EDITOR’S NOTE: For further information on the DCTC program please see the Defense Acquisition University Article at: DAU – Culture of Care—The Defense Civilian Training Corps Role in Talent Development
“NATIONAL DEFENSE MAGAZINE” By Kara Thompson
“Like the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which provides students with opportunities to become military officers, the Defense Civilian Training Corps — or DCTC — program addresses the need for a similar talent pipeline into the Pentagon’s civilian workforce.”
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“The first cohort in the Defense Department’s new program designed to provide university students a pathway to join the department’s civilian workforce recently completed its first year.
Like the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which provides students with opportunities to become military officers, the Defense Civilian Training Corps — or DCTC — program addresses the need for a similar talent pipeline into the Pentagon’s civilian workforce, said Karen Thornton, a fellow at the Acquisition Innovation Research Center.
In the program, students learn critical skills that the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment has identified as needed to fill vacant positions, she said.
Ken Callahan, Purdue University’s DCTC program director, said: “If nothing else, we are saving at least eight to 12 months of onboarding by getting students ready to walk in the door and go to work.”
Eighty-nine students across four universities — Purdue, Virginia Tech, North Carolina A&T and the University of Arizona — participated in the pilot program’s first cohort.
“Whether it’s security clearance, familiarity with the military facilities, network access, all of those things that take time when someone gets hired to get done, we’re actually doing while they’re still here on campus,” Callahan said.
Purdue student Nicholas Canovas said: “I wanted to join something that helped me grow as an engineer but also helped me grow interpersonally and as a leader as well.”
Isabella Higginbotham, another Purdue student, said the program sounded “too good to be true,” but it opened her eyes to a career path she had not considered as a game development and design and animation major.
The two-year program includes one class a semester, a stipend, a summer internship in the department, guidance obtaining a security clearance and assistance with landing a job.
“It’s very important to us that our students are working on real-life projects and solving challenging problems so that they get a sense that they can make a difference,” Thornton said.
The first year culminated in a showcase in Washington, D.C., where students presented the projects they worked on, networked with Defense Department officials and met the program’s next cohort of students.”
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