Command And General Staff College Foundation

College support: the foundation enriches the college's academic environment, fosters a strong relationship between the military and the private sector, enhances the institution's research activities, and encourages excellence in the faculty and student body through our college support program. The foundation continued its support to the college through support of the commandant's receptions, spouse programs, funding for representational items that recognize excellence by the faculty, staff, and students, and by facilitating guest lecturers on a variety of topics to include ethics, leadership, interagency operations, and professional development which enhanced instruction and professional dialogue across the college. We continued our support to the college's academic excellence programs by sponsoring numerous awards which enhanced the recognition of both students and faculty excellence in research, writing, academics, and professional proficiency. For sams the foundation provided 100% of the academic and professional awards presented at graduation. For cgss/cgsoc the foundation provided 75% of the awards presented for academic and professional excellence as well as oversaw several awards that are privately endowed. The foundation once again conducted the annual powell lecture series presentation, sponsoring in a former us ambassador to discuss with the students and faculty issues of national security, which was one of the highest rated presentations of the year by the students and faculty. We continued support of the college through our foundation's alumni association program, servicing as a link between alumni across the world and happenings at the college. Our foundation news magazine, along with our website and weekly message traffic, supported the college's effort to communicate the new curriculum and programs to the general public and military families as well as to alumni and professionally concerned organizations. Each edition of the foundation news magazine continues to have articles from the college leadership to include the commandant, deputy commandant, dean, and the various school directors. We continue the "alumni news" section to the magazine that allows alumni and friends to communicate with each other and share their news. Our foundation's communiques continue to play a significant role in supporting the communications efforts of the college.

Family support programs: the foundation enriches the college's academic environment, promotes leader development, and encourages excellence in the faculty and student body by supporting programs that enrich the lives of our military and their families. Military families undergo the hardships of moving which effects the families having to change communities, jobs, and schools for less than a year. Our mission is to try to ease the change by providing support to families. To foster family activities and to support children's literacy, our foundation provided materials and activity items in support of the ike skelton combined arms research library adult and children reading programs. In addition to providing more than 300 books directly to the library, we provided materials supporting over 1200 family members in several reading programs including youth summer camp reading programs and the community reads program. The library programs are designed to help bridge the learning gap as dod families relocate during the summer season by encouraging reading throughout the summer to maintain educational skills as they prepare for the new school season. The foundation supported our international military student (ims) families through support to the operation international sponsorship program, providing resources that supported sponsorship activities and interaction. We provided funding and support for a family fishing derby which not only encouraged family activity but also introduced a bit of americana to the international officers and their families. Our foundation provided kansas speedway tickets to nascar races as well as held a "check out your library" event where we gave away books to children. We also co-sponsored with the kansas city fisher house a family friendly 5k race that afforded both military and civilian families the opportunity to participate in an activity that showcased the historical landscape of fort leavenworth and promoted physical fitness. To further assist military families, we funded twelve college scholarships for family members through our foundation's alumni association - seven for graduating high school students, and five for continuing education students - assisting these military families with the cost of college education.

Art of war initiative: the foundation enriches the college's academic environment through the art of war initiative. The initiative is a means to assist the college's effort to preserve, protect, promote, and present the unique cgsc collection of art and gifts that the college has been accumulating since 1934. While mostly dormant during the year, the foundation did support the curation of newly received gifts to the college as well as provided several in-person tours that included showing the gifts and told of their unique place in the history of the college. Gift shop: the foundation encourages excellence in the faculty and student body, commemorates the uniqueness of military assignments, and maintains contact with alumni through one of our fastest growing programs, the gift shop program. The gift shops provide a visible representation of the foundation for the students, faculty, alumni, and family members. Our gift shop makes available "foundation and college logoed gear" for retail sale to promote the brands of the college, the various schools, and the foundation beyond our regular programs and encourages alumni activity and school spirit. Each year we produce a unique holiday ornament that commemorates cgsc, fort leavenworth, the international officer program or other aspects of the leavenworth experience, which is only available for sale through our gift shops and which have become a novelty collector's item. Our gift shops sell exclusive cgsc class rings that are a visible reminder of the importance of cgsc in a student's professional education. We are constantly adding new inventory, as requested by the cgsc faculty and students, that provides unique gifts and mementoes that commemorate service time spent at fort leavenworth and cgsc. Our gift shops on-line and in the frontier army museum on fort leavenworth allow for us to highlight the college and foundation to visitors and alumni outside the college campus who would not normally visit the college and provide the opportunity to shop our unique collection of gifts and memorabilia. News magazine: the foundation fosters strong relations between the military and the private sector, maintains contact with the alumni, and encourages excellence in the faculty and student body through publication of our award-winning foundation news magazine. The magazine informs the public of the importance of the cgsc mission, of the nature and success of foundation programs in support of the college and provides information about graduates and other items of interest. Each edition features information from the commandant and college leadership informing readers about the curriculum, leader development activities, and what is of importance to the college leadership. In the two editions published in 2024, we featured articles that recognized faculty and student achievement, on prominent alumni, and highlighted graduation and award events garnered by both faculty and students. The e-magazine format continues to receive wide distribution and we had over 17,000 hard copies distributed to include all residents of fort leavenworth, all us embassies around the world, and to all state and territory adjutants' general. The magazine emphasizes content rather than advertising and is a key element in the foundation's strategic communications program. Privately endowed awards: the foundation administers several privately endowed awards that recognize academic and professional excellence on behalf of the endowers. The ltc boyd mccanna "mac" harris award: the foundation encourages excellence in the faculty and student body through the administration of the ltc boyd mccanna "mac" harris leadership award with an endowment from moira and gary sinise. The award recognizes the leader that demonstrates qualities of inspirational and motivational leadership throughout the year at cgsc as determined by the department of command and leadership faculty. The award presented is a 2013 general of the army commemorative us silver dollar with the likeness of generals dwight d. Eisenhower and george c. Marshall given in a presentation case with engraved plates for the name of the award and the student. Foundation expenses are associated with the procurement of the plates, the engraving, and the presentation on the day of the award. The ltc ronald c. Ward award: the foundation encourages excellence in the faculty and student body through the administration of the ltc ron c. Ward distinguished special operations force (sof) student award which recognizes the outstanding sof graduate of the course as determined by the director of the sof department at cgsc. Ltc ward was a sof instructor in the department until the time of his death and his family endowed the award in his name in conjunction with the sof department in order to recognize excellence in special operations force students. The department faculty determines the award winner based on established criteria. The student receives a replica of a roman gladius sword engraved with the student's name and class. The award is given the day prior to graduation because it is a specialized award for which only sof students are eligible. The mg hans schlup award: the foundation encourages excellence in the faculty and student body through support to the mg hans schlup award. The award is named in memory of mg hans schlup, cgsoc class of 1978 and recognizes the top international military student as selected by the international class of officers. This is the only award for excellence where the awardee is chosen by the students. The award was endowed by the cgsoc class of 1978. The award is a crystal globe mounted on a wooden base with the student's name engraved. In 2017, mg schlup's widow, ursula schlup passed away and class members added to the endowment with express intent to provide support to international family programs to include the annual presenting of the schlup award. The arthur d. "bull" simons center for ethical leadership and interagency cooperation: the foundation enriches the college's academic environment, fosters a strong relationship between the military and the private sector, enhances the institution's research activities, and encourages excellence in the faculty and student body through the simons center. Throughout 2023 we supported scholarship and original research through the hosting symposia and forums, presentations on interagency topics, and publication of manuscripts such as interagency studies and interagency special reports, all designed to enhance the professional discourse and to highlight faculty/student and practitioner original research, foster scholarship, and develop ia leaders. Our simons center website continues to be the "go-to" site for interagency topics and guidance, posting and listing resources and items of operational relevance, and for reference. To enhance our efforts to develop interagency leaders, we continued to offer foundation speaker programs and forums through the center to give a one-stop clearing house for coordination and conduct of several outreach and academic programs. The center oversaw our distinguished speakers' series which included various lectures conducted in coordination with academic and civic organization partners, to include the association of the united states army, university of kansas and the international relations council of kansas city. We continued our highly successful arter-rowland national security forum designed to bring interagency national security topics to business and community leaders. This not only promoted the scholarship of the cgsc faculty but also fostered a civil-military connection that assisted in our outreach mission.