The 2008 Secretary of Defense Transformation Essay Competition

The September 11, 2001 attacks and the Global War on Terror challenge the US Government, particularly the Department of Defense, to innovate and transform the way in which the nation addresses near-term GWOT concerns while maintaining focus on long-term security challenges from a full spectrum of potential competitors.

The Department of Defense is going through the largest transformation since its inception. The Department seeks to build upon its strong foundation of defense transformation by taking and bringing in lessons learned beyond the walls of the Pentagon to the broader national security community. To this end, National Defense University [NDU] will host the First Annual Secretary of Defense Transformation Essay Contest to inspire critical and innovative thinking on how to adapt current national security institutions to meet current and future challenges.

The purpose of this competition is to stimulate new approaches to US Government transformation from a broad spectrum of civilian and military students. Essays should address US Government structure, policies, capabilities, resources, and/or practices and provide creative, feasible ideas on how to transform our national security institutions.

        

The 2008 winning essay will be published by NDU Press as a “Special Feature” in the fourth quarter (October) issue of Joint Force Quarterly. Authors of the first, second and third place essays will be recognized by the Secretary of Defense and awarded cash prizes and certificates of recognition. If conditions permit, winners may meet with the Defense Secretary for personal congratulations and photographs. All finalists papers in each category will be evaluated for future publication in JFQ. This is a joint, interagency writing contest; papers must meet rigorous academic standards.

Senior faculty commitment is imperative for a good competition. Coordinators for each college are requested to inform their student bodies early in the academic year and to update/repeat calls for papers throughout the year. Milestones:

Friday, 15 Sep 2007:
Commandants provide names of coordinators to NDU Press

Thursday, 15 Feb 2008:
Coordinators provide names of judges to NDU Press

Thursday, 1 May 2008:
Cutoff for schools to submit nominated papers to NDU Press

Thursday, 15 May 2008:
Judges report first-round scores to NDU Press

Tuesday-Wednesday, 20-21 May 2008:
Judges attend final round conference at NDU

Competition Rules

1. ELIGIBILITY:   Students enrolled in intermediate through senior-level PME/JPME schools including:

   a.     senior service colleges

   b.     service intermediate and advanced schools

   c.     senior joint NDU colleges (National War College, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces)

   d.     Joint Forces Staff College

Essays must be original, not previously published, and completed during the given academic year (2007-08). Essays cannot be submitted for publication to any other journal or academic press concurrent with this competition.

2. TOPICS:   Competitors may write on any aspect of U.S. government transformation—addressing the coherent employment of the political, military, economic, and informational instruments of national power to achieve strategic objectives. Essays with a joint, interagency, or integrated operations emphasis, as well as those addressing non-traditional security issues are encouraged.

3. Manuscripts:     Government Transformation Research Paper: Maximum of 5,000 words. This essay contest encourages in-depth research, analysis, and critical thinking that is long enough to complete a thorough argument but short enough to rivet a broad audience. Manuscript length is not a factor in judging so long as the maximum length is not exceeded.

4. PROCESS:   Each participating school Commandant is free to establish and execute independent methodologies for selecting papers to nominate for the Essay Competition. The papers so nominated are designated semifinalists.

a.     Two rounds of joint judging occur: Semifinalists are evaluated by judges who receive and grade papers via the Internet (see the ndupress.ndu.edu SECDEF Contest tab), to determine the finalists.

b.     Finalists are evaluated during the conference at Fort McNair, National Defense University headquarters, resulting in the identification of three winners.

5. Judging Criteria:

    a. Innovation – Does the essay inject new thinking into the collective governance of national security institutions? Does the essay demonstrate a unique approach and/or improve current initiatives? Does the essay take new lessons from history?

    b. Feasibility – Is the concept practical? Does the essay propose a project or concept that could realistically be applied to government?

    c. Clarity of Thought & Purpose – Does the work define a problem and present a solution? Does it show thoughtful analysis?

    d. Persuasive – Is the paper logically organized and well written? Does the work define a problem, exhibit thoughtful analysis and present a convincing solution?

6. FORMAT:   An entry will consist of a title page, abstract page, biographical page, and the text.

   a. The title page should contain the title only—no name, rank, service, or college affiliation.

   b. The abstract page immediately follows the title page and summarizes the essay in a maximum of 200 words.

   c. The biographical page should include recent assignments, academic credentials, and current and (if known) future contact information. For purposes of judging, the biographical page is removed to make papers completely anonymous.

   d. Word limits will be enforced for each category as noted. The maximum applies to the main text of the essay, and does not include title page, abstract, biographical page, and endnotes/footnotes.

   e. The text must follow the format of a scholarly research paper (not a bullet paper, talking paper, PowerPoint briefing, etc.); endnotes are preferred but footnotes are acceptable.

      i. Use the Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition) or Turabian, A Manual for Writers (6th edition) for overall style and format including endnotes/footnotes.

      ii. Electronic sourcing must include date accessed.

      iii. Papers must be presented by each school POC in electronic form in MS Word format. Files should not contain desktop-publishing embellishments. Please limit formatting to italics, bold, underline, bullet, or numbered lists.

7. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION:   Only unclassified essays are eligible. Each college is responsible to ensure that manuscripts do not contain classified information. Winning essays and other papers selected for publication in JFQ will undergo editing, illustration, and OSD security and policy review before publication and release.

8. SUBMISSION OF NOMINATED PAPERS:   Each school coordinator submits to NDU Press electronic copies of all nominated essays in each category not later than Thursday, 1 May 2008. There is no requirement for schools to submit the maximum number of papers in each category.

9. PUBLICATION RIGHTS:   NDU Press reserves first publication rights for all essays submitted to the SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Essay Competition. Winners will appear in both print and electronic editions of Joint Force Quarterly.

   a. Submission of an essay to this contest will be considered acceptance by the author of this publication policy.

   b. Papers may not be entered in the contest if they have previously been submitted for publication, accepted for publication, or previously published in another Journal, book, or monograph. After publication in or rejection by JFQ, essays may be submitted to other Journals or reprinted.

   c. JFQ will release rights for essays not published to other official U.S. Government and military Journals and Presses—after the contest is concluded and certified—when requested by the author or other Journal director/editor.

10. COORDINATORS AND JUDGES:   Each college appoints a senior faculty coordinator and faculty representatives to act as contest judges at NDU. Coordinators may also be judges. NDU Press needs names and contact information for school coordinators not later than 15 September 2007 and judges not later than 15 February 2008. For the semifinal (on-line) and final (NDU) rounds, the intermediate service and senior-level colleges select/send two judges each. Advanced service schools and Joint Forces Staff College select/send one representative each. NDU Press will establish contact and a network of POCs/judges to exchange information and answer questions. The panel of judges evaluates semifinalist papers on-line and returns scores in accordance with the internet form. At NDU, the judges conduct final rounds for each category of the contest. Winners will be selected based on an algorithm reviewed by NDU Press based on normalized high scores. Senior NDU Press staff will act as tie breakers/arbiters, as required. NDU President certifies winners before official notification. NDU Press will notify college coordinators when the winners are confirmed.

11. INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY:   To ensure a fair competition, schools are expected to self-police themselves in the following areas:

   a. Papers must be submitted by students. Faculty or staff cannot submit a student paper for the Competition without the student’s knowledge.

   b. No editing once competition begins. Students are not permitted to edit their paper once each school begins its own internal judging for semifinalists (i.e., school nominees).

   c. No institutional editing following student submission. Under no circumstances may a faculty member edit, correct, or change a paper once submitted by the student.

12. JUDGES & NUMBER OF PAPERS PERMITTED FOR EACH SCHOOL:

Judges        Schools         Transformation Paper

   2                NWC                        4

   2                 ICAF                       4

   1                 JFSC                       2

   1                 JAWS                     2

   2                 AWC                       4

   2                 CGSC                      4

   1                 SAMS                      2

   2                 MCWC                     4

   2                 MCSC                      4

   1                 SAW                       2

   2                 AWC                       4

   2                 ACSC                      4

   1                 SAASS                   2

   2                 Naval Senior           4

   2                 Naval Junior            4

13. CONTACT:
For further information or an electronic copy of these rules, please consult ndupress.ndu.edu or contact the SECDEF Essay Contest Project Officers:

Col David H. Gurney (Ret.),   202-685-4212,   gurneyd@ndu.edu

Mr. George Maerz,   202-685-4378,   maerzg@ndu.edu

Dr. Jeff Smotherman,   202-685-4377,   smothermanj@ndu.edu