Shaping and Equipping Leaders to Address Complex Issues of Tomorrow
In today’s environment, the future is volatile and it has become harder to predict. Key national security issues are deeper and more complicated, which calls for innovative leaders who are able to examine, critically think, and develop strategies to approach these challenges.
The 38th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, GEN Raymond Odierno, clearly recognized this and wanted a force that was agile and able to think through tomorrow’s complex issues. In order to do this, he needed to prepare his mid-career servicemen and women and their civilian counterparts to start thinking strategically about national security issues at a much earlier point in their careers.
As a result, two short-term graduate-level seminars were created in partnership with two universities for those in the defense sector. In 2012, the UNC-IDB Strategic Studies Fellows Program was started in Chapel Hill, NC as the flagship program of the Army’s Strategic Broadening Seminars. In 2016, the IU-IDB Strategic Studies Fellows Program followed in Bloomington, Indiana.
Both seminars provide intense, on-campus, quality academic opportunities for mid-career professionals to gain exposure to national security issues and decision making, and a swath of new concepts all from a non-military perspective. You will be challenged and will have the opportunity to practice your critical thinking and communications skills through classroom discussions and an team capstone project.
Our goals are to transform the way you look and strategically think about the world’s challenges and to become better and more versatile decision makers on behalf of our Nation wherever you sit.