Fort Lee professor wins 2013 CGSC Faculty Interagency Writing Competition

Dr. William J. Davis, Jr., associate professor in the Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations at the Fort Lee, Va., satellite campus of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, was recently selected as the winner of the 2013 CGSC Faculty Interagency Writing Competition sponsored by the CGSC Foundation’s Simons Center for Interagency Cooperation. Davis’ manuscript, Why We Can’t All Just Get Along: Overcoming Personal Barriers to Inter-organizational Effectiveness will be published by the Simons Center later in 2014.

Dr. Davis is a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Navy and has been a professor at CGSC since 2006. He was previously an associate professor and director of curriculum at Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va. Davis will be presented his award during the College’s Golden Pen Award ceremony in January 2014.

Mr. Tom J. Tracy garnered second place in the competition. Tracy, an assistant professor in the same department as Dr. Davis, wrote a manuscript titled Afghanistan Army Development: What Went Wrong, which is also being reviewed for publication by the Simons Center in 2014.  Tracy is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who earned his Master’s degree in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School and was a Senior Army Fellow to the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies. He also has significant experience in Afghan National Army Development.

“We congratulate these great faculty members on their success,” said retired Maj. Gen. Raymond D. Barrett, Jr., deputy director for the Simons Center. “Our goal with this competition is to encourage excellence in the faculty across the College’s departments and campuses and Dr. Davis and Mr. Tracy have more than met the challenge.

The faculty writing competition ran from September through November and was open to U.S. Army Command and General Staff College faculty members supporting the Command and General Staff Officers Course (CGSOC), School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) and the School for Command Preparation (SCP) courses at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and the satellite campuses. Papers submitted were to examine any aspect of interagency cooperation, coordination or collaboration at the operational and tactical levels of conflict. A panel of Simons Center judges evaluated the entries on originality, substance of argument, style and contribution to advancing the understanding and practice of interagency.