USAFE University offers professional training success

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Elizabeth Culbertson
  • USAFE News Service
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (USAFENS) --  More than a year after its charter signing, U.S. Air Forces in Europe University continues to expand its course catalog, garnering an increasingly large student body.

The university has been the nerve center for professional training courses and programs available within the command since April 2004.

“USAFE University was established to focus and consolidate command training, ensuring USAFE Airmen and civilians are equipped with the professional tools they need to accomplish their jobs,” said Richard Power, USAFE University senior advisor to the commander.

The organization of the university gives the president and board members the ability to examine individual course effectiveness as well as distribute university resources equitably, said Mr. Power.

“By consolidating career development courses under the university umbrella, we’re better able to monitor and analyze them for areas of improvement,” he said.

The university offers courses for a wide variety of career fields, such as personnel, security forces, civil engineering and medical.

“The course catalog includes everything from ‘Advanced Cardiac Life Support’ to ‘Anti-terrorism Force Protection,’” said Robert Coleman, USAFE University registrar. “Each course is evaluated by the students upon completion. We then use that feedback to continually improve the course; i.e., we learn what to keep, to add, and to drop from the curriculum.”

To date, university instructors have taught 87 courses to 15,753 USAFE Airmen and civilians, said Mr. Power.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen the university grow by leaps and bounds,” said Mr. Power. “As more supervisors and work centers learn about the benefits of the university and how it facilitates professional development, we hope to see many more courses made available.”

One popular addition to the course catalog has been the “Train the Trainer” course, which graduated its first class last November.

“The ‘Train the Trainer’ course created a command-wide baseline for standardized training,” said Mr. Power. “It has received very positive feedback, both from students and from supervisors that have benefited from it in their work centers.”

The university website, located on the USAFE Portal, is also changing to become more user-friendly, he said.

“We encourage USAFE members to look through the online catalog and we encourage supervisors to approach us with course proposals,” said Mr. Power. “USAFE University is committed to USAFE’s professional training needs.”