ENPages
Report on EL101 to President NWC
[PROF BRENNAN]
[A superb report! Comprehensive and informative. Please route to Department Chairmen.]
29 January 1980 From: Professor Joseph G. Brennan To: RADM Edward F. Welch, Jr., USN President, Naval War College [2-1-80] Via: Dean of Academics (COPY PROVIDED TO PROF CROWL)
Subj: Elective 101, FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL OBLIGATION; Report on
One of my specified duties is to make a report on the subject course to be delivered to the President 15 January 1980. The report is set out below and covers the period from the initial planning of the course to the present.
1. History of the Course
The origins of EL-101 lie deep in certain crucial experiences of VADM James B. Stockdale, USN (Ret.), former President of the Naval War College, now President of the Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina.
These experiences include Admiral Stockdale's encounter with academic philosophy at Stanford University in the years 1960-62 when he was assigned to graduate study there by the Navy. This academic experience, including the important contact with Professor Philip Rhinelander of the Stanford Philosophy Department and his reading of Epictetus's ENCHIRIDION is described in Admiral Stockdale's letter of 24 November 1975 (Appendix A).
A second and determining source of EL-101 was the seven and a half years experience of Admiral Stockdale as a prisoner of war in Hanoi after his plane had been shot down over North Vietnam in September 1965. This experience is described in Appendix A as well as in the Stockdale article "The World of Epictetus" (Atlantic Monthly, April 1978), the latter required reading for the course since it was first offered at the Naval War College in the Fall of 1978.
Although we corresponded over a two-year period, Admiral Stockdale and I did not meet until the change of command at the Naval War College in October 1977, when Stockdale assumed the Presidency. At that time and later in December 1977 the possibility of organizing and team-teaching an elective course in moral philosophy at the Naval War College was discussed. I was then engaged by contract dated 1 February to act as Consultant to the President, Naval War College, to organize and later to teach with the President a course to be called "Foundations of Moral Obligation," to be first offered as an elective in the Fall trimester of 1978.
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J. G. Brennan
REPORT ON ELECTIVE 101 "FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL OBLIGATION"
29 January 1980
CONTENTS
PAGE 1. History of the Course . . . . . 1 2. Outline of the Course . . . . . 2 3. Teaching of the Course, 1978-1979 . . . . . 3 4. Public Response to the Course, 1978-1979 . . . . . 4 5. Student Response to the Course, 1978 . . . . . 4 6. Examinations and Grades . . . . . 5 7. FE-101 1979; the Course without Stockdale . . . . . 6 8. Lecture and Seminar Arrangements 1979-1980 . . . . . 6 9. Changes in Reading List 1979-1980 . . . . . 7 10. Library Support; Reading and Course Papers . . . . . 7 11. Recommendations for the Future . . . . . 8 12. Acknowledgements . . . . . 9
Appendix A - Letter of 24 November 1975 from (then) RADM James B. Stockdale, USN to the Present Instructor EL-101 . . . . .
Appendix B - Sample Unit Note . . . . .
Appendix C - EL-101 Course by Syllabus, Including Required Reading List . . . . .
Appendix D - Course Summary by Week . . . . .
Appendix E - Copy of TIME Magazine Story on EL-101, 19 February 1979 . . . . .
Appendix F - (1) Evaluation Tabulation Sheet FE-101 1978 . (2) Evaluation Tabulation Sheet WE-101 1979 . (3) Evaluation Tabulation Sheet FE-101 1979 .
Appendix G - Total Enrollment Figures by College, Branch of Service, etc. . . . . .
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29 January 1980 From: Professor Joseph G. Brennan To: RADM Edward F. Welch, Jr., USN President, Naval War College Via: Dean of Academics (COPY PROVIDED TO PROF CROWL)
Subj: Elective 101, FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL OBLIGATION; Report on
One of my specified duties is to make a report on the subject course to be delivered to the President 15 January 1980. The report is set out below and covers the period from the initial planning of the course to the present.
1. History of the Course
The origins of EL-101 lie deep in certain crucial experiences of VADM James B. Stockdale, USN (Ret.), former President of the Naval War College, now President of the Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina.
These experiences include Admiral Stockdale's encounter with academic philosophy at Stanford University in the years 1960-62 when he was assigned to graduate study there by the Navy. This academic experience, including the important contact with Professor Philip Rhinelander of the Stanford Philosophy Department and his reading of Epictetus's ENCHIRIDION is described in Admiral Stockdale's letter of 24 November 1975 (Appendix A).
A second and determining source of EL-101 was the seven and a half years experience of Admiral Stockdale as a prisoner of war in Hanoi after his plan had been shot down over North Vietnam in September 1965. This experience is described in Appendix A as well as in the Stockdale article "The World of Epictetus" (Atlantic Monthly, April 1978), the latter required reading for the course since it was first offered at the Naval War College in the Fall of 1978.
Although we corresponded over a two-year period, Admiral Stockdale and I did not meet until the change of command at the Naval War College in October 1977, when Stockdale assumed the Presidency. At that time and later in December 1977 the possibility of organizing and team-teaching an elective course in moral philosophy at the Naval War College was discussed. I was then engaged by contract dated 1 February to ace as Consultant to the President , Naval War College, to organize and later to teach with the President a course to be called "Foundations of Moral Obligation," to be first offered as an elective in the Fall trimester of 1978.
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