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Brigadier General
Jack M. Shuttleworth
Permanent Professor 1977–1999
B.A., Ohio Wesleyan University
M.A., Stanford University
Ph.D., University of Denver
Jack Shuttleworth, the Academy’s 33rd Permanent Professor, was born in Covington, Ohio, in 1935. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH, in 1957 with a Bachelor’s degree in English. As Cadet Wing Commander of the AFROTC program there, he was also named a Distinguished Graduate. After completing weapons controller school at Tyndall AFB, FL, Jack was assigned to an Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron in Freising, Germany, 1958–1961. Returning to the States, as a Master Weapons Controller he was assigned to a Radar Squadron at Bellevue Air Force Station, IL, 1961–1963, an assignment interrupted by an emergency deployment to Key West, FL, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was next sent to Stanford where he earned his Masters’ degree in English and American Literature in 1964, prior to a teaching assignment at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School, 1964–1965. Jack was then selected by the Academy’s Department of English for the doctoral program at the University of Denver, where he won a Woodrow Wilson Research Fellowship for study in Europe. His dissertation was published by the Oxford University Press. Jack returned to the Academy in the Department of English in 1967; his PhD in English Literature was awarded by DU in 1968. He co-authored a textbook Satire: Aesop to Buchwald (published in 1971), which was widely adopted. From 1971 to 1972 he went to Southeast Asia as Chief of Third Country Training for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, responsible for the training of Cambodian National Armed Forces. During this tour, Jack’s work on sensitive, high-level projects was far from academic: he earned recognition by three countries, and especially noteworthy, he was made an honorary member of the US Army Special Forces. After returning to the Academy, he filled middle- and senior-level positions in the Department of English. He was the key figure in establishing the USAFA Executive Writing Course, which he took to dozens of bases and hundreds of senior military and civilian leaders, a valuable service rendered by his department to the greater Air Force for many years. Jack was appointed Permanent Professor in 1977. Among many areas of interest, Jack earned his Commercial Balloon Pilot rating and served the Academy for several years as Officer in Charge of the Cadet Balloon Club (1st Aero Balloon Squadron). From 1982 to 1984 he took a sabbatical assignment at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies in London. During his tenure as Department Head, the fine arts staff and curriculum were transferred into the expanded Department of English and Fine Arts. Among his scholarly works are The Life of Edward, First Lord Herbert Cherbury (ed., 1976), The Practical Writer, Paragraph to Theme (1982), and Writing Research Papers (1984), as well as peer-reviewed essays and presentations at national and international forums. Jack was promoted to brigadier general and retired in 1999 after 42 years of service.
In retirement, Jack has traveled extensively and read widely. He taught a few sections of Humanities 200 and 400 at the Academy and finished editing Hamlet, a contribution to the Shakespeare authorship question and the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship. He volunteered in the Penrose Hospital emergency room for eight years and is an active member of the Pen Collectors of America.