AURORA HIGGINSON/Arizona Daily Wildcat NROTC unit commander Col. Gordon Bourgeois teaches Leadership and Ethics at the UA.

Grad comes home to lead NROTC

This man does not shy away from a challenge. He served in the Persian Gulf during the first Gulf War, followed by a deployment to Somalia in 1992.

His latest challenge involves taking a motley group of UA students and preparing them to become officers in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.

But then, one might expect this level of determination from a decorated officer in the Marine Corps.

Since July, Col. Gordon Bourgeois has been the Commanding Officer of the Naval ROTC unit at the UA, where he also serves as professor of naval science.

The NROTC program comprises undergraduate students who wish to pursue careers in the naval service after graduation, as well as already-enlisted members of the Navy and Marine Corps who have been selected to complete their undergraduate degrees to receive their commissions as officers.

Bourgeois teaches NS 402, Leadership and Ethics, which is the senior capstone course for NROTC students.

The official course description states it is intended to provide students with the ethical foundation, basic leadership tools and knowledge of the military justice system necessary to be an effective junior officer and an outstanding leader.

We are truly lucky to be in the greatest nationon the planet.– Col. Gordon Bourgeois professor of naval science

The course also includes an overview of naval service legal and administrative matters, as well as the duties, responsibilities and expectations of a junior officer in the naval service.

"I help them set their moral compass," Bourgeois said.

He said while he cannot "make" students moral, he can help prepare them for some of the moral and ethical dilemmas they will inevitably face in their careers as military officers.

Bourgeois said his syllabus includes readings from classic moral philosophers such as Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who wrestle with some fundamental concepts of ethics like liberty, justice and virtue.

Bourgeois said he then takes these philosophical principles and makes them more practical for students by applying them to contemporary military situations, such as our current involvement in the Middle East.

Above all, Bourgeois said he aims to develop each student's character.

"Character is more important than anything," he said.

Bourgeois said he puts a premium on character development because Americans would demand nothing less from their men and women in uniform.

"The nation is counting on them," he said. "They always have to do what's right because it's the right thing to do."

Bourgeois has had many years of military experience to drive that message home to his students.

The son of an Army officer, Bourgeois was born in Germany and spent his early years there, as well as in England and France.

He graduated from high school in Sierra Vista, his father was stationed at nearby Fort Huachuca, and he enrolled at the UA majoring in public administration.

Bourgeois said during his senior year he received a postcard from the Marine Corps and later accepted their challenge to join after graduating from the UA in 1976.

Since then, he has held a variety of positions that took him all over the United States and around the world, including stints in the First, Second and Third Marine Divisions.

In the mid-1980s, Bourgeois served as the commanding officer of the Security Company at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md.

He was eventually selected to attend the prestigious Naval War College in Newport, R.I., where he studied international relations, military strategy and policy studies. He graduated with distinction in 1998.

Bourgeois said his experiences as an officer in the Marine Corps deepened his appreciation for being an American citizen.

"We are truly lucky to be in the greatest nation on the planet," he said.

Bourgeois said he has spent much of his career preparing those under his command for a variety of "missions," but there is something unique about his relationship to the students in his current command.

"They are the mission," he said.

Mike Rodriguez, a mechanical engineering senior who is in Bourgeois' NS 402 class, said it is an important class for people pursuing a career as a naval officer, and he appreciates how Bourgeois applies his own life experiences to the class as they are concrete examples of leadership.

"The man's unbelievable," Rodriguez said.

Other students said they appreciate the contrast the class provides to some of their other subjects.

"It's a nice break from the technical stuff in my major," said Daniel Whitworth, a computer engineering senior who is one of the students already on active duty in the Navy.

Both students said morale in the NROTC program has improved substantially since Bourgeois came on board last summer.

Bourgeois said it is his job to prepare students morally, physically and intellectually for service in the Navy and Marine Corps, and he is impressed with the high quality of students he has encountered at the UA.

"The nation's going to be in good hands," Bourgeois said.