Acting Air Force Academy chief pledges culture of 'trust and confidence'

The acting superintendent of the Air Force Academy hopes to create a culture of "trust and confidence" among cadets as part of an overall reform effort developed in response to allegations of sexual assault at the school.

An improved mentoring program for cadets is part of the institution's "agenda for change" and is designed to help cadets handle all aspects of academy life, said Brig. Gen. John Weida, the Air Force Academy's new commandant of cadets and acting superintendent, in an interview with Government Executive.

The mentoring system, which includes more training for leaders, is based on the existing system of 36 squadrons, each consisting of between 100 and 115 cadets, at the academy. The commander of each squadron will be "the first person the cadet goes to" for any type of advice, Weida said. The commanders, who are active-duty officers, will be required to have a masters degree in counseling or a similar area before serving as mentors.

"Cadets can know that the leadership at that level will do the right thing," Weida said, particularly when it comes to allegations of sexual assault. Military training leaders will also receive training to assist commanders with mentor duties, and more senior cadets will be asked to provide a support system for younger cadets.

After a scandal in which more than 50 current and former cadets alleged they had been sexually assaulted while attending the Air Force Academy, Air Force Secretary James Roche replaced three top school officials in March. Weida is serving as acting superintendent until the Senate votes on the administration's nominee, Maj. Gen. John Rosa Jr. But Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has placed a hold on hundreds of Air Force officers' promotions and nominations, including Rosa's. The holds are unrelated to the controversy involving sexual assaults at the academy.

"Since the 10th of April, Col. [Debra] Gray and myself and all of the leadership here have been working really hard to establish trust and confidence." Weida said. Weida and Gray, who is the new vice commandant of cadets, have met with every female cadet in the last two months, he said. Prior to graduation last month, there were 650 female cadets at the academy.

Terri Spahr Nelson, a psychotherapist specializing in sexual violence trauma who also served in the Army, praised the Air Force Academy's effort to expand the mentoring program for cadets, but said it would take time to evaluate the effort. "Mentor programs sound like a step in the right direction-building trust and developing positive relationships," Nelson said. "Role models will be helpful if cadets see this person as someone who has integrity and someone they can trust."

Nelson said that is might be easier to instill a sense of trust among peers and mentors with the academy's new class of cadets. "It could take a cycle before people can trust that changes are under way in the culture and climate," she said.

In June, Weida issued a memo urging victims of assaults to come forward in the future. "Reports of sexual assaults are not confidential and all reports will be appropriately investigated," he said. Weida said information about alleged assaults would be revealed to law enforcement personnel and commanders on a need-to-know basis. Disclosures made to chaplains or other clergy members and to attorneys are considered confidential within the academy's reporting process.

"It is absolutely not true that we are going to ruin your career, or publish your name from the mountaintops, or prosecute you for lesser offenses such as underage drinking," Weida said during the interview, referring to the repercussions feared by cadets if they come forward with allegations of sexual assault. "If no one comes forward, we are not going to solve anything, but if you are not treated with dignity and respect, you won't come forward," Weida said of the reporting process. "You have to have both [to make it work], and you have to trust that we will do that right thing."

But Nelson said a victim's "power to make the choice of whom they want to tell and when they want to tell it" gets stripped away without confidentiality. She said she understood what the academy was trying to accomplish with its privacy policy, but that it doesn't sufficiently take into account the sense of betrayal victims of rape trauma experience.

"I understand what they are trying to do; they don't want sex offenders graduating from their program, but can't get rid of them unless they know about the crime. But it kind of forces the victims' hands," she said.

Nelson said holding leaders accountable is key to changing attitudes and encouraging victims to come forward. "If someone did something wrong, they should be held accountable, no matter what their rank. That's how you change culture and climate," she said.

Weida said accountability is already a large part of academy culture. "We hold commanders and leaders accountable every day; that's the world we live in and one we live in every day," Weida said. "Cadets understand that. There is no mixed message there. [In terms of the] degree of accountability, what gets made accountable and who is held accountable, that is the senior leadership's responsibility," he said, referring to Roche and Air Force Chief of Staff John Jumper. "I have talked to the cadets here, and I don't see any concern with that."