Women of Army War College make history

Female students of the resident class of 2021 are among those we honor in Army War College history, now and then—

• Current Students – see more about students in link here
• Faculty
• USAWC Leaders
• Historic Landmarks

In honor of National Women’s Equality Day, August 26, this running article will go back in time and highlight the women who paved the way for women at the US Army War College and in the Armed Forces of the United States, and partner nations. Building on that, this article will highlight the women—students, faculty and leaders—who are doing exceptional work at the war college.

Current Students

This year’s resident class president is Col. Shari Bennett, although she is not the first woman in that role. Before arriving at the war college, she was the Chief of Sustainment, G4, for 7^th?Infantry Division at Joint Base Lewis McChord.? Bennett set the tone for this year. “Flexibility and communication at all levels is key in this ever-changing environment,” said Bennett. “I plan to foster an environment of transparency, open communication and collaboration with AWC Command leadership and our student leaders.”

Marine Corps Lt. Col. Aixa Dones, in the resident class, had previously served as the Army Deputy G-1 since August 2019. She earned a master’s degree from United States Naval War College in National Security and Strategic Studies. She is one of 45 female students in the resident class. The number of women studying at the war college has grown since the first two female students graduated in 1969, to six in 1990, and 23 in 2010.

Check out the student leadership article, linked in the right margin, for more information on the student body of academic year 2021.

International Fellows

The resident class includes International Fellows, those who represent countries from all over the world while at the war college. In 2006, female international fellows began attending the war college. Below are these women’s names, countries, graduating class, and highest position in which they served.

Retired Norwegian Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund, Class of 2007, formerly served as the UN Peacekeeping Commander in both Cypress and Jerusalem Missions.

Norwegian Maj. Gen. Ingrid Gjerde, Class of 2013, servers as the Director, Strategic Plans for Norwegian Defense Forces.

Australian Maj. Gen. Susan Coyle, Class of 2017, is the commander of the Joint Task Force 633, Class of 2017.

British Col. Lisa Brooks, a 2018 graduate, is the Staff Officer for the British Army Reserves,

A New Zealand native, Col. Karyn Thompson, Class of 2019 is Commander TRADOC for New Zealand Army.

A 2019 graduate, Norwegian Maj. Gen. Elisabeth Michelsen is Commander of the Norwegian National Guard.

Lt. Col. Hoja Ng'Weshemi, a Tanzanian native and 2019 graduate, is Staff Officer for Tanzania People's Defense Forces.

Faculty

The women on faculty at the US Army War College come from diverse professional backgrounds, enhancing the war college curriculum through their experience and expertise.

The Army War College’s director of the Americas Program, Col. Barbara Fick is also a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program. Previously, Fick was the Political-Military Affairs Chief at U.S. Southern Command. She completed a Ph.D. in Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Tennessee. Her most recent research piece addressed COVID-19 and its effects in Latin American and the Caribbean.

Coming from the University of Hong Kong as a lecturer in Politics and Public Administration department, Dr. Lami Kim, joined the war college staff as the professor of Asian Studies. Her expertise centers on nuclear power issues and proliferation. She holds a Ph.D. in International Security and International Law from Tufts University. Her recent publications include “South Korea's Nuclear Hedging?” and “Denuclearization and Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula: Perspectives of the Two Koreas,” published in The Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific Power Politics.

Dr. Genevieve Lester is the De Serio Chair of Strategic & Theater Intelligence, responsible for integrating intelligence perspective throughout the curriculum. Previously, she taught at National Defense University's Joint Special Operations Master of Arts program. Her specialties center on relations and security with a focus on intelligence. A former Fulbright Scholar who is visiting a professor at Georgetown University and the University of California. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and has published the book, When Should State Secrets Stay Secret? Accountability, Democratic Governance, and Intelligence.

Once a high school teacher, Elizabeth Rood served with the State Department in multiple assignments before joining the war college faculty as professor of International Studies. Most Recently Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia she was previously the political counselor in Kabul, Afghanistan; and principle officer at the U.S. Consulate General at both Peshawar, Pakistan, and Dusseldorf, Germany. She speaks seven languages.

Dr. Marybeth Ulrich is the General Maxwell D. Taylor Chair of the Profession of Arms and a professor of Government, and this year, the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Air Force Academy. She writes and lectures about strategic studies, especially civil-military relations, European security, and national security democratization. She earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois, and published the book Democratizing Communist Militaries: The Cases of the Czech and Russian Armed Forces.

As USAWC professor of Strategy, Dr. Jacqueline Whitt teaches courses on war and social change and American identity. Her book, Bringing God to Men: American Military Chaplains, Religion, and the Vietnam War 2016 won the Richard W. Leopold prize for the best work on foreign policy, military affairs, historical activities of the federal government written by a federal employee. She earned a Ph.D. in Military and American History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

USAWC visiting professors in National Security Studies are Grace Stettenbauer, senior DoS Foreign Service Officer, and Dr. Samantha Taylor, a historian with special interests in diplomatic, military, and cultural history. She is working on A book that explores liberal internationalism in US post-Cold War national security and foreign policy decisions.Revisit as we conclude the series on Women's Equality by highlighting the female students of USAWC.

Dr. Tami Davis Biddle is a professor of History and National Security Strategy. Previously, she taught in the Department of History at Duke University. She has a Ph.D. in History from Yale University, and her research focuses on warfare in the 20th century, in particular the history of air warfare. In 2002, she published Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945, and is currently working on “Taking Command: The United States at War, 1941-45.”

Professor of Organizational Studies, Dr. Allison Abbe received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside in Social/Personality psychology. Prior to coming to the war college, she was a research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analysis. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Culture, Language, and International Security and the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling.

Associate Professor Heather S. Gregg earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on historic and contemporary causes of religiously motivated violence. Before joining the war college, worked primarily with Special Operations Forces at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Defense Analysis

Anne Casper, professor of International Studies, served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Burundi from 2016-2019. She earned a B.A. in Anthropology from Tufts University and a M.A. from Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies; she is a distinguished graduate of the National War College.

USAWC Leadership

Women at USAWC strengthen and support the college’s educational mission through their leadership roles.

Brig. Gen. Janeen Birckhead is the new USAWC Deputy Commandant for Reserve Affairs. She, having learned from her own experience, provides students with advice regarding the challenges they face as Army reserve students at the War College. Like the reserve component students she works with and advocates for, Birckhead juggles her position at the War College with her duties as a commander in the Maryland National Guard.

Lt. Col. Courtney A. Short assumed command of U.S. Army Garrison Carlisle Barracks in June 2019. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her book, Uniquely Okinawan: Determining Identity During the U.S. Wartime Occupation, was published this year.

Dr. Carol Evans is the director of the USAWC Strategic Studies Institute, the Army’s strategic think tank. Building on her Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, teaching and research at Georgetown, she served as senior advisor and research project manager with the defense sector, homeland security, the intelligence community, and private industry. Now, she guides connections across the networks relevant to Army research and analysis priorities.

Col. Michelle Ryan became dean of the School of Strategic Landpower on July 1, the first woman to assume the position. She graduated from the war college in 2012, served on the faculty, and previously held the role of Deputy Dean. She holds a Juris Doctor from Notre Dame.

Greta Braungard, an experienced research librarian herself, is the director of the academic research staff in Root Hall military references and at the Army Heritage and Education Center’s a vast military collection. Under her leadership and guidance, the library staff adapted quickly to the challenges of providing research and resources in a virtual learning environment.

Leigh Caraher is the director of the new Applied Communication and Learning Lab in support of USAWC faculty and students. During her work at U.S. Agency for International Development, she served as lead humanitarian advisor to USAFRICOM, and deployed as the civil military advisor during multiple U.S. disaster response operations. In multiple roles, including research work and duty as strategic advisor to the Commander, International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan, she applied the executive communication skills and insights she brings to the ACL Lab.

Megan Hennessey, the director of Educational Methodology for the School of Strategic Landpower, has a Ph.D. in Education from George Mason University. She crafted a virtual orientation for this year’s new faculty, addressing the specific needs of the diverse faulty to enable them for success at the war college. This work allows her to apply her expertise and insights from her doctoral research about “The Lived Faculty Development Experience of Active Duty Military Instructors.”

Historic Landmarks

Just as the full integration of women into the Army and the other services has changes over time, so too the acceptance of women into the war college continues to evolve. In 1968, the first women were accepted into the U.S. Army War College. Female officers Lt. Col. Frances Chaffin Gannon and Lt. Col. Shirley Heinze were both resident students who graduated in 1969 as colonels. Dorothy Weihrauch Crockett, a foreign service officer, was the first female civilian to attend the resident program in 1970.

Lt. Col. Betty Fraser and Col. Angelina Previto were the first female Distance Education students accepted to the war college in 1968, and graduated in 1970. In 1987, Betty Allen was the first female civilian to compete the Distance Education Program.

In 2006, the war college welcomed its first female International Fellow. Retired Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund, Norway and graduated in 2007. A pioneer for women in her own country, she was the Norwegian Army’s first female officer to be promoted to the rank of major general, in 2009. Appointed in 2014, she served as the first female Force Commander of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, Cypress.

The first female faculty member joined the war college in 1977. Col. Evelyn P. Foote, an Army Military Police Corps officer, graduated from the War College in 1977 and taught in the Department of Command Leadership and Management. She was later promoted to Brigadier General, and she is a USAWC Distinguished Fellow, inducted in 1996.