Category: Uncategorized

  • PACE Yourself: The Overlooked Importance of Communication in Community College Student Development

    Two is one. One is none. – My Dad, probably a parent or guardian of yours, too…

    Communication Redundancy is vital to mission success

    Part of going on any mission outside the wire in Iraq or Afghanistan was the pre-mission communication brief. Every Soldier heard the same reminder: know the PACE plan—your Primary, Alternate, Contingent, and Emergency methods of communication.

    Like so many military acronyms, I’m fairly certain someone came up with the catchy word first and assigned meaning later. We loved our acronyms almost as much as our laminated checklists.

    But behind it was a brutally simple idea: redundancy keeps people alive.

    When your convoys or patrol elements are spread across kilometers of routes, villages, irrigation ditches, and wadis—and the situation can change in seconds—you don’t rely on one channel and “hope it works.” You build multiple, reliable paths to pass critical information.

    • Primary was usually FM radio.
    • Alternate might be a GPS-based system with a built-in chat function that reached headquarters no matter how far we’d roamed.
    • Contingent included SAT phones, especially when terrain blocked line-of-sight.
    • Emergency was often visual signaling—smoke for medevac, panels, whatever would get the job done when all the tech failed.

    You could brief an entire PACE plan in less time than it took to spell out the acronym. That’s how you know the system works: simple enough to remember, redundant enough to survive friction.

    Operation Iraqi Freedom 2008

    PACE in Higher Education: Redundancy Isn’t Paranoia—It’s Professionalism

    In higher ed—and especially in student development—our communication practices often drift toward the opposite of deliberate redundancy. Too often the unspoken plan is:

    “I emailed them. If I don’t hear back… well… I’ll wait. Or maybe call. I guess.”

    That’s not a plan. That’s hope.

    And hope is not a communication strategy—not when we’re serving students who rely on timely, accurate information about enrollment, aid, advising, or crisis support.

    What if we adopted a simplified, civilianized PACE plan to build reliability into daily operations? Something like this:

    P: Primary – Email

    Email should be reliable, predictable, and treated with professional discipline.

    • Priority-labeled emails should receive a same-business-day response, regardless of when they arrive.
    • All other emails should be answered within 24 hours (weekends and holidays excluded).
    • Anyone out of the office for more than a day should use an automatic reply that includes an alternate contact for time-sensitive matters.

    If email fails—or the response window expires—move to the next tier.

    A: Alternate – Phone Call

    If email doesn’t get results: call.

    • Out-of-office voicemail should include who to contact for urgent issues.
    • Voicemails should clearly state:
      • your name
      • why you’re calling
      • when you emailed
      • when you need a response

    If there’s no callback—or phone communication isn’t possible—escalate to the next tier.

    C: Contingent – Text Message

    A controlled, professional use of texting can solve simple problems quickly.

    • Administrators should have each other’s cell numbers stored and updated.
    • Offices should maintain a group-text list for after-hours or inclement-weather notifications.
    • Supervisors should maintain contact lists for their teams, and team members should have their supervisor’s number as well.

    If texting still doesn’t get the job done, move to the final tier.

    E: Emergency – Supervisor Communication

    If the mission-critical message still hasn’t been delivered, elevate it.

    • Supervisors should foster a culture where quick in-person clarifications are normal, not interruptions.
    • Within the PACE model, supervisor engagement becomes the failsafe.

    Use this method when:

    • prior attempts went unanswered,
    • the response is now urgent enough to require immediate attention, or
    • every other channel has failed.

    This isn’t about tattling or escalating conflict—it’s about preventing operational gaps that negatively impact students and staff.

    Why This Matters: Mission Success Looks Different, but the Stakes Are Real

    No one in community colleges is dodging IEDs or calling in medevacs. But we are navigating complexity, resource scarcity, shifting policies, and upstream/downstream effects that impact real lives.

    When a student misses a scholarship deadline because someone “thought the email would be enough,” we’ve failed our mission. When a department goes days without clarity on a policy because communication drifted, student service suffers.

    PACE gives us a framework—not for battle, but for reliability.It prevents the quiet breakdowns that derail enrollment, advising, retention, and campus operations. A communication plan with built-in redundancy isn’t military paranoia.
    It’s professionalism, clarity, and respect for the students who rely on us.

    Operation Iraqi Freedom 2012

  • Step 3 – COA Development: Where Creativity Meets Discipline

    “The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”
    — T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)

    I have vivid memories of our TOC (Tactical Operations Center) covered in whiteboards and butcher paper. We were constantly developing alternatives to our current course of action—planning logistical convoy security, updating troop strength, tracking vehicle maintenance, and revising Electronic Warfare jamming programs as the radio-controlled IED threat evolved. While these aren’t memories of a full-on, end-to-end MDMP cycle, they remind me how involved our COA work really was—and how much it mattered that we were trained in a process that rewards thoroughness and attention to detail.

    Step 3 of the Military Decision-Making Process is Course of Action (COA) development. In the method we’re experimenting with at my community college, we keep the same name. Where Mission Analysis (what we call problem analysis) is an extremely rigorous, research-driven exercise designed to produce a well-informed staff able to discuss the problem with leadership, COA development is more creative. I’ve described it as a brainstorming exercise, but—as I learned in the Army—that creativity is tempered by the rigor produced in problem analysis. It’s also bounded by the approved mission statement and by the leader’s requirements, constraints, intent, and evaluation criteria. In short: creative brainstorming from a position of strength.

    At the end of step 2, Mission Analysis, the commander is briefed on what the staff has learned. The staff then recommends a mission statement and proposes evaluation criteria for assessing potential COAs. If the leader approves the mission and criteria, the staff reconvenes—again without the commander—to brainstorm ideas that accomplish the mission (in our context, to solve the problem). There usually aren’t many rules for this session, but because it follows thorough analysis and a leadership brief, the creativity stays grounded in reality. There’s no set number of ideas that must come out of brainstorming. When the session wraps, I recommend a short break before reconvening to apply the mission statement and evaluation criteria to the results.

    When the staff meets to refine ideas, start by reviewing the approved mission statement and the evaluation criteria. Post a simple decision matrix to narrow the list to a few COAs to bring to leadership. A decision matrix for a community college might include criteria such as impact on student outcomes, cost, time to implement, staffing requirements, risk, and alignment with strategic priorities.

    Begin by removing ideas that clearly fail one or more criteria, are unacceptable to leadership, or are impractical given constraints. Then discuss what remains. I recommend bringing no more than three to four recommendations to leadership; two to three is often better. You can evaluate as many options as time allows, but keep the final brief focused. For each COA you present to leadership, complete the decision matrix (some options will stand out on scores alone), write a short narrative identifying its decisive or unique element, and explain why it’s distinct. Finally, list the risks for each COA (costs, time investment, added resources, change-management complexity, etc.). Your available time will determine how many brainstormed ideas get the full treatment.

    Ideally, you want to give leadership a real choice. By bringing two to four strong options—each with unique points, risks, and rationales—you enable a detailed discussion of what best meets the leader’s intent. Once your staff work is complete, bring the commander/leader back in for their input. This is the leader’s COA presentation. At our community college, we’re using this format:

    • Brief recap of the Problem Analysis deck (emphasize changes since the last meeting)
    • Leadership’s approved mission statement and the approved evaluation criteria for choosing a COA
    • Slide on major obstacles/constraints to successful execution
    • Completed decision matrix highlighting quantitative scores for the 2–4 COAs being briefed
    • One slide per COA including:
    – Its score against the evaluation criteria (with notes)
    – Decisive/unique component of the COA
    – Rationale for the COA
    – Risks associated with the COA
    • Final slide with the staff’s recommendation

    After the presentation, the leader provides feedback. He or she isn’t deciding yet—they’re offering reactions to each COA, eliminating options they find unsuitable, and then handing it back to the staff for the final exercise. In the military, there are three more steps: COA Analysis (wargaming), COA Comparison, and COA Approval. For our community college, we’re finding that combining those into a single step makes sense. I’ll cover that in the next post.

  • Introduction to the Military Decision-Making Process — “If Everyone Is Thinking Alike…”

    Introduction to the Military Decision-Making Process — “If Everyone Is Thinking Alike…”

    “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” — Gen. George S. Patton

    In 2008, when my Cavalry squadron mobilized at then–Fort Hood, Texas, I was pretty cocky about the kind of intelligence officer I’d be downrange. I’d spent five years overseas as an intelligence collector for another agency, and I’d completed the Reserve Component Military Intelligence Officer Course at Fort Huachuca. I figured I’d be fine.

    Then pre-deployment training introduced me to the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). As the Squadron S2, my job was to know everything available about the threat to our troopers. Our first training exercise packet—enemy order of battle, weapons systems, terrain, local communities—ran to hundreds of pages. I didn’t read it all, assuming I could wing it or look up facts on the fly.

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    When my squadron commander (who I suspect is reading this) asked for details I couldn’t answer, then asked if I’d read all the material, I admitted I hadn’t. He made it clear, in his own special way, that this was unacceptable. We were preparing to deploy to Iraq—hardly the time for cockiness, a lackadaisical attitude, or anything less than my best. I learned a lot that day.

    From Combat Operations to Campus Operations

    In higher education, I often talk about deliberate decision-making, and since 2008 my model has been MDMP. I define college deliberate decision making as a structured, intentional process for making choices that align actions with clearly defined outcomes—and with the institution’s mission and strategic plan.

    MDMP itself is a deliberate, collaborative framework Army leaders use to make informed, coordinated decisions in complex conditions. It’s a seven-step process that I’ll cover across several posts. It’s structured yet flexible (I rarely executed all seven steps in perfect sequence). And it demands input from every member of the commander’s staff.

    In the Army that includes personnel, logistics, operations, communications, intelligence, civil affairs, and more. In higher ed it often includes Counseling & Advising, Financial Services, Recruitment & Outreach, Development, Events, Wellness, and others.

    Why It Matters in Higher Education

    Colleges aren’t facing hostile fire, but our challenges are often complex, fast-moving, and nuanced—the exact environment where a deliberate decision-making model helps. Think student persistence and academic success, degree and certificate completion, cross-department coordination, and shifting federal and state priorities for different student populations.

    MDMP gives us a common language and method to move from operations to outcomes—on purpose.

    The Seven Steps of MDMP

    1. Receipt of Mission
    2. Mission Analysis
    3. Course of Action (COA) Development
    4. COA Analysis
    5. COA Comparison
    6. COA Approval
    7. Orders Production, Dissemination, and Transition

    At its heart, MDMP isn’t just about decisions—it’s about trust and collaboration. Patrick Lencioni, in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, reminds us that trust allows teams to engage in healthy conflict, commit to a plan, and hold each other accountable. Without that foundation, even the best process falters.

    The military understood that long ago, and higher education can learn from it today: when people trust each other enough to debate, challenge, and commit, that’s when we start thinking together instead of alike.

    Next Up

    In my next post, I’ll explore Step 1: Receipt of Mission—how deliberate decision-making begins with clarity of purpose and a shared understanding before the planning ever begins.

  • Why Military Planning Belongs in Higher Education: A Framework for Student Success

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    From Convoy Missions to Campus Missions

    It’s been a long time since that photo was taken.  That’s me in the center with the gun truck crew I lead during a convoy support mission in Iraq in 2008.  I was assigned to the 126th Cavalry Squadron, Michigan Army National Guard. My primary role was as the Squadron Electronic Warfare Officer, responsible for supporting the squadron’s convoy mission by helping to prepare for and defeat the threat of radio controlled improvised explosive devices (RCIEDs) in the battle space.  But man did I like going on mission.  It gave me a more selfish sense of being in the fight, and a justifiable understanding of how the IED threat was playing out for our troopers.  Four years after this picture was taken in Iraq I found myself in Afghanistan in Kandahar province attached to a cavalry troop of the 126th providing intel support in their mission to stop the flow of improvised explosive material (homemade bomb explosives) from Pakistan to the city of Kandahar and beyond.

    Before and after both these deployments I had served in education.  I was a teacher and administrator in several parochial schools in the Kalamazoo area until 2020 when I took a job as Veteran Services Coordinator at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. Today I am still at Valley serving as the Director of Recruitment and Outreach.  Throughout my years as a teacher, advisor, coordinator, and administrator, I’ve leaned on lessons learned as a U.S. Army staff officer. For example, I’ve encouraged:

    • Methodical decision-making over impulsive reactions.
    • Clear courses of action based on available knowledge and data.
    • Timelines that prevent endless talk about a problem without ever finding a plan to address it.

    It’s my hope to codify these lessons—what Army procedures transfer most effectively into education—and share ideas for making community college structures work more efficiently.

    Mission and Intent

    In true Army fashion, I’ve given myself both a mission and a statement of intent:

    • Mission: Provide practical, military-inspired strategies that help colleges remove barriers, strengthen student pathways, and drive better outcomes during and after college.
    • Intent: Using data and personal experience, this blog will offer a roadmap to improve student development, engagement, and post-college success by giving college faculty, staff, and administrators a new way of looking at challenges—through the lens of military combat planning and operations.

    Why Community Colleges

    While these methodologies have value across education, corporations, and other organizations, my decision is to focus on the community college landscape. Community colleges are where I work, where I serve, and what I deeply believe in. They are also where structure, clarity, and intentional planning can have the biggest impact on students’ lives.

    Setting the Stage

    This is just the beginning. In future posts, I’ll break down specific Army frameworks—mission analysis, courses of action, operations orders—and show how they apply directly to student development and institutional effectiveness.

    If you work in higher education, I’d love to hear from you:

    • Where do you see decision-making get stuck on your campus?
    • Where could a new framework help move things forward?

    Thank you for being here—and welcome to the start of this campaign.