Implementing A Faculty Development Strategy At The National Military Academy Of Afghanistan

Now starting its fifth year of existence, the National Military Academy of Afghanistan (NMAA) in Kabul has recently graduated the first class of cadets with a major in civil engineering. Since the inception of the Civil Engineering Department and major in March 2007 to the first graduation, the faculty has quadrupled in size to support new, bigger classes of junior and senior cadets. This rapid program growth has greatly increased the demand to attract, develop, and retain qualified engineering instructors from the small pool of post-Taliban educated engineers. Drawing the country’s brightest engineers to teaching is growing more difficult as salaries for practicing engineers reconstructing Afghanistan are rising and will quickly outpace salaries for NMAA engineering instructors. Additionally, all engineering faculty members have aspirations to attend graduate school in the United States or other developed nations. Recent years have shown 25% of the existing engineering faculty at NMAA depart annually to graduate school or higher paying jobs in industry. This high faculty turnover and rapid program growth prescribes that the engineering faculty will experience a constant influx of engineers that are new to teaching. In light of NMAA’s desire to continue to provide a modern, high quality engineering education to its graduates, one of the most critical tasks has become faculty development. While initially engaged and focused on course development, US mentors quickly discovered the need to develop and implement a teaching workshop for new and current instructors with little teaching experience. We modeled the instruction after the ASCE Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop hosted annually at West Point and other locations in the US and adopted the content for the instructors at NMAA. The teaching workshop introduced the new Afghan instructors to effective teaching methods inside and outside the classroom. It included eight seminars, demonstration classes taught by the authors, and practice classes taught by the Afghan instructors. The workshop seminars focused heavily on Joseph Lowman’s two dimensional model of effective teaching. This paper will describe the process of developing and implementing a new instructor workshop at NMAA and also highlight the many challenges and provide recommendations to growing a quality engineering faculty in any developing nation. The Crown Jewel of Afghanistan On January 25, 2009 the National Military Academy of Afghanistan (NMAA) in Kabul graduated its first class of cadets. Of the 84 graduates in this class, 18 of them studied Civil Engineering in a program designed and implemented by faculty members from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. The initial tasks these faculty members faced included design of curriculum and courses, development of laboratory facilities, and hiring faculty. We deployed to Afghanistan between January and August 2008 as the Civil Engineering program entered its second year (the NMAA school year, which follows the Islamic calendar, begins in March and ends in January). Our tasks included developing the final courses for the civil engineering curriculum, formalizing the laboratory component of the curriculum, P ge 14694.2 and faculty development. Faculty members from West Point continue to support the developing engineering program at NMAA and several volunteers will deploy to NMAA during the upcoming summer. Laying the Foundation to Civil Engineering in Afghanistan Dr. Chris Conley and Colonel Steve Ressler, from West Point’s Department of Civil & Mechanical Engineering, deployed to Afghanistan in January 2007 to begin designing the four semester Civil Engineering curriculum and to develop the courses for the first semester of the program. One of the largest challenges they faced was finding qualified college level engineering instructors. The Afghan Ministry of Defense initially instituted a policy which required all faculty members at NMAA to be Afghan military officers. Since there were no members of the Afghan National Army (ANA) who were qualified to teach college level engineering, the Ministry of Defense granted an exception which allowed civilian professors from Kabul University to teach at NMAA. The Dean of Engineering Faculty at Kabul University played a critical role in identifying talented candidates. Recognizing a great developmental opportunity, he encouraged his faculty members to apply for part-time employment at NMAA. Conley and Ressler hired three brand new candidates who proved to be very successful as adjunct-faculty members and one more experienced professor who had worked at Kabul University for many years. All of these instructors were hired under U.S. Army contracts at the competitive salary of $550 per month. Unfortunately for NMAA, after only one semester of teaching, all of the three new instructors hired by Conley and Ressler were selected to attend graduate school in the United States under the Afghan Merit Scholars Program. In the summer of 2007, Major Richard Gash deployed to Afghanistan and eventually hired more adjunct faculty members from Kabul University to replace the three instructors selected to attend graduate school and to meet the increasing teaching demand as the program expanded. As Gash began preparing course material for the second semester of the Civil Engineering program, he noted a trend was beginning to develop. The Civil Engineering program was growing at a fast pace and many of the well qualified graduates from Kabul University, who could potentially teach at NMAA, were either applying to attend graduate school in the United States, Japan, or India, or seeking high paying engineering consulting jobs with Non-governmental agencies. Relying on adjunct faculty from Kabul University had both positive and negative implications for NMAA. While the young engineers from Kabul University were some of the best in the country and provided the Civil Engineering program with a reasonably high level of expertise, there was no continuity within the program. The gains and improvements made by the first group of instructors were lost as the second group of adjunct faculty joined the team. Nevertheless by the end of the first year of teaching Civil Engineering it was clear to the Afghan leadership at NMAA that the Civil Engineering program was gaining a reputation as the best academic program at the Academy. As a result of this great reputation, more cadets wanted to sign up to become Civil Engineer majors. As the program moved into its second year, a new class of almost 300 cadets selected their academic major and from this group of cadets 72 signed up to study civil engineering. This raised the total number of civil majors to 90 between the first P ge 14694.3 two classes of cadets to enter the academy. The large increase in the number of civil engineer majors meant that the newly arrived mentors had to attract candidates with civil engineering degrees and quickly prepare them to become educators. Attracting the Best and Brightest The first several instructors hired by Ressler, Conley, and Gash proved to be a great success for both NMAA and Kabul University. The partnership formed between NMAA and Kabul University has positive benefits for both schools. NMAA benefits by receiving the best qualified engineering instructors available – something they desperately need. The Kabul University adjunct faculty members benefit in a variety of ways as well. The partnership provides Kabul faculty with daily personal contact with engineering faculty from West Point, access to modern engineering textbooks and course notes from West Point, access to a wide range of engineering laboratory equipment at NMAA, and exposure to modern teaching technology such as whiteboards, smart boards, video projectors, and a computer aided design lab. Figure 1: Civil Engineering Faculty—Spring 2008 Despite the many benefits for Kabul University and their faculty from teaching part time at NMAA, the rapidly expanding reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan have also created a huge demand for qualified engineers. Kabul University also struggles to attract and retain high quality instructors in this environment. Salaries offered by private engineering firms range from $700 to $3,500 per month depending on the degree of the engineer and background experience. In contrast, a first year instructor at Kabul University receives only $80 per month and $200 per month during their second year. Eventually through academic promotion at Kabul University, a senior instructor can earn up to approximately $650 per month at the time of this writing. It is critically important to the future success of engineering education at NMAA and at Kabul University that both schools be able to retain a highly qualified faculty. P ge 14694.4 Developing Faculty in a Developing Nation Between January and August 2008 we deployed from West Point to Afghanistan to develop courses for the civil engineering curriculum and performed a wide range of program development tasks. At the time of our arrival, the Civil Engineering faculty consisted of 4 part time adjunct faculty members from Kabul University and one full time Afghan National Army (ANA) Colonel. As the only full time faculty member, the Afghan officer served as the acting department head of Civil Engineering. He had been hired by the Afghan Ministry of Defense shortly after Gash departed Afghanistan. Although he lacked academic credentials compared to those from Kabul University, he was able to successfully accomplish the day to day administrative tasks of the department. Of the four part-time faculty, two members were in their first year of teaching. With 6 courses and 20 sections starting in 2 months, there was a great need to hire and develop faculty in a very short time.