DCTC Industry Day Q and A 18 Dec 2020.docx

DEFENSE CIVILIAN TRAINING CORPS (DCTC) Virtual Industry Day Questions and Answers

Questions addressed in the presentation:

1) Question: Concerns raised DCTC curriculum would pose a burden on Science and Engineering students who already have an arduous workload.

Answer: DCTC planning sees opportunity to work with the colleges/universities to leverage current requirements and partnering to enhance projects to meet requirements. DCTC curriculum demands will be similar in level to ROTC students in Science and Engineering.

2) Question: Consider adding to the criteria the requirement of some presence of distance learning capabilities as the pandemic highlighted the need for robust online learning Answer: DCTC planning includes closely aligning with colleges/universities and DOD ROTC programs - aligning to be in synch with new norms in providing post-secondary education – to include maximizing use of distance and hybrid learning in the curriculum development and will consider adding this to the criteria.

3) Question: Will the university be allowed to charge tuition and fees for the DCTC courses?

Answer: DCTC is reviewing policy and guidance to determine the proper procedures and will provide more details in the Funding Opportunity Announcement

4) Question: Could the University Host, by leveraging its DoD relationships, source the instructors and conduct course development?

Answer: DCTC will definitely review this approach as we prepare the Funding Opportunity Announcement. The program’s concerns center on University faculty background in DoD Service Acculturation and DoD Technical Challenges. Potential to integrate host faculty as guest lecturers in key technical challenge areas

5) Question: What is the justification for the minimum 3.0 GPA?

Answer: Consistency, the 3.0 GPA minimum is a common standard across DoD scholarship programs.

6) Question: If a student falls below a 3.0 GPA or does meet program standards, can the student recover and remain/be reinstated in the DCTC program?

Answer: Yes, DCTC plans to develop a remediation plan to allow the student to meet standards.

7) Question: What are the consequences for students that do not complete the required coursework or decide they no longer want to participate after committing:

Answer: If a student fails to meet standards or withdraws they will be required to pay back the tuition/fees provided by DCTC.

8) Additional Questions/Recommendations: Several questions/comments as listed below revolved around expanding the program design.

· Will non-scholarship students be allowed to participate in the DCTC program?

· Open DCTC up to non-STEM acquisition related degree program

· Add 2-year scholarship option, excluding summer internships, to third and fourth-year students only, who have already been admitted to their major?

· Add an option for students to pursue a master’s-level degree under the DCTC program.

· Add a PhD-level component to the DCTC program

· Will a student be able to defer the DCTC service commitment to pursue a graduate degree?

Answer: DCTC plan is to focus on the four-year STEM bachelor program initially and will consider the following recommendations once DCTC is fully operational.

Questions raised during the Industry Day

1) In reference to the curriculum, would DCTC be open to using existing university courses to meet some of the DCTC curriculum learning objectives?

Answer: DCTC is in the process of defining curriculum requirements and learning objectives and is open to working with our university partners to consider options to leverage current university courses and material to meet DCTC requirements, collaborative teaching opportunities, etc.

2) In comparing the investment in time with the ROTC programs, what, if any, extracurricular investment is expected outside of academic coursework? ROTC extracurricular time is not driven by the academic course but by the military component training requirements.

Answer: DCTC anticipates there will be extracurricular activities as the program will be encouraging the cohorts to participate in the annual technical challenges/competitions and leadership laboratories. Likely not at the same level as expected for ROTC.

3) Who will collect the money if a student does not maintain GPA/standards or drops out? Will it be the DoD or the University?

Answer: The DoD will manage the process and collect the funds.

4) In terms of the perspective program start, if you are anticipating university select by the end of April and looking at the various calendars (DoD, Academic, Fiscal), when would you envision the start of the first pilot university cohort?

Answer: DCTC is working to have the university selected, curriculum developed, facilities and faculty in place, and students selected to launch the cohort by the start of the 2021-22 academic year (~Aug 2021).

5) Regarding the Funding Opportunity Announcement, when it is released will it be for all three phases or just the first?

Answer: The current plan is to release it only for the first phase. However, recent comments from leadership has raised the question of the FOA addressing the first two phases. DCTC is reviewing this and the decision will be formally announced in the FOA.

6) Is DCTC planning on establishing an Ad-HOC board comprised of university representatives to help refine the criteria and the FOA?

Answer: Currently DCTC is not planning on creating an Ad-Hoc board but will take this recommendation under advisement. Given the proposed timeline, this may not be feasible for this FOA but the team could consider sending out a draft to get additional feedback before issuing the FOA.

7) Will DCTC require universities to meet a quota requirement to graduate a certain number of students annually?

Answer: No, DCTC will not establish a quota requirement. DCTC has a plan to slowly grow DCTC units based on the requirements provided annually by the DoD sponsoring organizations.

8) How much of program is augmenting, replacing, or designed to be similar to Pathways? Is it in addition to Pathways, another opportunity, or replacing pathways?

Answer: This is not a pathways program that is focused on bringing in interns. It is a scholarship-for-service program and the internships associated with this program are the summer internships expectations for completion of the program.

9) How will student recruiting work? Will students be recruited be done nationally through the DCTC program and then given a choice to go to one of the schools or does the university go out to find the students and nominate them to get the scholarship?

Answer: DCTC is still working on defining the recruitment and selection process and looking at the SMART and ROTC programs’ processes. Currently DCTC is not planning on the university doing the recruitment.

10) Has consideration been given to the recruitment of student Veterans that might dovetail in the use of the GI Bill and other sources of funding?

Answer: No, DCTC has not taken into consideration Veteran students and use of the GI Bill. The team will take this into consideration and look at the GI Bill process and rules and carefully consider how best to address Veterans.

11) Will DCTC have an external evaluation component to assess the program?

Answer: Yes, DCTC is planning on establishing an evaluation system to assess the program at the student, unit, and full program levels to identify strengths and weaknesses and recommend improvements.

12) Does DCTC believe its University cost expectations are reasonable and has taken into consider the full and direct costs for services and support?

Answer: Yes. During development of the program’s financial requirements we took into account we would have University Tenant costs and included an estimate in the requirements. The data on tenant costs provided in the RFI responses indicate our estimate is adequate to cover the costs and address annual inflation and pricing changes.

13) Is the intent for the University to handle clearance process/paperwork and/or hold the clearances for the DCTC sponsored students or will this be handled and held outside of the University?

Answer: No, DCTC will not require the university to be responsible for processing and holding student security clearances. This will be the responsibility of the DoD Sponsoring Facility.

14) Are the expectations that scholars will finish the program in 4 years and with adding the DCTC curriculum as supplemental to the degree courses would adding a semester to complete be problematic?

Answer: DCTC recognizes that in this day and age completing an engineering or science degree in four years is very challenging but would encourage maintaining a four-year program. DCTC will work with the universities and the students to assess this as early as possible to develop the right processes and procedures to address longer degree programs. As for DCTC curriculum, the program does not see the courses as supplemental but like ROTC we believe they would be electives taken in support of completing a degree program.

15) Would there be a provision for pipelining students into positions at local military bases?

Answer: Yes, the program wants to work with each student and allow them to provide input on desired internship positions and locations. However, this will be dependent on the available positions the sponsoring facilities identify each year, which is expected to fluctuate base on anticipated gaps for to five years out.

16) Is cadre for program provided by DCTC and be PCSed like ROTC or would you be training local faculty? Has there been any thought on combining instruction with SROTC?

Answer: DCTC is considering all the options mentioned but the program has to ensure that the faculty has the experience to be able to address the DoD focus on acculturation and technical challenges. DCTC is interested in working with each ROTC and University to develop the best faculty solution that will meet the requirements.

17) Question on the statement in the RFI criteria regarding transcripts being annotated to indicate DCTC. Is this intended to be a formal statement on the transcript or the courses identified ad s DCTC? The concern is some schools may not have the capabilities to add specific commentary.

Answer: DCTC does not expect any special statement or content be added. Our request is the DCTC courses be on the student’s transcript like any other course.

18) Has DCTC considered two year students transferring into four year programs—might be helpful to include this type thought. Perhaps first course could be online summer?

Answer: DCTC will take this under advice and as the program works in developing student management processes and curriculum we will look at how the program can address this.

19) A lot of STEM fields what if they wanted to expand into other field like a MATH degree seeking cybersecurity --- cast a wider net to attract more students. May want extra year to finish out advanced degrees, recommend considering this in the program designs.

Answer: As stated in the presentation, the program received many recommendations for expanding the program and recognize their potential value. At this time, DCTC is focusing on the 4-year STEM program to test the proof of concept in the pilot and expand the program to a fully operational capability. All these recommendations have been added to a list of potential program improvements and will be reviewed once the program is mature.

20) Several elements of DCTC sound similar to ROTC and some of these ROTC elements do not work well and there lesson learned to be had – SROTC not as effective as advertised. Recommend engaging with SROTC leadership.

Answer: DCTC has begun to engage with the Service ROTC headquarters who have started to review our program and processes and providing feedback. We hope to also be able to engage at the unit level to gain more tactical level feedback.

21) Has DCTC considered collaboration with CyberCorps and other DoD scholarship programs and allowing them to take DCTC courses since they are bound for DoD positions? Non-citizens?

Answer: Yes, DCTC is interested in collaborating with other DoD programs and eventually opening up our courses to those students once we get the program at a point where we have the capability to open the courses up. Because we intend to address the DoD technical challenges we are not considering opening the program up to non-citizens at this time.

22) What are we looking for from the first five Universities? Will they be cohort proving so that the program can scale up in the large expansion phase?

Answer: The first five universities (Pilot and Phase 1 expansion) will serve as proof of design concept that will provide the lessons learned and adjustments to the design that then can be provided to the future expansion universities to set up a DCTC. The program is working towards a cohort process for the students with education and opportunities to create interdisciplinary connections, develop leadership, and provide the cohort with a network.

23) DCTC Transcripts—could be DCTC became a minor or certificate program, which can be listed on the transcript and be listed on a resume?

Answer: Yes, we have become aware that several universities with ROTC programs have established Military Science minors. This is something DCTC would be interested in pursuing with universities once the program has a steady state design that can then be assessed for minor or certificate program status.