U.S. Air Force Col. Jason Bell has assumed command of the University of Virginia’s Air Force ROTC program, replacing Col. Michael Hough, who is retiring.
Bell, a St. Louis native who most recently was the vice commander of the 432nd Wing and 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing based at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, said he was humbled to work at UVA, which he said is in the forefront of civic education.
“UVA has a very strong STEM programs, which the military focuses on, but it also has business, law and strong humanities programs,” programs that have strong ethics components, which is important for the decisions that military leaders must make, he said. “That is part of the reason that UVA is tops on my list as a place for education, because of what it offers holistically.”
A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Bell sees ROTC as foundational to building leaders for the military. He has spent much of his career training pilots or teaching airmen, and he said there are crucial skills which the modern military must continue to focus on.
“One of those skills is critical thinking, that ability to look at a problem from all angles,” he said. “We tend to get locked into a way of thinking, into groupthink, and come up with a predetermined answer, as opposed to looking at a problem and recognizing that I am going to approach it a certain way and you are going to approach that problem a different way. We have to teach how we do that.”
A key element of this is communication.
“Many times, we have the technical skill analyze the complex problem, but what do not do as well is express that complex problem in a simple way,” Bell said. “Many times the world is moving fast enough that I don’t always have the opportunity to be able to sit and fully walk through all the technical ideas that are surrounding problem. We have to distill it down into those things that are relevant in a way that everybody can understand. Institutions of higher education help us develop these skills.”
