Admiral Jan Tighe is beginning her fourth month as the Interim President of the Naval Post Graduate School. She arrived along with a blistering report from the Navy’s Inspector General. The report resulted in the removal her predecessor Dan Oliver and placed Provost Leonard Ferrari on administrative leave.
The Naval Post Graduate School has been providing advanced training for military officers for more than a hundred years. In the last 5 years it has also been part of a community of higher education institutions that have looked for ways to work together. A Monterey College of Law President Mitch Winick point out it’s an educational community that is unique to this area. “We go from community colleges through an undergraduate program at CSUMB to specialty programs like NPS, the Monterey Institute of International Studies and Monterey College of Law,” Winick explained.
And because each school has a different profile, each brings something new to every project. For example NPS, CSUMB and Monterey College of Law have collaborated on a project to address the special needs returning veterans. NPS and the Monterey Institute of International Studies have worked together on programs involving international policy and negotiations. Even social issues have been the focus of a joint project. “For example the Naval Post Graduate School was working with Hartnell and they were addressing issues related to gang violence over in Salinas,” Winick said.
But the inspector General’s report called into question the role of the Navy School in such non-military projects. It suggested the school should restrict itself to strictly training military officers.
However the new NPS Interim President Jan Tighe says input from community leaders and educators have caused the Navy to rethink some of the IG recommendations. “In the last three months we’ve actually been able to shed some light on the goodness that comes from the relationships that we have out there…those relationships are better for our students…our student’s education, for the facility to be part of this community to recognized as part of it…and we plan to continue them,” Tighe said.
As for the rest of the recommendations, Tighe says there is a plan in place and progress is being made. “Sixty two of the eighty eight recommendations are the Naval Post Graduate School’s to figure out and those recommendations that the Secretariat is dealing with, sort of the large looming questions regarding, you know, is the mission right…those big kinds of questions we’re actively engaged with them and they have deadlines on that,” added Tighe.
As for dropping the interim from her title, President Tighe says that’s above her pay grade, “As much as I love Monterey and I love the Naval Post Graduate School, I want what is best for the school. And if that is me I am happy. And if it is someone else I am still happy because the Navy is committed to strengthening this institution,” Tighe said.
Tighe says the deadline for reviewing and acting on the Inspector General’s recommendations is September.
