Citadel, Clemson named potential DOD partners for service college - Spectrum News

WASHINGTON, DC—Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has announced a slate of new potential partner schools for military members to pursue senior service college opportunities.

Both the Citadel and Clemson University were listed as institutions that align with the department’s mission, according to a recent memo from the Department of Defense (DOD).

“The Department is strategically refocusing the education of its senior officers,” read the letter.

“This decisive change will ensure our leaders receive a more rigorous and relevant education to better prepare them for the complexities of modern warfare and return our Force to the original purpose of SSCs: the preparation of senior officers to be critical thinkers that can plan and integrate multi-domain Joint operations at echelon and serve (and think) at the strategic level. SSC Fellowship candidates must demonstrate across their career the core competencies that define an SSC graduate, thereby affording them the further opportunity to contribute to the lethality of the Force through outside strategic-level engagement at educational and research institutions,” it continued.

The memo also listed several universities with senior service college fellowships that are being canceled by the department. These include many Ivy League schools, such as Harvard University, and those concentrated in the Northeast.

The department revealed 93 SSC fellowships were canceled at 22 different institutions.

Alongside the Citadel and Clemson on a list of potential new partner institutions are schools such as Liberty University, Hillsdale College, the University of North Carolina, and more.

According to the DOD, these institutions all have “intellectual freedom, minimal relationships with adversaries, minimal public expressions in opposition of the Department, and Graduate-level National Security, International Affairs, and/or Public Policy Programs.”