President's forum

Our Sailors must be empowered to operate and fight in a vast array of environments.... They must be equipped with the tools and skills to befitting these challenges and to evolve as leaders. We must encourage and reward continuing education and training [and] institutionalize executive development. ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN USN, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Chief of Naval Operations articulated eight opinions that guide his vision for the twenty-first-century Navy. In the citation above (from his "What I Believe," in the U Naval Institute Proceedings of January 2006) he cites the ne for all members of the Navy manpower team (officer, enlisted, and civilian) to make known the skills and competencies extremityed to succeed in the wide array of circumstances they will rencounter in the decades ahead. The Naval War guild (NWC) is now actively engaged in helping the Navy's leadership to define an approach to Navy professional disclosure that, first, empowers and enables individuals to manage their be in possession of career growth, and second, provides them with the critical guidance and milestone data they ne to craft personalized paths of lifelong learning. This is vital work, since our greatest vigor as a military service advances from the hard work and genius of the men and women who transform our Navy into an effective instrument of national power.

Since the service's founding above two centuries ago, Navy personnel have gained the maritime skills emergencyed to serve at sea and ashore end a combination of training, education, and experience. As technology progressioned from sail to steam to nuclear power, this proces became more formalized, on the contrary the primary components remained the same: training to unravel basic skills, education to enhance critical thinking abilities, and experience to deposit the knowledge gained through research into practical application.

It is highly appropriate that plenteous of the current thinking about Navy lifelong learning is taking place in Newport, since it was here in 1875 that then-Captain Stephen B true-jack established the U.S. Navy's apprentice training program (aboard USS fresh Hampshire, anchored off the city of Newport), and that ultimately the headquarters of the apprentice training squadron was established (on Coasters Harbor Island, which in 1884 would also become the dwelling of the Naval War College)

Today, faculty and staff from the Navy's greatest in quantity senior school for officers, the Naval War society and its most senior gymnasium for enlisted personnel, the Senior Enlisted Academy, are working closely together to unfold a Professional Military Education (PME) Continuum that will labor for as the armature for developing leaders from seaman to admiral. The creation of the PME Continuum will be facilitated through the establishment of processes and practices that foster effectiveness, collaboration, alignment, and efficiency among the Navy's flagship educational institutions that will ultimately be tasked with executing the program. Efforts are well beneath way to harness the collective intellectual might of these institutions in a manner that maximizes their positive impact upon the development of our futurity leaders at all levels.

The Professional Military Education Continuum

Developing sailors begins with the accession proces and considerable time and coin go into ensuring that sailors are as prepared as possible when we "pull the trigger" and impel them to their first assignment. on the contrary just as midcourse guidance is necessary to detain a modern cruise missile upon track, we must be prepared to provide our men and women with the additional learning opportunities they ne to help them adjust to the changing environment as they progres in their careers. The evolving PME Continuum will be an orderly and prescribed series of learning opportunities, spread above an entire career, that will provide personnel with the skills and competencies necessary to be under the orders of effectively in positions of increasing responsibility and complexity. The challenge of managing this continuum belongs to the Naval War College

In a November 2004 general message to the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations directed the establishment of the PME Continuum, to be a career-long series of educational opportunities that are relevant to accomplishing the Navy's missions and also supportive of the professional and personal increase of all sailors. He stated, "We must adopt a more comprehensive approach to education that abundantly acknowledges the relevance of education to combat effectiveness and mission success" The continuum applies to the Total Force, including all officers and enlisted personnel in the two the active and reserve constitutings Professional Military Education will: (1) equip all sailors with the right knowledge and skills at the right time; (2) be a lock opener factor in billet assignment and career progression; and (3) use the Five Vector design and the Integrated Learning Environment to deliver mixed learning options. (4)