I first became aware of this phenomenon when a friend who teaches engineering at a neighboring Colorado university mentioned that three of his graduate school classmates had suddenly left USAFA within months of each other. These weren’t junior instructors burning out after a tough semester. They were tenured professors with PhDs from respected institutions, people who had given up secure positions at universities like Cornell to serve their country through education. When I started digging deeper, the numbers I found were staggering—between 50 and 100 civilian faculty members have resigned, retired, or been forced out since January 2025, creating, as one former professor described to me, “an academic institution in free fall.”
This isn’t a story about normal turnover or the occasional professor deciding to pursue opportunities elsewhere. What we’re witnessing at the Air Force Academy represents a fundamental restructuring of how military education works in America, driven by political pressures, budget cuts, and a vision of officer training that prioritizes immediate warfighting readiness over the kind of deep intellectual development that has historically distinguished American military leaders. The implications extend far beyond Colorado Springs—they touch on questions about what kind of minds we want commanding our air and space forces in the decades to come.
The Numbers Tell a Devastating Story
When you look at the Academy’s official statements, the situation appears manageable. Lieutenant General Tony Bauernfeind, who took over as superintendent in August 2024, has consistently maintained that approximately 25 faculty members departed through natural attrition, retirements, and the federal government’s Deferred Resignation Program. That’s roughly 5% of the faculty—a significant number, perhaps, but not catastrophic for an institution that has always experienced some turnover as military officers rotate through assignments.
But the official numbers don’t capture the full reality that faculty members and internal sources have described to reporters and accreditation bodies. According to multiple accounts from professors with decades of combined experience, the actual number of departures is closer to 50 or even 100 when you account for early retirements, people who found other jobs after receiving termination warnings, and visiting professors whose contracts weren’t renewed. The Systems Engineering department alone went from six full-time faculty members in January 2025 down to just three by August—a 50% reduction in a single academic year.
The financial picture helps explain why this is happening. An internal email obtained by KOAA News confirmed that the Academy faced a $10 million shortfall in civilian pay for fiscal year 2025. As part of the broader Trump administration effort to reduce the federal civilian workforce, USAFA identified 140 civilian positions for elimination. Of those, 36 were currently filled positions that would be cut entirely rather than backfilled, while 104 were vacant positions that would simply be eliminated. When professors took buyouts through the Deferred Resignation Program—which offered months of continued pay in exchange for resigning—their positions disappeared with them.
What makes these numbers particularly alarming is the concentration of losses in specific departments. Engineering and science programs have been hit hardest, precisely the areas where you would think a military academy preparing future technologists and weapons system designers would want to maintain maximum strength. The Behavioral Science department lost four seasoned civilian PhD professors between April and December 2025. The Mechanical Engineering department saw multiple senior departures and expects to lose seven more PhD faculty members in 2026 due to retirements and rotations.
The Human Stories Behind the Statistics
Numbers can obscure the individual human experiences that make a crisis real. When I read about Dr. Brian Johns, I saw the story of someone who made a genuine sacrifice to serve, only to feel betrayed by the institution he joined. Johns had a tenured position at Cornell College in Iowa—a secure academic home with established research programs and predictable career progression. He gave that up in 2023 to join the Air Force Academy, accepting what was advertised as a long-term, tenure-track faculty appointment in the Systems Engineering department.
His experience in early 2025 illustrates the psychological toll these cuts took, even on people who ultimately kept their jobs. In February, Johns received an email telling him he needed to speak with his department head immediately because he would probably be fired the next day. The termination never materialized—he learned the following day that his position was secure through December 2025—but the damage was done. Months of job insecurity, watching colleagues leave, and wondering if he would be next, pushed him to start looking elsewhere. By August 2025, he had resigned to take a position at Colorado State University, leaving his former department even more shorthanded.
“I think a little betrayed by the government to a certain extent,” Johns told reporters. “I was committed to a long-term position at the Air Force Academy, and it kind of felt like they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain.”. That sentiment—of broken promises and institutional betrayal—echoes across multiple accounts from departing faculty.
Thomas Bewley, who served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in mechanical engineering during the 2024/25 academic year, put it more bluntly when speaking to reporters in July 2025: “For everyone who took them, we are down a civilian faculty that’s not getting replaced.”. Bewley, himself a former Air Force officer and pilot, noted that he was speaking for colleagues who felt unable to go on record due to fear of retaliation—a fear that has become pervasive according to multiple sources.
The psychological environment has become toxic in ways that don’t show up in official statements. Faculty members report living in constant fear of retaliation for speaking out about concerns. Academic freedom, that cornerstone of university life that allows professors to challenge ideas and pursue controversial research, has effectively disappeared, according to Johns and others. When people feel they cannot speak honestly about problems in their institution, quality suffers, even if they technically remain on the payroll.
Why This Is Happening: Political Pressures and Policy Changes
To understand the faculty exodus, you have to look at the broader political context of 2025. The Trump administration’s Deferred Resignation Program, rolled out in January 2025, offered federal employees eight months of pay if they agreed to resign by a certain deadline. While this was presented as a voluntary program to avoid layoffs, at institutions like the Air Force Academy, it served as a mechanism to eliminate positions without the political optics of firing people.
More significant than the budget mechanics are the ideological shifts driving these changes. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made his priorities clear during his confirmation hearing, calling for more uniformed personnel to teach at service academies and criticizing civilian professors as coming from “the same left-wing, woke universities that they left, and then try to push that into service academies”. This framing—that civilian academics represent a problematic ideological influence—has created an environment where PhD-level professors feel unwelcome regardless of their actual political views.
The Academy’s official mission statement change in early 2025 symbolized this shift for many faculty. Without public discussion or announcement, the Word “educate” was removed and replaced with “forge,” and “service to the nation” became “fighting and winning our nation’s wars.”. The new mission reads: “To forge leaders of character, motivated to a lifetime of service, and developed to lead our Air Force and Space Force as we fight and win our nation’s wars.”. While this might seem like semantic quibbling to outsiders, for educators, it represented a fundamental devaluation of the academic enterprise in favor of purely operational training.
The DEI elimination efforts have further destabilized the academic environment. The Academy dropped its minor in “Diversity and Inclusion Studies,” conducted a library review to remove texts promoting diversity and equity concepts, and eliminated various programs that had been part of the curriculum. Faculty members who taught courses touching on these areas found themselves suddenly unsure whether their material was still acceptable, creating an atmosphere of self-censorship that is antithetical to genuine education.
Leadership instability has compounded these problems. Lieutenant General Bauernfeind, who implemented many of these changes, is now facing his own departure just over a year into his tenure—potentially making his the shortest superintendent tenure in USAFA history. Brigadier General Gavin Marks, the Commandant of Cadets, is also retiring. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General David Allvin, who reportedly argued against reducing academic majors, announced his retirement two years early in November 2025. This revolving door of leadership means that policies implemented with great certainty one month might be reversed or modified the next, leaving faculty with no stable ground to stand on.
The Accreditation Crisis Nobody Wanted to Talk About
Perhaps the most serious consequence of the faculty exodus has been the threat to the Academy’s accreditation. In October 2025, Retired Colonel Kent Murphy, a 1980 Academy graduate who spent 25 years as an Air Force surgeon and volunteered as an advisor to pre-med cadets, filed a formal complaint with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Murphy wasn’t a disgruntled employee—he was an alumnus who cared deeply about the institution’s future and was alarmed by reports of qualified faculty leaving en masse.
The HLC responded within weeks, informing the Academy on October 14, 2025, that “the matter regarding the United States Air Force Academy raises potential concerns regarding the institution’s compliance with the Criteria for Accreditation.” The Commission gave the Academy 30 days to respond—a deadline that reportedly passed in mid-November without a formal response from officials, though a spokesperson indicated they intended to respond.
Why does accreditation matter so much for a federal military institution that isn’t going to close regardless of what accreditors say? As Dr. Tony Aretz, a former Academy professor who later led two universities, explained to the Denver Post: “You have to have accreditation; otherwise, you lose the game.”. Without accreditation, cadet credits might not transfer to other universities if they leave before graduation. Graduates could struggle to gain admission to postgraduate programs, including medical and law schools. The value of a USAFA degree, which currently competes with Ivy League institutions for top students, would be fundamentally compromised.
The Academy’s accrediting body doesn’t typically intervene mid-cycle—the next full review isn’t scheduled until 2028/29—but the speed and seriousness of their response indicate the depth of concern about what is happening at Colorado Springs. When an accrediting body opens a formal review in response to alumni complaints about faculty quality, institutional leadership should be concerned. Whether current leadership is actually worried remains unclear, given the lack of public response to the HLC’s concerns.
What This Means for the Cadets
At the end of all these policy debates and budget calculations, there are approximately 4,000 cadets who came to the Academy expecting a world-class education. They are the ones most directly affected by decisions made in Pentagon offices and administrative meetings, and their experience is being degraded in measurable ways.
Class sizes have increased by roughly 20% across the board, as the same number of cadets are divided among fewer instructors. Professors who remain are carrying teaching loads approximately 30% higher than the previous year, leaving less time for individual mentoring, research supervision, and the kind of deep intellectual engagement that distinguishes great education from adequate training. In the Systems Engineering department, upper-level courses that require PhD-level expertise in the design of complex weapons systems are now being taught by instructors with significantly less field experience.
The loss of civilian faculty represents more than just a reduction in headcount—it eliminates specific types of mentorship that military instructors often cannot provide. Civilian professors, particularly those with long tenure at the Academy, develop deep relationships with cadets over four years. They write graduate school recommendations, supervise independent research projects, provide career advice for paths outside the military, and serve as confidants for young people navigating the intense pressure of academic life. When these professors leave midstream, those relationships are severed. Cadets lose their advocates and guides at crucial moments in their development.
Cadets are not oblivious to what is happening around them. They see professors leaving, notice when beloved courses are no longer offered, and feel the increased strain of larger classes. According to an internal staff survey reported by KOAA News in January 2026, 72% of staff said the climate on campus was worse than the previous year, and only 30% reported high morale. When the people responsible for educating and mentoring cadets are unhappy and fearful, that energy inevitably affects the student body.
Looking Forward: Uncertainty and Hope
As I write this in early 2026, the situation at the Air Force Academy remains fluid. New leadership is incoming—Colonel James Valpiani has been confirmed as the new Dean of Faculty, bringing experience as a former F-15E pilot and head of the Air Force Test Pilot School. Whether new leadership can stabilize the institution and rebuild faculty confidence remains to be seen.
The Academy has promised that all majors will remain intact through the Class of 2026, and “hopefully” through the Class of 2028, depending on enrollment. But the Class of 2027, which has already signed legally binding commitments to serve in the military for years after graduation, has no such guarantees. Current discussions among department heads, the Dean, and Superintendent reportedly involve “drastically reducing the core curriculum and eliminating some or all academic majors for juniors and below.”
What strikes me most about this situation is the crisis’s unnecessary nature. The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars on defense annually. The cost of maintaining a robust civilian faculty at the Air Force Academy—a few million dollars in salaries—represents a rounding error in the Pentagon budget. Yet the decision to cut these positions, driven by political ideology rather than fiscal necessity, threatens to undermine the quality of officer education for decades to come.
The Air Force Academy has produced generations of leaders who have served their country with distinction. Its graduates have become astronauts, generals, CEOs, and public servants. That legacy was built on a foundation that valued academic excellence alongside military training and understood that officers need to be thinkers as well as warriors. Whether that legacy can be maintained in the face of current challenges depends on whether institutional leadership recognizes that education cannot be forged like steel—it must be cultivated, nurtured, and protected.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How many faculty members have actually left the Air Force Academy? A: Official numbers cite approximately 25 departures, but internal sources and faculty estimates suggest the real number is between 50 and 100 civilian faculty members since January 2025, including those who took early retirement, accepted buyouts, or found other positions after receiving termination warnings.
Q: Is the Air Force Academy going to lose its accreditation? A: The Higher Learning Commission opened a formal review in October 2025 after receiving complaints about faculty reductions affecting educational quality. While accreditation hasn’t been revoked, the Commission expressed “potential concerns” about compliance with accreditation criteria. The Academy was given 30 days to respond to the inquiry.
Q: Why are civilian faculty leaving if they weren’t fired? A: Most departures occurred through the Deferred Resignation Program, which offered months of continued pay in exchange for voluntary resignation. However, faculty report that months of job insecurity, threats of termination, changes to the Academy’s educational mission, and a deteriorating work environment pushed many who might have stayed to leave voluntarily.
Q: How does this affect current cadets? A: Cadets are experiencing larger class sizes (approximately 20% increase), reduced access to experienced professors, and loss of mentorship continuity. Some upper-level courses in technical fields are now taught by instructors with significantly less experience in those specialties.
Q: Will academic majors be eliminated? A: The Academy has promised to maintain all majors through the Class of 2026, but internal discussions suggest potential elimination of some majors for the Class of 2027 and beyond due to insufficient qualified faculty to teach junior and senior-level courses.
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