NM Military Institute Official to Discuss Military History on Wednesday

Rogers State students, faculty and staff are invited to attend a Wednesday afternoon presentation about military history from the academic dean at the New Mexico Military Institute.

Brig. Gen. Douglas J. Murray, Ph.D., will be discussing the importance of military history during the 1:30 p.m. lecture in the Baird Hall Performance Studio. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Murray served as an associate professor and director of comparative and area studies in the Department of Political Science and as Vice Dean of the Faculty at the United States Air Force Academy. He also held positions as deputy chief of the Secretary of the Air Force staff group in the Pentagon and a policy and plans division chief at Headquarters United States European Command, Vaihingen, Germany, during the Bosnian conflict. He chaired the strategic planning staff of the Air Force Education and Training Review Council, responsible for drafting the first Air Force-wide education and training strategic plan. He co-chaired the Dean of the Faculty’s Strategic Working Group, responsible in part for developing the USAFA capabilities-based strategic planning system and established the USAFA Center for Space and Defense Studies.

Murray, along with Maj. Gen. Jerry W. Grizzle, Ph.D, who serves as Superintendent of the New Mexico Military Institute, will be on campus to sign an articulation agreement between the two schools. NMMI enrolls about 1,000 students from 43 states and 13 countries at its Roswell campus. It is the only state-supported, co-educational college preparatory military boarding high school and junior college in the United States.

A Tulsa native, Grizzle is a past commander of the 45th Infantry Brigade (Thunderbirds) of the Oklahoma National Guard. He also has held leadership positions in private industry, including executive positions with Sonic Industries (Sonic Drive-Ins), Orbit Finer Foods, Skolniks, CD Warehouse and AMS Health Sciences. He was named the 19th president/superintendent of NMMI in 2009.

For more information about the lecture, contact the History and Political Science Department at 918-343-6811.