The United States Air Force Academy is a large, complex, multifaceted institution. It is led by a Superintendent who directs a four-year regimen of cadet military training, academics, athletics, and character development leading to a Bachelor of Science degree and a commission as a second lieutenant. A cadre of Permanent Professors provides senior leadership, strategic direction, organizational stability, and long-term program continuity for academic, physical education, and character and leadership development programs. Thus, an understanding of the Permanent Professors, their challenges, and their accomplishments illuminates many of the most important themes of the institution. However, this history of the Permanent Professors is not a comprehensive history of the Air Force Academy, nor is it a complete history of the faculty. Rather it is a partial history of an important part of the Academy. We chose to relate this as a story (written by a physicist and an electrical engineer), not as an extensively footnoted and thoroughly documented historical account. For the latter, we refer you to the Fagan and Ringenbach volumes referenced below (both of those authors hold doctorates in history).
We make almost no specific mention of the Commandant of Cadets and the military training mission. That story is vital to understanding the Air Force Academy—it is the story of many outstanding military leaders and of a Cadet Wing striving for excellence. It is an important story, but we don’t cover it here because that story is too important to be treated lightly, and because it is not our story to tell. We know many of the leaders in the Commandant’s organization—Commandants, Vice Commandants, Group AOCs, Squadron AOCs—and their programs in basic cadet training, leadership development, honor education, flight training, soaring, parachuting, and survival training. This is heritage we all would benefit from understanding better, and we hope it will be told from the inside, by those with firsthand knowledge and insight.
Aside from physical education, importantly led by a Permanent Professor, we also make no significant mention of the Athletic Department. We fully subscribe to General Douglas MacArthur’s belief that “Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that, upon other fields, on other days, will bear the fruits of victory.” However, as proud as we are of the accomplishments of our student-athletes, the history of Air Force Academy athletics is well beyond our ability to relate.
There is also little mention of the Superintendent’s team at Headquarters USAFA, the Preparatory School, the Academy as an Air Force base, the magnificent physical facilities, the infrastructure, the expansive natural setting, or the people and organizations who make life in the Cadet Area possible. Neither is there specific mention of the Association of Graduates or the USAFA Endowment, each of which is a major contributor to the institution.
And especially, there is no attempt to chronicle the Cadet Wing or measure the accomplishments of the “long blue line” of graduates. So, what’s left?
What is told here is the story of the Permanent Professors, those men and women who have received special Presidential appointments and Senate confirmation to lead the Academy’s academic programs. The 100 individuals selected to date for this prestigious group, serving as Department Heads and as Deans, have initiated and developed much of what makes this magnificent Air Force Academy so great. We record here something of their story. We hope you enjoy learning about these individual Permanent Professors and their contributions. And if you are preparing to serve or are serving at the Academy, our desire is that you find this book both informative and inspiring.
The following books were useful to the authors in preparing this work:
Ambrose, Stephen A. Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1966.
Andrus, Burton C., Jr., ed. 25th Anniversary Pictorial Review of the United States Air Force Academy, 1954–1979, USAFA Association of Graduates. United States Air Force Academy, Colorado: printed by Walsworth, Marceline, Missouri, 1979.
Fagan, George V. The Air Force Academy: An Illustrated History. Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Books, 1988.
Fagan, George V. Air Force Academy Heritage: The Early Years. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 2006.
Lovell, John P. Neither Athens Nor Sparta? The American Service Academies in Transition. Bloomington and London, United Kingdom: Indiana University Press, 1979.
MacArthur, Douglas. Reminiscences. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1964.
Melinger, Phillip S. Hubert R. Harmon: Airman, Officer, Father of the Air Force Academy. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Group, 2009.
Ringenbach, Paul T. Battling Tradition, Robert F. McDermott and Shaping the U.S. Air Force Academy. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 2006.
The United States Air Force Academy’s First Twenty-Five Years, Some Perceptions, Prepared for the Dean of the Faculty under the auspices of The 25th Anniversary Committee, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado, 1979.
The following two works are unpublished but available in the McDermott Library Special Collections Branch as are the official USAFA Annual Historical Reports, which contain a wealth of information:
Sherfesee, John. “The Professionalism of the USAFA Faculty, 1954–1997: A Policy-Driven Evolution of Roles and Responsibilities,” Vols. 1 and 2, PhD dissertation, University of Denver, 1999.
Woodyard, William Truman. “A Historical Study of the Development of the Academic Curriculum of the United States Air Force Academy,” PhD dissertation University of Denver, 1965.
Finally, we list a pair of novels by a graduate and former faculty member that tell an Academy story with notable historical accuracy:
Beason, Doug. The Cadet (Wild Blue U, Foundation of Honor, Book 1), Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2015.
Beason, Doug. The Officer (Wild Blue U, Foundation of Honor, Book 2), Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2016.