Air Reserve Component Seminar

Lt Col Joyce H. Guthrie, Spaatz Center / ACSC Guard Advisor, 19 Nov 10

ACSC AND AWC SEMINAR FORMAT AVAILABLE FOR GUARD AND RESERVE OFFICERS AT AIR UNIVERSITY

MAXWELL AFB, Ala – Air Guard and Air Force Reserve majors and lieutenant colonels from around the nation gathered in seminar at Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, to start and/or complete their Air Command and Staff College or Air War College distance learning professional military education for the sixth annual Air Reserve Component Seminar, known as ARCS.  The program focuses on assisting Guard and Reserve officers complete their official PME through a coordinated, pre-determined time-frame of study and testing over the course of one- and two-year increments using current distance learning course material. 
 
This year 45 lieutenant colonels and 57 majors, all board-selected and/or past program attendees, completed the two week course June 14-25.  The program is offered in two phases for ACSC and three phases for AWC and this June saw attendees in each phase.  All 102 officers either graduated or completed between one to three blocks of their intermediate developmental education or senior developmental education.  The ARCS program is conducted in a student-led format, often facilitated by Guard and Reserve students who have recently graduated from the in-residence schools. Students who were not in a phase to graduate in this year’s ARCS return to their units with the requirement to complete up to two blocks of the course material on their own in preparation for returning to ARCS in June 2011, to complete the remaining blocks of the course and graduate.

Air University hosts the course with the seminars conducted at ACSC or AWC. The Guardsmen and Reservist are joined occasionally by students from other services, which brings a joint flavor into the seminar and gives the students the opportunity to network and absorb cross talk from other services.  This year a Marine Reservist joined the AWC students while a Navy Reservist attended the ACSC student seminars. The two-week temporary duty for the seminar is unit funded and is designed, at the request of the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve, to help officers who are often combating the pressures of high ops tempos, civilian job requirements and family obligations meet and complete their appropriate level PME requirements. 

Service training announcements in November/December will provide opportunity for interested candidates to apply for the June 13-24, 2011, ARCS course.  Details on both programs, are available at   http://www.au.af.mil/au/acsc/air_reserve.asp  or by contacting Lt Col Joyce Guthrie, Guard Advisor for the Spaatz Center for Officer Education, at DSN 493-9820 / COMM (334) 953-9820.

The leaders of Air University, the Air National Guard and the Air Force have long recognized the importance of professional milityar education while also accepting that traditionally, Guard and Reserve officers, have limited access to on-base seminar programs for ACSC. Also, due to increased operations temps and the need to fulfill full-time civilian job endeavors, small numbers of traditional ARCS personnel pursue ACSC and AWC in-residence.

Recognizing the importance of IDE PME, Guard and Reserve leaders sought other means of increasing PME opportunities for Traditional Guardsmen and Reservist while enhancing the learning experience. The ACSC ARCS program is one answer. The Reserve Component, in conjunction with Air University, hope to offer more options in the future for professional military education.

Air Command and Staff College Air Reserve Component Seminar (ARCS) program

The AWC ARCS program was revised starting in 2009 and is now held in a 3-phase approach (beginning, middle and end) over the course of 3 fiscal years/2 calendar years (June 20XX, June 20XX and June 20XX).  Each phase will occur in June at AWC, Maxwell AFB, Alabama (dates will be concurrent to the ACSC ARCS program) and will last from 10-14 days.  This 3-phase program will cover all portions of the AWC DL program and will be conducted in a student-led seminar format. All participants accepted into the program via the Guard Bureau, HQ AFRC or via AWC for Sister Service officers will be expected to participate fully and complete the program as outlined.

This program, revised to reflect all aspects of the new, improved AWC DL Edition 17 (which closely parallels the resident curriculum) is an aggressive, fast-paced program that requires increased student participation and active follow on by program participants. A portion of the latest news article on the new AWC Edition 17 follows:

"A key change of the new edition is that students will apply critical analysis and creative thinking to answer essay questions in each of the five core courses. Students will tackle real-world historic or current situations, which require the applicationof strategic leadership skills to answer questions."

"The 17th edition is a more robust distance learning program with greater emphasis on professional development, " said Col Stephen Visco the AWC, Dean of Distance Learning. "It better prepares AWC students for future challenges in today's dynamic military environment."

"Core courses of the newest edition include: Foundations of Strategy, National Security and Decision Making, Global Security, Joint Military Operations, and Joint Strategic Leadership."

You can read the whole news article here: (http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123103105%20 <http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123103105%20> )

Dates for the AWC 2011 ARCS Phase I seminar:

June 13-24, 2011 (travel days Jun 12 & 25).

Tentative follow on dates for future Phases II and III are:

June 11-22, 2012

June 10-21, 2013

Details of how the program will progress during each phase will be covered in the Phase I course and follow on schedules will be given to attendees for the remaining phases.

Announcements for the AWC ARCS are issued by both the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, separately. Links to the June 2011 announcements are below or you can contact your MPF or Training manager for copies. Minimum qualifications for this program are eligibility to participate in the AWC/DL program.  Enrollment in AWC/DL Version 17 or higher is mandatory.  To clarify, ARCS is not an in-residence program substitute, it is a Seminar format for studying AWC/DL materials.  For more information on the new AWC/DL program, you can visit the 17th Edition

ARCS Reserve Announcement for 2011

FY 11 ANG ARCS Announcement Message

FY 11 ANG ARCS Application Form

If you have questions concerning the AWC ARCS program, you can contact Col John “JP” Paul, AWC/Spaatz Center Reserve Advisor and ARCS Coordinator at DSN 493-7113/Comm (334) 953-7113 or e-mail john.paul@maxwell.af.mil <mailto:john.paul@maxwell.af.mil>.