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DISAM 2001 Curriculum Review

DISAM Journal - March 22, 2001

On February 21 and 22, DISAM conducted its annual curriculum review with participants from the Unified commands, training activities, military services and other implementing agencies. Although there were a few rumblings about coming to Dayton, Ohio in the middle of winter, the review was well attended by implementing agency representatives from DFAS, DSCA, SAF/IA, AFMC, AFSAT, Navy IPO, DUSA/IA, AMC, SATFA, USASAC, USMC, and the Coast Guard, along with unified command participants from CENTCOM, EUCOM, PACOM and SOUTHCOM. The stated purpose of the curriculum review is twofold: to review and validate formal changes to the content of DISAM courses, and to determine the number of classes and student quota allocations for FY2002. As in previous years, DISAM took advantage of the gathering to inform the community of other on-going significant educational and professional development initiatives that are relevant to the security cooperation community. This article contains some of the highlights of the meeting. A complete set of the minutes, along with copies of the presentations is posted to the DISAM web page at http://disam.osd.mil.

As preparation for the curriculum review discussions, the meeting began with a definition of the responsibilities for curriculum development and maintenance at DISAM. Most of the faculty members at DISAM, in addition to being instructors, directly participate in developing the content and organization of the information provided in the classes.

The core material presented in courses at DISAM is divided into functional areas such as logistics, finance, training management and acquisition. A faculty member is assigned as the functional coordinator for each area of concentration, and is responsible not only for developing the blocks of material presented in each class, but also for keeping all the material up-to-date and making sure that the DISAM instructors are informed of any changes or updates that occur. Their efforts include writing the objectives for each class, composing a lesson outline, developing the practical exercises, providing visual aides and/or vugraphs, and monitoring the test questions. In addition, the functional coordinators direct the training of new faculty and provide continuing education and guidance for the current faculty.

In turn, each course at DISAM (SAM-C, SAM-O, SAM-E etc) is assigned a course manager in charge of incorporating the materials from the functional coordinator into a course. This integration effort involves developing the schedule and the sequence of instruction. The course manager is also responsible for making sure the materials in the classroom, including the course books, are properly put together and available for the classes.

One of the most important functions a DISAM faculty member will perform is the duty of class manager. Each offering of a course will have a faculty member assigned as class manager whose functions are broad in scope, including both administrative and instructional activities. While not directly involved in the development of the curricula, the class manager monitors the instruction and makes sure the information is relevant and timely, and will notify the functional coordinator of any discussions or concerns that are pertinent.

The Army, the Navy and the Air Force are each assigned a DISAM faculty member as the service lead who is responsible for maintaining current information regarding policies and procedures within each individual service. The Navy lead faculty member also monitors the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard practices. This information is used for general instruction and for the service unique seminars in SAM-CF, SAM-CM, SAM-CR and SAM-A.

The Overseas course, SAM-O, focuses heavily on regional practices both from the viewpoint of the unified commands and from the perspective of the individual countries. A regional seminar director faculty specialist is assigned to each region and is responsible for maintaining current information on policies and practices. DISAM students are assigned to a region based on their assigned countries for cross cultural and political/military studies; for administrative purposes, students are assigned to a unified command group. The regional seminar leaders for Asia, Africa, Mid-East, Europe and Latin America coordinate with the unified commands for policies and practices, and also develop country specific information for the students.

Curriculum management at DISAM starts out with the faculty obtaining material through individual research, professional background, contacts, conferences, professional memberships, career fields etc. The information is researched for applicability and put together in the proper format by a functional coordinator, a MILDEP leader or a seminar director, who also maintains the currency of the material. All the information and research is integrated into a particular DISAM course or seminar by the seminar directors or the course managers. Twice a year, DISAM sets aside a week for in-service faculty training to ensure that instructors are current and the materials presented in the classroom are appropriate. On the inside back cover of this Journal, there is a list of DISAM faculty, and their individual specialty assignments.

Colonel Judy-Ann Carroll, DISAM Commandant, formally opened the 2001 DISAM curriculum review with an update of DISAM activities. COL Carroll began her presentation with an overview of the DISAM mission, emphasizing the management focused curricula of the DISAM courses. She introduced the newly assigned DISAM Directors: Ernie McCallister, Director of Academic Support, and Mark Ahles, Director of International Studies.

In addition to the basic management courses, over the past two years DISAM has developed and added five new specialized courses in direct response to requests by the security cooperation community. The Logistics Customer Support Course (SAM-CS) provides in-depth logistics, supply and transportation training. The Contract Management course (SAM-CT) is a limited onsite course specifically designed to provide an overview of security cooperation information for DCMC personnel. The Reconciliation and Case Closure course (SAM-CR) is specialized training focused on assisting the community to quickly and accurately close supply completed cases so that the foreign customer funds may be reconciled and excess funds made available for other uses. Case closure has been a continuing problem for the security cooperation community. The SAM-CR course requires MILDEP instructors to augment the DISAM faculty. The Advanced Training Automation Workshop (SAM-TA) for U.S. government personnel includes advanced applications for the DISAM developed training management system (TMS) users. The International Training Management course (SAM-IT) is an add-on to the Foreign Purchaser Class for international students to provide training in the available automated systems that support the training management program and the international security assistance network.

In December 1999, DISAM was mandated to serve as a repository to collect and disseminate best practices by former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre. DISAM supports this on-going effort through our educational mission in several ways. Guest speakers in the DISAM courses provide current practices and policies which are incorporated into classes. The DISAM faculty travel to locations and interview personnel directly working in security assistance, and also attend conferences and meetings. The DISAM Journal is published quarterly and distributed throughout the world and other DISAM publications are available on-line either through the Deskbook or the DISAM web page. DISAM is the international programs coordinator of the Defense Acquisition Deskbook.

As a further effort to disseminate information, DISAM proposed an outreach program that will send a team of instructors on the road to provide informational briefings to groups of 30 people involved in international programs. See the article entitled "DISAM Outreach Program" by Gary Geilenfeldt beginning on page 95 of this Journal. The participants in the curriculum review endorsed this program and encouraged DISAM to proceed. Navy IPO has already initiated a request and has agreed to prototype the first offering.

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