A surprisingly good article from the NYT notes a micro trend of Ivy League schools hiring former military officers to teach, including General Stanley McChrystal:
Even if war isn't going away anytime soon, and that its study has always been part of a classical education, doesn't mean the progressive bedwetters on faculty can't turn their noses up at McChrystal:
And this is the real advantage McChrystal and other retired officers have over most tenured faculty: they lived and worked in the real world.
Ultimately, their students will benefit from that.
In the last year, Harvard, Yale and Columbia have invited R.O.T.C. back to campus after banning the program during Vietnam, citing the end of the military’s ban on openly gay troops as the reason. The hiring of retired military officers as teachers in the Ivy League is part of the same evolution.Political fads aside, McChrystal's students are fortunate to have him; he gets the evolving nature of warfare. (See my review of McChrystal's It Takes a Network.)
Even if war isn't going away anytime soon, and that its study has always been part of a classical education, doesn't mean the progressive bedwetters on faculty can't turn their noses up at McChrystal:
Some faculty members at Yale remain opposed to a retired celebrity general who does not hold their union card, a Ph.D., teaching at a civilian university, and say they are uncomfortable with his history of driving the secret commando raids that killed so many people in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also point out that the wars of the last decade have been unpopular on campus.By the way, we don't have commandos. And yes, our special forces killed lots of people who, given the opportunity, would have gladly sawed off the heads of the entire Yale faculty.
And this is the real advantage McChrystal and other retired officers have over most tenured faculty: they lived and worked in the real world.
Ultimately, their students will benefit from that.
