The Civil Engineer and Services School at AFIT plays a significant role in preparing Civil Engineer officers for deployment. The school provides contingency engineering education in many of our courses such as MGT 101 AF Civil Engineer Basic, ENV 175 Environmental Management in Deployed Locations, and MGT 585 Contingency Engineer Command Course. Keeping the contingency curriculum relevant and current is a constant challenge to the school in order to better prepare students for the challenges they’ll face when they deploy. It is not uncommon for lessons within this curriculum to become outdated within 12–18 months. Incorporating deployed engineer experiences and observations into classroom learning objectives is critical to the contingency curriculum.

Last year, the school introduced WESS 300 Civil Engineer Deployed Experience Seminar to create a virtual forum where deployed engineers can share real-time deployment information with students about their respective deployments. Students can participate from any location with phone and internet access. The school conducts the webinars utilizing AFIT’s existing telecommunication technology such as Microsoft Live Meeting and the ATN Phone Bridge at a fraction of the cost of resident courses.

The webinars possess several advantages and benefits. First, TDY costs are avoided and provide both guest speakers and students greater flexibility in attending the seminars. The webinars allow for less time spent away from work which again benefits both guest speakers and students. The Air Force Civil Engineer Support Agency manages the career field’s Lessons Learned Program and also benefits from participating in the webinars to identify lessons learned that they can address for the career field. Webinar presentations are recorded and the audio visual files are loaded to AFCESA’s Lessons Learned Community of Practice website for engineers to access or download for future viewing. The webinars greatly increase student awareness of engineer operations in the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility and have also served as a novel form of just-in-time training to hear and learn about their future deployed position, roles and responsibilities. Finally, the CE and Services School can tap into this “pipeline” of continuous and current deployment information.

Last year, the school conducted 40 webinar presentations. Engineers participated in the webinars while deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Al Dhafra, Horn of Africa, and the Philippines and were very enthusiastic about sharing their deployment experience and lessons learned with students.

Developing the webinars has definitely been an AFIT effort. Members from AFIT’s audio-visual department, extension services, and computer technical support all teamed together in developing this unique information-sharing platform. The team was nominated and received the HQ AETC Learning Innovation Award, 2008 Runner-up. The webinars will continue again this year utilizing Defense Connect Online.