Air Force Professional Development Courses and CAP?

[Shuman 14]

Greetings all this is my first post on your web forum. I posted a question in the CAP forum on military.com and really didn't get an answer there and a moderator suggested I come here and ask it. He believed I'd get better results here.

Here's a cut and paste of Military.com post:

" I was wondering, what Air Force Professional Development Courses are CAP members authorized to attend?

I was told CAP LTCs and COLs can attend the Air War College, is that true?

Also, how about at the lower end of the scale; for example, can a CAP Senior Member attend the Airman Leadership School?

Thanks in advance."

Looking forward to responses from the subject matter experts.

Thanks in advance.

[Eclipse]

Squadron Officer School and AWC are open to senior members, grade Major and above, who have a college degree (this is a relatively recent requirement).

ALS, and other enlisted classes are not open to CAP members.

While both are excellent curricula in their own right, their relevance to CAP is questionable at best. 

We'd be much better served with general management and planning classes, along with a little small-squad or group dynamics classes that were open to all members.

[Pylon]

The short answer is that certain CAP members, based on CAP grade and holding appropriate civilian education credentials (aka: bachelor's degree) are allowed by the Air Force to take certain distance learning (not in-residence) courses through Air University.  Members who are also in the Armed Forces, active or reserve/guard, cannot enroll if their military paygrade would not, by itself, qualify them to enroll (in other words, an E-5 Reservist who is a Major in CAP still cannot take SOS because the military grade takes precedence for AU and an E-5 is not eligible for SOS).


More details here: http://members.gocivilairpatrol.com/cap_university/au-a4-6-students-usaf-dl/

Edited to add: Eclipse beat me to the main points.  The link above is still relevant.

[Shuman 14]

Thank you for the quick responses!

For the record, I'm a Major in the Army Reserve and have both a Bachelors and a Masters degree. Attending Army CGSC-ILE this fall. I thought about joining CAP just so I could attend the AWC.

Is there any particular reason why ALS is closed to CAP members? If it is like the Army PLDC I went to many moons ago, it's a basic leadership school that i would think would be beneficial to Senior Members, especially to those involved in Cadet programs that don't have prior military service. 

[Eclipse]

No idea, the nature of CAP tends to wash out the entire concept of "enlisted", and we don't have an NCO program (beyond allowing NCOs to wear their other-service stripes in lieu of accepting officer appointments).  Based just on my conjecture, I'd guess our access to those advanced classes was someone's "good idea" of training our
higher-echelon leadership, and was probably tacked onto the agreement(s) that had use using ECI (now AFIADL) as the proctors for some of our more advanced tests (we no longer utilize them for that).

As to you, specifically, those course would only be open to you if the USAR would allow you to take them in directly.

As mentioned, the degree requirement, and limitations on NCO's having access to the classes, is pretty recent.  It used to be considered a pretty big "value-add" to CAP members in the military.  I've talked to more then one NCO, especially Reservists, who was getting an OPR and his wide-eyed superior wanted to know how the heck he was able to complete AWC (and without the CO knowing he was even enrolled!).  I've also heard more then once it gave them more then a little leg up.

SOS was an option for our members who could not complete the in-residence, week-long "Region Staff College" required to complete our Level IV of professional development.
LIV is required to be eligible for Lt Col.  AWC was always rumored as something members bucking for Wing CC or higher needed to consider.

[UH60guy]

Thank you for the quick responses!

For the record, I'm a Major in the Army Reserve and have both a Bachelors and a Masters degree. Attending Army CGSC-ILE this fall. I thought about joining CAP just so I could attend the AWC.

There might be some other considerations to watch out for. I'm also in the Army though I'm suffering through the ILE backlog and can't get get a slot for a few more years. I thought along the same lines as you and inquired about CAP-provided Air Command and Staff College from my branch manager, and he indicated there might be some other hidden stipulations. While CAP will certainly help enroll you in one of these courses, there are some MILPER messages and regulations out there that you have to get approval from the first O-6 in your (Army) chain of command, send it to HRC, and get approval through Headquarters Army G-3 to attend another service's schools. Sure, CAP will get you in, but you'll need to dot some I's and cross some T's to make sure you get Army credit for the appropriate MEL class and don't have to repeat it.

[bosshawk]

Many moons ago, I was a Major in the USAR, but was on the promotion list for LtCol.  I couldn't get into the correspondence version of the Army War College until I promoted to O-5, but the AF would accept me for the Air War College as a promotable Major.  I did just that and graduated from AWC and went on to get promoted to O-6 four years later.  At that time, I had a Masters and was a CGSC grad.

Have no idea what the procedures are now: been retired 26 years.

[Shuman 14]

Thank you for the quick responses!

For the record, I'm a Major in the Army Reserve and have both a Bachelors and a Masters degree. Attending Army CGSC-ILE this fall. I thought about joining CAP just so I could attend the AWC.

There might be some other considerations to watch out for. I'm also in the Army though I'm suffering through the ILE backlog and can't get get a slot for a few more years. I thought along the same lines as you and inquired about CAP-provided Air Command and Staff College from my branch manager, and he indicated there might be some other hidden stipulations. While CAP will certainly help enroll you in one of these courses, there are some MILPER messages and regulations out there that you have to get approval from the first O-6 in your (Army) chain of command, send it to HRC, and get approval through Headquarters Army G-3 to attend another service's schools. Sure, CAP will get you in, but you'll need to dot some I's and cross some T's to make sure you get Army credit for the appropriate MEL class and don't have to repeat it.

Did ILE Phase 1 last summer, was enrolled in Phase 2 but had a conflict with my Masters program, so I dropped. Plan on re-enrolling in OCT for Phase 2.

Just wanted to do ALS and AWC for personal development, not to replace the Army War College.