Report of the RMC Board of Governors By the Withers' Study Group
Balanced Excellence Leading Canada's Armed Forces In The New Millenium
4500-240 (ADM (HR-Mil))
24 September 1998
Cross-reference p. (I) of official printed copy of report
The RMC Undergraduate Study Group was commissioned by the Board of Governors and assigned the aim:
"To ensure for each graduate, a broad-based education, well grounded in the sciences and the humanities, with special emphasis being placed on the development of values, ethics and leadership skills needed for responsibilities and service to country."
To accomplish this objective the Study Group decided at the outset that the institution had to be examined within the context of the Canadian Forces as a whole. If RMC's raison d'être is the provision of highly motivated, qualified officers for service in the CF, the relationship between these two entities is crucial to the overall success of this mission.
At the same time, the unique structure of RMC itself, with its four pillars; academic, military, language, and physical fitness, would need to be reviewed to ensure each maximised its contribution to the final product. Synergies inherent in having these four pillars operating concurrently over the crucial first four years of the potential officer's career had to be identified and fully exploited.
We were inspired throughout the course of our work by the idea that RMC must constitute the very "heart and soul" of the officer corps of the Canadian Forces. The College must be recognised as the institution from which radiates the philosophy of leadership and command that drives the Canadian Officer Corps.
The strategic context in which the College will operate for the foreseeable future will be characterised by uncertainty, ambiguous threats, new demanding and dangerous operations and rapid technological advance. Consequently, professional officers will require a broad quality education grounded in science, history, leadership studies and oriented around a militarily relevant core curriculum. This curriculum will include Canadian military history, civics, international law and international relations.
An intensive series of interviews with senior officers, operational commanders, RMC faculty and cadets themselves, established the "as is" situation. The Study Group then set out to bridge the gap between today's reality and the aim set out by the Board of Governors. Extensive analysis of five options to meet this objective eliminated four. Only one was able to provide fully for excellence and completion of qualifications in both education and training (the Balanced Excellence Model) (ARCHIVED). This model envisages candidates entering RMC, normally after high school, for two academic years. They would then undergo 16 months of MOC training, having selected their MOC in February of their second year. Successful candidates return immediately to RMC for two years to complete their degrees.
"Nested" within the Balanced Excellence Model, the four pillars are analysed with a view to enhancing each of them. However, optimum effectiveness will only be achieved through a process of integration (ARCHIVED) whereby they form a seamless web promoting leadership skills, military ethos and academic excellence. Bilingualism is treated as an integral aspect of leadership in the Canadian context. A total of 34 individual recommendations are made, addressing discrete issues across all four pillars
Our first recommendation is that the College fully implement the Balanced Excellence Model detailed in this report.
Recommendations 2 - 7 seek to better integrate RMC into the CF, encouraging the real stakeholders in the College, the three Environments, to ensure its excellence.
Recommendation 8 seeks to improve recruiting and selection. In this regard, MOC selection should be delayed until a RMC cadet's second academic year.
Recommendations 9 - 14 address the academic pillar. Central to these considerations is the absolute requirement to enhance the militarily oriented "core curriculum" for all cadets over all four academic years.
Recommendations 15 - 24 address the issues of military ethos and the creation of a professionally developed and delivered military training program at the College and in the CF.
Recommendation 25 is intended to build on the existing language program to achieve even higher standards of bilingualism in the RMC cadet.
Recommendations 26 - 27 suggest how the physical education pillar can be better integrated into the RMC experience and made more relevant to the CF.
Recommendations 28 - 34 address the requirement to more effectively integrate the four pillars at RMC.
The Study concludes that three "large new ideas" must inform and condition the RMC experience in the future.
- A philosophy of facilitating success whereby cadets are mentored and guided towards success must pervade training and education in lieu of the more "Darwinian" model of evaluation for filtering out the unfit.
- Reconnect RMC to its raison d'être, the CF as a whole. This will require the reciprocal commitment and effort from the staff at RMC as well as the various stakeholders in the CF. This idea begins to take effect with the enhancement of the recruiting and selection processes as they apply to officers.
- The military pillar of the undergraduate program will have to be significantly strengthened. The critical challenge will be to bring about the necessary integration of all four pillars at the College. This will require decisive action from the Commandant and the Principal within the strategic guidance provided by the BOG.
The implementation of the Balanced Excellence Model should begin immediately. A suggested four part process is outlined in the concluding section of the Report. This action is judged cost-effective and will result in an increase at RMC to approximately 1500 cadets. The result will be an increase of RMC graduates in the CF officer corps from the current 25% to 35% - 40%.