Defining Admission Requirements for the Joint Advanced Warfighting School

The Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) has admission requirements that do not allow the school to meet its stated mission goals. JAWS is a new school at the Joint Forces Staff College (JFCS) that awards Joint Professional Military Education phase one (JPME I), JPME phase two (JPME II), and Intermediate College (ILC) credit all in ten months of education and training. Additionally, JAWS awards a Master's degree and is considered equivalent to service Advanced Warfighting Schools, such as the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). However, according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 1800.01B, Officer Professional Military Education Policy(OPMEP), the only requirements for admission are service competency and Intermediate Level College (ILC) eligibility. Traditionally, an officer attended ILC, AWS, and JPME II to gain the same qualifications and develop the required competencies. "The JAWS mission is to produce graduates that can create campaign-quality concepts, plan for the employment of all elements of national power, accelerate transformation, succeed as joint force operational/strategic planners and be creative, conceptual, adaptive and innovative." This mission requires the development of a particular set of leader competencies. To discover what those competencies should be, leader development frameworks, competency models, and competency-based curriculum development where explored. Once a competency model that fit the mission requirements for JAWS was determined, competencies developed over the course of JAWS were subjectively measured, along with the competencies developed over the course of ILC, AWS, and JPME II. The results formed the admission requirements. Along with a competency model, Joint Learning Areas/Objectives (JLA) had to be explored. The OPMEP dictates the JLAs for ILC, the Joint Combined Warfighting School (JCWS), and JAWS. Service ILCs, teach JPME I and JCWS teaches JPME II JLAs. These were compared to the JAWS