The Bradley Fellowship, named in honor of General Omar N. Bradley, who served as both chief of staff of the U.S. Army and the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prepares mid-career officers to lead in an increasingly complex world. The Fellowship, formerly known as the Joint Chiefs of Staff/Office of the Secretary of Defense/Army Staff Internship (JCS Internship), provides academic and experiential training that helps officers build leadership, critical thinking, communication and collaboration skills.
Since 2003, the Army has sent approximately 20 service members to the McCourt School each year to pursue a Master of Policy Management degree. Upon graduation, Bradley Fellows are assigned to either the Office of the Secretary of Defense or the Joint Staff for one year and then serve a year with the Army Staff, where they are assigned key roles.
“The result is officers-as-students that contribute meaningfully inside and outside the classroom and later, alumni that leverage their McCourt education to help drive Army policy and manage talent,” said Nick Bono (MPM‘18), a Bradley Fellow and McCourt Alumni Board member.
“We are honored to be a longstanding partner to the U.S. Army and are grateful for the important contributions officers have made in our classes and in our community for nearly two decades,” said Professor Lynn Ross, faculty director of McCourt’s Master of Policy Management program.
Providing solutions to real-world defense problems
“Whether budget and resources, technology adoption and innovation, recruitment and retention, or veterans issues, there is no shortage of policy challenges facing the Army,” said Bono.
Bono and Bradley Fellows Tyler Horan (MPM‘18) and Brigid Hickman (MPM‘21) identified opportunities to align the Fellowship against these issues, including collaboration with innovation networks, connecting Fellows’ academic work with defense priorities and increasing engagement with Georgetown and Fellowship alumni.
New Fellowship program additions include innovation and policy-related training coordinated through the Defense Innovation Unit’s National Security Innovation Network, a policy capstone seminar focused on addressing Army-directed problems, an avenue for submitting solutions directly to Army Headquarters and an alumni network to support innovation when officers return to service.
The incoming cohort, matriculating at McCourt in June 2023, will be the first to participate in the Fellowship’s redesigned format.