“Our curriculum is really jam-packed, with only one or two electives, but it would have been great to start earlier, giving us more time to test different variables. It might help to bring different majors into the same project, which is how it really works out in the real world,” she said. “That would give you more perspectives and different out-of-the-box ideas.”

Cadet research also was brought into the 2012 Arctic Symposium – called “Leadership for the Arctic” by the Academy – which involved Coast Guard and government leaders and academics from all over the world.

“The Arctic Symposium held in April was a means to facilitate discussion focused on the challenges in the Arctic region – really marrying up the academic perspectives with the operational and tactical efforts of those faced with regulating, preventing, and responding to issues associated with increased maritime activity in the region. The idea is to provide a network to facilitate relationships and discussions about what is going on and set the table for the future,” Colella explained.

“This is incredibly important, but also incredibly broad, covering everything from commerce to police, defense, security, technical issues associated with who is breaking the ice up there, the cultural impacts of shipping moving regularly through the Northwest Passage, and so on. It is a huge area to discuss a variety of things.”

Craig Allen Sr., the Academy’s first distinguished visiting professor of maritime studies, was a faculty adviser for some of the research projects independently chosen for presentation at the Arctic Symposium.

Under the supervision of his instructor, Lt. Victoria Futch, 1st Class Cadet Brett Morris, a marine environmental science major focusing on the Antarctic and deployed upon graduation to the CGC Sequoia, reported on how regulatory agencies are dealing with illegal harvesting of an endangered Antarctic fish species.

“A lot of Alaskan fishing is pretty well regulated, so the problems there are not directly comparable. But there could be changes with the retreating sea ice in the Arctic,” he said, adding three ways to stop illegal fishing are being tried in Antarctica. “They’ve been trying to blacklist known illegal fishing vessels, implement a catch document scheme, and use a satellite-based vessel monitoring system to see where the boats are fishing.”

Two of Allen’s government majors – 1st Class Cadet Hillary Smith, now deployed to the CGC Decisive, and 1st Class Cadet Michael Leath, assigned to the CGC Dauntless after graduation – looked at the evolving U.S. National Ocean Policy (NOP) and the Obama administration’s NOP Implementation Plan (IP). Of the plan’s nine priority objectives, the cadets focused on three: ecosystem-based management (EBM), coastal marine spatial planning (CMSP), and changing conditions in the Arctic.

While believing the draft plan is going in the right direction, they also concluded it is lacking in some areas, due to too many unknowns about the Arctic, and there is a greater need for interagency cooperation to smooth over those gaps.

“EBM considers the entire ecosystem, including humans; CMSP reflects the diversity of marine resources,” Leath said. “For EBM, we saw a need to recognize the problems of shared goals with most agencies, which tend not to agree on the best ways to address an issue, and to identify and implement pilot projects to ensure effectiveness. For CMSP, we discussed the need to bring regions together to facilitate efficiently, the importance of leadership among agencies, and the role of subcommittees.”

Smith’s team looked at how the NOPIP seeks to address major changing conditions in the Arctic, including environmental changes and response techniques, currently poor forecasting capabilities, a lack of distributed biological observatories, and incomplete mapping and charting.

“We recommended emphasizing additional Coast Guard funding required for on-scene maritime presence and adding a milestone to strengthen partnerships with all Alaskan native organizations,” she said. “And expand on the responsibility for mapping and charting to include the Coast Guard and other agencies, which currently is only a NOAA [National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration] responsibility.”

Brought in as the Academy’s first fellow at the new Center for Maritime Policy and Strategy (CMPS), Allen said the Arctic Symposium provided a “good fit” for the center and cadets, “who were able to engage in a number of research and analysis projects relative to the wider Coast Guard, but also to things they are likely to encounter in their future careers.

“Senior Coast Guard leadership is concerned we need to do a much better job of conveying strategic intent, not just among senior officers but throughout the officer and enlisted corps,” he said. “This is the first real year for CMPS and I think it has been a great start, putting these students way ahead of their peers. Looking not only at today, but where the Coast Guard is going.”

Cadet research, and bringing attention of that research to the Coast Guard, DoD, and the other agencies with which the service works is not new at the Academy, but is moving into the 21st century with an increased level of importance and emphasis.

This article first appeared in Coast Guard Outlook: 2012 Summer Edition.