I joined BNU in March of 2024 to lecture in Intelligence, Security and Resilience, but chance brought me the opportunity to become the deputy course director for our military forces offering, Strategic Organisational Management (SOM). As a former US Air Force officer, I have a lot of good memories of my times working with and for RAF Officers on numerous deployments and during my four glorious years in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Therefore, I jumped at the chance to work more closely with UK forces members once again, but this time in the pursuit of academic degrees. What a fantastic opportunity it has been!

All my academic degrees were mostly down to US taxpayer support, so I fully embrace the notion of forces personnel being given an opportunity to use their fantastic military experience toward academic credit and eventually a formal degree. The SOM course at BNU is well-designed to do just this for UK forces personnel either preparing for transition to the civilian world of work, or just updating their academic CV. But I was not prepared for just how transformational the course is until experiencing a full year as both deputy course director and module leader. We graduate over 50 forces students for the 24/25 academic year, and I can say their hard work and dedication has resulted in high academic achievement across the board. These students impressed me with their humility and honest hard work to not only learn, but to exceed their own expectations and become scholars in under a year.

The research completed by the SOM students was quite superb! From surveys with over 300 participants to deep analysis of quite technical issues, the findings presented were outstanding and, in many cases, provided policy recommendations that should be considered by senior military decisionmakers and industry leaders. I would expect most, if not all the students, did not expect such academic growth would happen in such a short time, but it did! Any of these graduates are ready to take on further academic work in a Masters degree course, and/or transition to civilian positions where they will certainly make impressive contributions.

As the well-known American novelist, Mark Twain, once wrote about an American who found himself magically transported to Medieval England, to King Arthur’s Court, I think I can understand now how this sort of transformative event has opened my own eyes and given me a fresh perspective of learning. So too have our SOM students jumped into the academic world with open minds and new horizons in view. They have achieved their objectives and completed their academic campaign in brilliant style. I cannot wait for the 25/26 intake and look forward to even better results!