport. I had also read many books. And to top it off, I had even been going to the gym at least twice a week for two months. This body wasn't built on Twinkies alone, you know. But looking back, I should have read the subtle clue given to me at the outset by General George who convinced me to spend my time in the friendly confines of Fob Fenty in Afghanistan. He said, Mark, don't worry. I brought you here for your mind, not your body. Now, I had used that line many times in college with mixed results on it. But I never imagined that one day I would be on the receiving end of it and that he would actually mean it. Despite my intense preparation, I found I was not prepared for life in the talk, the Tactical Operating Center. Upon arrival, I was immediately escorted to my new home away from home, the little blue cell, I mean that spacious workspace that was furnished with two desks, two chairs, and, well, nothing else. I served my time by writing strategic analyses of the U.S. Army's I.O. campaign for regional commandees and then later for the division headquarters in Kandahar. Colonel George would occasionally come into the office and reminisce about his career as an Army officer and how much it was enhanced by his experience in writing essays that I assigned to him on Mahan's views of the importance of naval power. After a few minutes, he would leave locking the door behind him. Muttering something about all the salt water around Jalalabad. Eventually, I began to question whether or not he was happy with that B-plus I gave him. Anyway, I did get an opportunity to venture forth outside the gates to visit the vast array of acronyms that we constructed around Afghanistan, the PRTs, the FOBS, the COPs that have come to symbolize our efforts to provide security and restore hope to the Afghan people. I tagged along on MRAP convoys driving miles of newly paved roads to visit the training and medical facilities that ISAF helped build during my time in Afghanistan. I spoke with children excited about attending classes and schools so new that the paint on the walls was still damp. I was able to get a small glimpse of the scale of sacrifice and remarkable work performed each and every day by troops serving in combat outposts in remote areas of Nuristan, Nangahar, Kunar and Lagman provinces. I was even able to attend a change of command ceremony in Kunar province. It was there that I witnessed a naval officer taking command of a post located in the mountainous region of northeastern Afghanistan only a few kilometers from the border of Pakistan. I never thought that I would hear a naval officer being piped aboard an outpost in the middle of the Hindu Kush. It was an incredible experience. It was to say the least a remarkable educational experience. It has profoundly affected the way that I understand the nature of contemporary counterinsurgency strategy. Now don't get me wrong, many of the theories that I gleaned from books held true but they all painted incomplete portraits of a reality so complex that no one can ever hope to capture more than a fleeting impression. Still my understanding of the human element has grown immensely and that has hopefully made me a better teacher, scholar and man. My respect and admiration for the sacrifices that you, your families make and serving your country deepens each day that I work here. In 2011 I had the opportunity to return to Afghanistan where I worked at division headquarters in Kandahar and it was there that I met a Lieutenant Colonel who had served six out of the last seven years in either Afghanistan or Iraq. The remarkable thing is that this level of service and sacrifice is no longer uncommon. Isaac Newton once said, if I see further it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants. When I say that I stand upon the shoulders of giants I'm not referring to the great scholars that we study here at the War College although my mind has been greatly enhanced by reading their works nor am I talking about my superb colleagues although I have learned more from them than I can ever recount.  And finally, Clausowitz, and you knew this was coming, tells us that to truly understand strategy must augment your practical experiences with the study of history, politics and culture. I hope you have taken full advantage of the opportunity to study these subjects here at the War College. As you leave these gates and return to your lives, driving ships, flying aircraft, running dangerous operations in Afghanistan, the Far East, the Horn of Africa or even worse Washington DC, I am confident that you will be in a position to take what you've learned here and apply it to the complex and wide array of challenges that you will face in the rest of your careers. Indeed, this will be the ultimate test of the value of your time here. Thank you very much and congratulations. Dr. Genest, on behalf of the students, staff and faculty, thank you for your comments and your ongoing contributions and service to our country. For each graduating class, one student is selected for recognition as the President's Honor Graduate. This award is presented to the student who best displays the high standards of academic performance, Naval War College activities, participation in civic and community service and promotion of the military services in the public interest. For the College of Naval Warfare, the honor graduate for the March 2015 graduating class is Colonel Stephen Wolfe. Colonel Wolfe, would you please come up the stage to receive your award. Colonel Wolfe is graduating number one in his College of Naval Warfare class. He was a seminar academic and athletic representative and active in supporting school programs in Jamestown and North Kingstown. He's receiving an engraved Weems and Plath Compass from the Naval War College Foundation and his name will be added to the perpetual plaque of honor graduates. For the College of Naval Command and Staff, the honor graduate for the March 2015 graduating class is Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Shanahan. Lieutenant Commander Shanahan. Lieutenant Commander Shanahan is graduating number one in his College of Naval Command and Staff class. He served as a seminar leader, academic representative and first prize in the 2014 Naval War College Foundation SA Award Competition. He's receiving an engraved Weems and Plath Compass from the Naval War College Foundation as well and his name will be added to the perpetual plaque of honor graduates. We'll now give our honor graduates a few minutes to address their fellow graduates and classmates. Admiral Howe, Dr. Duncan, distinguished guests, family, friends, thank you very much for being here with us today. Over the past several days, I was filling out the last of what was many surveys here at the Naval War College. It took a few minutes to reflect on what I thought made this year successful for me and I came up with three things that I'd like to share with you today. The first is my year at the Naval War College gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my family. As all of you know, we spend a lot of time deployed doing training exercises. Even when you're at home station, you spend a lot of time away from home taking care of your soldiers, your sailors, your airmen, your Marines or the civilians who work with you. I'm very proud of the fact that over the last year I made every single birthday, I made every school event, I made every soccer practice, every soccer game, every football practice and really did a lot with my family. And sometime I'll take off this uniform, it'll be the last time and I'll no longer care about the nuances of operational art. I've forgotten everything I pretended to know about Clausewitz. But I'll still have the memories of the things that my family and I did here this past year and that alone will make the past year very worthwhile. The second thing I'm back to talk about is the opportunity this gave me to make some really great friends. And I'm kind of unusual in that this was the first time I've been to resident professional military education since I was a second lieutenant. And as I talked to a lot of my peers who'd been to one or two resident PME schools, they talked a little bit about what they learned there, but they spent a lot more time and their eyes would light up when they talked about the people they met there. And for the guys out in the Jamestown wrecking crew as it's called by some, I just really want to thank all of you. I got a lot out of the last year, I learned a lot about leadership. I learned a lot about being a better officer. I learned a lot about things that aren't in the curriculum here at the War College. And most importantly, I think I reconnected with that spark that is why I love the professional arms. So to all the friends that I met here, thank you very much. The last thing I'd like to leave you with that made this year special for me was the opportunity to engage intellectually with the professors, the faculty, and my fellow students here at the War College. The professors, I find them all very knowledgeable. They're engaging, they're engaged, and they really helped me understand a lot of very difficult concepts. My fellow students, every time I walked into a seminar, I knew I had to be prepared because someone at that seminar was going to challenge me on my opinions, and I needed to be prepared to defend those opinions and back them up. For the international students, definitely I didn't always agree with what they had to say, but they always brought a different perspective for me and really had me think about the assumptions that I made coming into each seminar. I would like to especially highlight two guys, I don't know if they're here today, that I spent a lot of time with in the Halsey Bravo Advanced Research Group. That's Hank Comratt and Bill Murray. See, Hank's in the back, very recognizable, he's got the only ponytail on a form of naval officer here at the War College. But Hank and Bill, thank you very much for the last year. They spent a lot of time showing me as a marine infantry officer why she cared about Aegis Baseline, NIFCA-CA, and a whole host of other naval acronyms that I didn't even know existed a year ago, and they really showed me that while I thought I knew what was going on in a couple areas of the world, that there was a lot of things I didn't know and I didn't understand, and I got a lot out of my time with them, and thank you very much. To the faculty and the staff here at the Naval War College, I'd like to thank all of you for what was indeed a very rewarding year. To my fellow graduates, congratulations. Best of luck to each of you and your next assignment. Thank you again, and Semper Fi. Good afternoon. Thanks so much to all of you for being part of our graduation ceremony today. It's difficult for me to describe how truly surprised and humbled I am to be standing here. It's been an incredible honor for me just to be a student at such a prestigious institution, and even more so to count myself a classmate of so many immensely talented professionals. I know I speak for all of us in saying that our experience here at Newport is one we will never forget, and I am confident that the lessons we have garnered here will prove invaluable as we embark on the next step in our respective careers. To the War College faculty and staff, thank you for challenging us to think critically and pushing us to express our ideas more clearly and convincingly. Your talent and professionalism has educators of what make the War College second to none, and we are extremely grateful that you have been willing to share some of your knowledge and expertise with us. To our families, and in my case more specifically to my wife, Stephanie, my sons, Finn, Emmett, and Cullen, and to my parents, Mike and Jane, who are here today, thank you for your unyielding support and encouragement. You have made my studies here in Newport not only possible, but a whole lot of fun, and I am eternally grateful to have had so much time with you over the past year. Lastly, to my classmates, my sincerest congratulations. Thank you for sharing your experience, your ideas, and your friendship. It has been an honor to study, learn, and grow with you, and I am more confident now than ever that our nation's security is in very capable hands. I wish you nothing but the best, and look forward to serving with you in the future. Thank you very much. A Master of Arts degree in National Security and Strategic Studies will now be conferred to the graduates. Will the graduates please rise? Ruma Howie, please approach the podium. Admiral, I have the honor to present the March graduates of the Naval War College candidates for the Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies. They have been thoroughly examined and approved by the faculty. By the power invested in me, by the Secretary of the Navy, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, and by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I confer upon you all the appropriate degrees and diplomas in National Security and Strategic Studies. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a round of applause recognizing the March graduates of the U.S. Naval War College. Graduates, please be seated. Beyond the requirements for graduation, certain individuals have distinguished themselves through academic excellence. For those in the top 5%, they receive a diploma with the highest distinction. Those in the next 15% will receive a diploma with distinction. Graduates will now receive their diplomas. Graduates from the College of Naval Warfare, please proceed to the stage as your name is read. Guests are welcome to come forward to take photographs. Please try to hold your applause until all names have been read. Dr. Admiral Howe, Dr. Duncan, Dr. Janes, Dean Garifano, if you would please rise. Presenting the graduating members of the College of Naval Warfare and their next duty assignment. Lieutenant Colonel James Robert Ahern, U.S. Army Reserve, U.S. Army 3rd Headquarters, Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. Colonel Craig J. Aleah, U.S. Army, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Captain Eugene R. Bailey, U.S. Navy, U.S. Forces, Japan, Yucota, Japan. Colonel Larry Q. Burris, Jr., U.S. Army, with highest distinction. 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Air Assault, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Colonel Dylan Michael Carlson, U.S. Army, with distinction. United States Army, Japan, Camp Zama, Japan. Commander William H. Clinton, U.S. Navy, U.S. 7th Fleet, Yukuska, Japan. Commander Hartwell F. Koch, the 5th, U.S. Navy, Naval Oceanography Special Warfare Center, Coronado, California. Colonel Christopher Grayson Dixon, U.S. Marine Corps, with distinction. Joint Task Force Civil Support, Fort Eustis, Virginia. Colonel Christopher J. Egan, U.S. Army National Guard, Joint Force Headquarters, Connecticut. Connecticut Army National Guard, Hartford, Connecticut. Commander Alfredo T. Fernandez, Jr., Medical Service Corps, U.S. Navy, Naval Branch Health Clinic, Naval Station, San Diego, California. Lieutenant Colonel William C. Gray, U.S. Marine Corps, Headquarters Marine Corps, Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. Lieutenant Colonel Charles D. Hausman, U.S. Army National Guard, Joint Forces Headquarters, Missouri National Guard, Jefferson City, Missouri. Commander Bradley S. Hawksworth, U.S. Navy, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, New York. Commander Garrett V. Krauss, U.S. Navy, with distinction. Naval Reserve Forces Command, Norfolk, Virginia. Commander Michelle M. LaPorte, Supply Corps, U.S. Navy. Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition of Washington, D.C. Commander Wayne H. Lee, Supply Corps, U.S. Navy. Reserve Navy Supply Global Logistics Support, San Diego, California. Commander Kevin P. Myers, U.S. Navy, Surface Warfare Officer School in Newport, Rhode Island. Colonel Allen M. Pepin, U.S. Army, Fort Rucker, Alabama. Lieutenant Commander Dmitry D. Randall, U.S. Navy, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Springfield, Virginia. Lieutenant Colonel Michael W. Sharp, U.S. Army, 332nd Military Intelligence Battalion, Cincinnati, Ohio. Commander Monica Washington Stoker, U.S. Navy, Surface Warfare Officer School, Newport, Rhode Island. Colonel Dennis S. Sullivan, U.S. Army, with distinction. C&O Strategic Studies Group, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander Michael S. Dracanian, U.S. Navy, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Commander Patrick C. Thien, U.S. Navy, Carrier Strike Group 1, San Diego, California. Commander Dennis J. Vigent, U.S. Navy, Op-Nav, Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Michael Wynne, Supply Corps, U.S. Navy, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia. Colonel Stephen M. Wolfe, U.S. Marine Corps, No. 1 in his class, with highest distinction. Headquarters 2MF, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Commander Kenneth B. Wooster, U.S. Navy, VT-2 Cell Res Augmentation Unit, NAS-Pence, CO, Florida. Lieutenant Commander David C. Zinkhan, U.S. Navy, USS Iwo Jima, LHD-7, Jacksonville, Florida. Presenting the graduating members of the College of Naval Command and Staff and their next duty station. Lieutenant Commander Robin Barnett, U.S. Navy, Fleet Cyber Site, Suffolk, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Guy M. Batchelder, U.S. Navy, Tactical Training Group, Atlantic, Damneck, Virginia, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Peter Bernard, U.S. Navy, Comm. U.S. Nav-Sent, Manama, Bahrain. Major Joseph Michael Byerly, U.S. Army, with distinction, Fourth Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado. Lieutenant Commander Marshall W. Chastain, U.S. Navy, NAS-Sigonella, Sicily. Lieutenant Commander Katrina M. Conley, U.S. Navy, Maritime Staff Operators Corps, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Joseph Creehan, U.S. Navy, VFA-94, NAS-Lemore, California. Lieutenant Commander Jackie Curtis, U.S. Navy, Missile Deficient Agency, National Test Facility, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Lieutenant Commander Matthew R. Davis, U.S. Navy, Op-Nav, Arlington, Virginia. Major Casey A. Dean, U.S. Army, CENTCOM, McDeal Air Force Base, Florida. Lieutenant Commander Christopher Denser, U.S. Navy, with distinction, Giada of South, Key West, Florida. Major Jason P. Duffy, U.S. Army, Special Operations Command, Central Tampa, Florida. Lieutenant Commander David Foster Edwards, U.S. Navy, HSM-74, Jacksonville, Florida. Lieutenant Commander Juan Figueroa, U.S. Navy, Naval Support Activity, Manama Bahrain. Lieutenant Commander Joshua P. Fuller, U.S. Navy, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Arlington, Virginia, Pentagon. Lieutenant Commander Ryan T. Fullwider, U.S. Navy, Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander David A. Gansi, U.S. Navy, VAQ-129, Whidbey Island, Washington. Lieutenant Commander Ann Catherine Gilson, U.S. Navy, VP-30, Jacksonville, Florida. Lieutenant John M. Gleason, U.S. Navy, with highest distinction, HSM-40, Mayport, Florida. Lieutenant Commander Stephen J. Hens, U.S. Navy, U.S. Paycom, Honolulu, Hawaii. Lieutenant Stephen Howard, U.S. Navy, Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. Commander Kenneth W. Kelly, U.S. Navy, Military Seal of Command, Far East Detachment, St. Louis, Missouri. Lieutenant Commander Deborah E. King, Civil Engineering Corps, U.S. Navy, Headquarters Joint Force Command, Naples, Italy. Major Randall A. Lenneman, U.S. Army, with distinction, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia. Lieutenant Commander Frank M. Laforte, U.S. Navy, Stratcom, Omaha, Nebraska. Lieutenant Juan Gabriel Luna, U.S. Navy, JSOC, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Lieutenant Commander Kevin P. Lyons, U.S. Navy, with distinction, U.S. Central Command, Tampa, Florida. Lieutenant Commander Joseph L. McGatigan, Jr., U.S. Navy, Surface Warfare Officer School, Newport, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander Mary R. Mortimer, Nursing Corps, U.S. Navy, Naval Medical Center, San Diego, California. Lieutenant Commander Brian C. Murray, Supply Corps, U.S. Navy, awaiting orders. Lieutenant Commander J. Michael Newhart, II, U.S. Navy, Naval War College, Newport. Lieutenant Commander James B. O'Donovan, U.S. Navy, Op-Nav, Arlington, Virginia. Major Lucas Hosey, Overstreet, U.S. Army, with distinction, NTC Fort Irwin, California. Major Dennis N. Penalt, U.S. Army National Guard, Army National Guard, Cranston, Rhode Island. Lieutenant Commander James Richard Powers, Jr., U.S. Navy, HSM 78, NAS North Island, Coronado, California. Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Charles Rea, U.S. Navy, Special Operations Command Pacific, Camp Smith, IA Hawaii. Lieutenant Timothy Maurice Reardon, U.S. Navy, Navy Operational Support Center, Baltimore, Maryland. Lieutenant Commander Robert E. Riley, U.S. Navy, U.S. Cybercom, Fort Meade, Maryland. Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Michael Shanahan, U.S. Navy, No. 1 in his class, with highest distinction, Comnev Air Forces Reserve, Norfolk, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Peter J. Silva, Jr., U.S. Navy, HSM 41, San Diego, California. Major Thomas J. Polzino, U.S. Army, with highest distinction, Fort Stewart, Georgia. Lieutenant Commander Nicholas J. Sylvester, U.S. Navy, U.S. Strategic Command, Omaha, Nebraska. Major Paula D. Taibi, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Forces Pacific, Camp Smith, Hawaii. Lieutenant Commander Brian Truong, U.S. Navy, with distinction, Helicopter C. Combat Wing Pacific, San Diego, California. Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey J. Wagner, U.S. Navy, Pekam Jaya, IA Hawaii. Lieutenant Commander Adam P. Walski, U.S. Navy, Naval Support Activity, Panama City, Panama City, Florida. Lieutenant Commander Nathan S. Wimmet, U.S. Navy, a Float Training Group, Pact, Northwest, Everett, Washington. Lieutenant Commander Kazemir M. Wenick, U.S. Navy, Op-Nav, Arlington, Virginia. Lieutenant Commander Ronald W. Zynga, U.S. Navy, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. The following students cannot attend today's ceremony. They are Lieutenant Commander Jessica Caldwell, U.S. Navy, with distinction, Captain Mike Hummer, U.S. Navy, with distinction, Lieutenant Commander Stephen A. Healy, U.S. Navy, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kim, U.S. Navy, Major Jason Tiger, U.S. Marine Corps, with distinction, and Major Scott Orman, U.S. Marine Corps, and Lieutenant Commander Nicholas L. Mullenhower, U.S. Navy. Ladies and gentlemen, please join us in a round of applause for our graduates' honorees and department. Ramelhau will now issue the charge to the graduates. Admiral, if you would, proceed to the podium. The rest of the official party, can you see them? It's now my pleasure to draw these proceedings to a close, but first, a few comments. Dr. Genes, thanks for your thoughtful and entertaining remarks today, and your continued scholarship here at the college. It's an honor for me and I think the rest of your colleagues to share the stage with you today. To the War College faculty and staff, today, we're here again to witness the fruits of your efforts. For over 130 years, you and your predecessors have labored to develop and educate our navies and our nation's leadership. And once again, you have succeeded producing yet another cohort of leaders well prepared for the increasingly complex and challenging security environment we face. Thank you for your continued and dedicated service to the nation. To the families and to the colleagues of the students here today, thanks for joining us. Your presence makes the ceremony more memorable for our graduates, but more than that, it allows us an opportunity to recognize the role you play in the accomplishments that we celebrate today. I think we all know life in the military is a team sport, and y'all's love, your encouragement, your devotion helped our students maintain their balance, the proper balance between mind, body, spirit, the campus and home during their intellectual journey here at Newport. Thanks for your support. Now to the graduates, congratulations on completing your course of studies here at the Naval War College. As you all head back, some to staff, some to operational headquarters, some to operational forces, I'd ask for you to keep three things in mind. First, the gift that you have been given. Second, the responsibility you've incurred as a result of that gift. And third, the profession in which you serve, a couple of comments on each. This year of in-residence education is truly a gift from the nation to you. As you continue to grow in rank and in responsibility, I think you'll find that the most precious commodity you'll come upon is time. And you've just been given a whole year, a whole year to study, to reflect and debate with your colleagues. That is a gift of time to grow intellectually and to prepare for the challenges that await. Do not take this gift for granted. I'd offer the best way to do so. The best way to ensure that you don't take it for granted is for you to very explicitly and consciously acknowledge the responsibility that you've inherited as a result of the gift. And that is the responsibility for you to continue to critically and thoughtfully employ this education as you move forward.  You will be living in the world of present shock where the strategic horizon gets compressed to just days and weeks. And I would imagine often your daily agenda is going to be set by the headlines of the New York Times and the Washington Post or the emails that pop into your queue that morning. So as you come face to face with the realities of that world, I'd offer you've got a responsibility to remain a strategically minded and critical thinker, to proactively lead with independent creative thought, not reactively survive with comfortable conventional wisdom or lazy thinking. Reflect, think, and lead. And as part of this responsibility that you've inherited, I'd ask that as you do think about your next assignments, you think about paying it forward. And paying it forward with a focus, a deliberate focus on the leadership development of those in your charge. With this educational experience, whether you realize it or not, you have tons to offer in developing the junior leaders across the fleet and across the operating forces of our military. Don't look and don't wait for opportunities to present themselves. I'd ask you to actively make opportunities to engage with those junior officers and our enlisted personnel, share your thoughts and your experiences and your perspectives, shape their habits of mind, shape their thinking skills, and their leadership potential will be a better military for you doing so. Finally, as you depart today, keep in mind the profession in which you serve, the profession of arms. Never forget the trust that the nation has placed in you. Never forget your obligation to uphold that trust in both your professional and your personal lives. And never forget the professional ethic that should be guiding all of your actions at home, in garrison, in the field, and underway. Continue to grow as a steward of the profession. That's it. Good luck, Godspeed, and I wish all of you fair winds, following seas, and I will see you downrange. Congratulations again. Chaplain Rosander will now deliver the benediction. Please stand. Let us pray. Eternal God, these men and women, for these men and women are rigorous and challenging academic years now to close, but their voyage continues. As they go from here, serving on land, sea, or air, here and around the world, may their knowledge, skills, wisdom, and friendships be fully utilized in maintaining and spreading peace and security. Enable them with honor, courage, and commitment in all things, and protect them as they serve. I also ask that you watch over those who serve today in harm's way. Please be near to their loved ones and also to those recovering from the effects of war. And now, Lord, bless these men and women as they go forth to do great things. Thank you for the service they've rendered to our nation. And please be with them and their families as they depart for new destinations and challenges. By your grace. Amen. Ladies and gentlemen, please remain standing for the departure of the official party. Thank you all for attending today's graduation ceremony. This concludes the ceremony.