Home Index
Brigadier General
Malham M. Wakin
Permanent Professor 1964–1995
A.B., University of Notre Dame
A.M., State University of New York, Albany
Ph.D., University of Southern California
Mal Wakin, the Academy’s 15th Permanent Professor, was born in 1931 in Oneonta, New York. He enrolled at the University of Notre Dame in 1948 and received his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 1952. A year later he earned his Master’s degree in Secondary Education from the State University of New York at Albany. In 1953 Mal began his military career as an Aviation Cadet in the navigator training program. Commissioned in 1954, he completed his navigator training in 1955 at Ellington AFB, TX, and was assigned to an air rescue squadron at Norton AFB, CA, 1955–1957. After flying regularly for two years, he was sent to the University of Southern California in preparation for a faculty assignment at the Air Force Academy. Completing his PhD in Philosophy in 1959, Mal reported to the Academy and began an assignment that would span 36 years of faculty service. In 1964 while still a captain, he was appointed Permanent Professor of Philosophy and promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1967 he was promoted to colonel and made Head of the newly formed Department of Philosophy and Fine Arts. He guided that department, in its various forms, for nearly 30 years, until his retirement in 1995. Mal emerged as one of the most esteemed military ethicists in the United States. He authored numerous works on ethics, leadership, and the military profession, including several books, among which are War, Morality, and the Military Profession (1979; rev. 1986) and The Teaching of Ethics in the Military (1982). He was featured as one of “12 great professors” in People Magazine in 1975, and the subject of a feature article in Newsweek in 1984. For 16 years he was Chair of the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics. Perhaps more significant than his articles and books, Mal carried his compelling message directly to people in influential addresses to faculty orientations, cadet character development events, symposia, and military and civilian audiences around the country and Canada, averaging 40 to 50 lectures annually.
Upon his promotion to brigadier general and retirement in 1995, Mal returned to the Academy for a year as The William Lyon Endowed Chair in Professional Ethics. His article “Professional Integrity” was published in Airpower Journal in 1996. From 1997 to 2016 Mal assisted the Center for Character and Leadership Development by helping teach the required seven-hour seminar on ethics and leadership to every senior cadet in the Wing. Each year a cadet or staff member is honored with the Malham M. Wakin Character and Leadership Development Award. His latest book, Integrity First: Reflections of a Military Philosopher, appeared in 2010. Mal Wakin is both the youngest Permanent Professor appointed and the longest serving. His enormous, enduring impact on the Permanent Professoriate and on the entire institution cannot be overstated.