Engineer Memoirs
my experience in SALT II and START, but there were three sessions devoted to
negotiating with other countries: Germany, Japan, and China.
I enjoyed preparing for and conducting the classes, but was disappointed in the
caliber of the students. I found that most had poor backgrounds in history and in
recent international events and most had poor analytical and writing skills. I put
major emphasis on term papers and found that I had to return more than half of
them for rewriting before I could give them passing scores.
Despite my disappointment, I decided to teach again in the fall of 1991. I cut the
attendance down to 12 and changed the time of the classes from early evening to
afternoon sessions. I found that this change brought in more full-time and fewer
part-time students. I originally thought that part-time students-most of whom
worked in various government agencies-would be better students. However,
either because they were not as well motivated or because the standards for
acceptance were lower, or perhaps because they were simply too tired at the end
of the day, I found that full-time students made for a better class. The students
seemed somewhat better grounded in history and current events, but their analytical
and writing skills were still poor.
Once again, I had to return over half of the papers for more work and rewriting.
There were, however, several notable exceptions. One was a paper by a naval
officer who worked in the Pentagon on international affairs He wrote a paper on
the disposition of the Black Sea fleet. Another outstanding paper was written by
a young woman who did an original, in-depth study of Henry Kissinger's difficult
early childhood. She did a brilliant job of explaining why Kissinger's early years
caused him to think and act the way he did in later years.
After two disappointing years I was not certain I wanted to teach a course in the
fall of 1992. However, after having lunch with Dean East, I decided to teach the
course for a third time. East's reasoning was that members of the older generation
had an obligation to train the younger generation. He pointed out that almost all
of the students, in their confidential final evaluations, said that they were forced to
work hard and had learned a great deal.
I decided to repeat the course. I again scheduled the course for afternoon sessions
where I could attract more full-time students. I also cut the number of sessions
devoted to arms control and devoted about half of the course to negotiating with
other cultures. As before, I found the quality of analysis and writing poor. But,
having placed a great deal of emphasis throughout the early part of the course on
the need for good research, careful analyses, and good writing, I found that the
students produced better term papers.
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