Citizen-Leaders for DCTC

By Ken Mallory ’06, director of the Citizen-Leader Track/VPI Battalion

In 1916, as America prepared for World War I, ROTC units were established across the country to prepare young men to serve in uniformed military service. Since then, ROTC programs have been a critical source of officers across all branches of the military in both war and peacetime.

Now, a new training initiative is being undertaken by Congress and the Department of Defense to support military personnel by way of civilian government service. That initiative is the creation of the Defense Civilian Training Corps (DCTC), which is specifically designed to provide the Department of Defense with a motivated, service-driven pipeline of talent. Four colleges were chosen to host DCTC pilot programs: Virginia Tech, Purdue University, North Carolina A&T University, and the University of Arizona.

Virginia Tech’s cohort, with its 16 Citizen-Leader Track cadets and 14 civilian students, makes up a third of the nation-wide DCTC pilot program, which provides full tuition and a stipend to cover fees, room, board, and textbooks. Internships are also provided to students over the summer, and participating DoD agencies can convert these DCTC scholars to fulltime DoD employees by graduation. The pilot program is housed jointly within the Virginia Tech National Security Institute (NSI) and the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, with a memorandum of understanding that outlines cadets will comprise no less than half of future cohort slots.

Virginia Tech’s status as a senior military college ensures that students benefit from the unique partnership that the Corps shares with NSI and the broader campus community. 

“The opportunities our DCTC scholars get to collaborate in the civilmilitary space are invaluable to their preparation to work with uniform services while serving as a DoD civilian leader," says CAPT Jamie McGrath, the director of the Rice Center for Leader Development.

With the start of the semester, Virginia Tech’s DCTC cohort began learning about the processes, procedures, and legalities of defense acquisition and sustainment. The advantage of the cohort model, with its multidisciplinary nature comprised of STEM and non-STEM students, is the unique perspectives that this diverse group of students brings to the table.

“Homogeneity of thought breeds complacency and builds a culture that cannot innovate and grow. DCTC is all about creating a holistic transdisciplinary view of the acquisitions process,” said Citizen-Leader Track Cadet Cameron Alemand, a junior majoring in political science.

Though the acquisition and sustainment missions are not new, the DCTC pilot program seeks to engage students from a wide variety of backgrounds and majors to successfully navigate this mission space, capitalizing on the unique talents each scholar possesses. Students are presented with practical issues in weekly classes and immersive coursework, revolving around subjects with real-world impacts and far-reaching implications. 

The first cohort focuses on the mine resistant ambush protected vehicle (MRAP) as a case study. “The MRAP program was selected to demonstrate to students the ability of the acquisitions community to rapidly and successfully respond to the increased threat of IEDs during the Iraq War,” says DCTC instructor Austin Phoenix, a research associate professor with NSI. “As they train to be the DoD workforce of the future, scholars can learn from this program to develop a more adaptive and responsive DoD.”

The need is clear. An estimated 747,000 civilians in the Department of Defense support active-duty forces. As the nation’s workforce ebbs and flows and innovative technologies emerge, corporations and the government often compete against one another for a limited pool of qualified applicants. Developing a dedicated pipeline of talent from a population of service-driven Virginia Tech cadets and civilian scholars is a win-win scenario for the Department of Defense and for our students.