Registration is now open for “Taking the Pentagon to the People” (TTPTTP), a free, virtual conference scheduled on Thursday, January 27, 2022 and presented by The University of Texas at San Antonio in collaboration with the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Diversity Management Operations Center. Students, faculty and staff from all institutions are invited to attend.
TTPTTP provides a pathway to connect the talents of undergraduate and graduate students to explore available career and other development opportunities directly with DoD and other government personnel. This includes employment, internships and scholarships for highly competitive students.
The program also provides information to faculty members about research, fellowships, sabbaticals, personnel exchanges and small business opportunities. Faculty and staff will be able to network directly with DoD representatives to better understand how the agency can support their recruitment, teaching and research activities. This includes representatives from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Army Research Office, Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Services, the Defense Logistics Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the U.S. Marine Corps.
The UTSA ROTC will open the conference with the Presentation of Colors and the National Anthem.
UTSA President Taylor Eighmy will provide welcome remarks for the opening plenary session. Charmane Johnson, associate director of Equal Employment Opportunity with the DoD’s Diversity Management Operations Center, will moderate the opening program. The session will also feature:
- the Honorable Gilbert Cisneros Jr., Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness;Defense for Personnel and Readiness
- the Honorable Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
- Emanual G. Caudillo, Senior Advisor, White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics; and
- Clarence A.Johnson (SES) Director of the Diversity Management Operations Center in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Defense Human Resource Activity
DoD speakers will highlight some of their current and future personnel initiatives in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, language, business, education and many other mission-critical fields.
The TTPTTP DoD College Student Symposium will highlight programs with speakers from the:
- Air Force Personnel Center
- DoD SMART Scholarship Program
- C. Army National Guard Recruiting & Retention Battalion
- Defense Information Systems Agency
- Defense Logistics Agency
- Department of the Navy
- Institute of International Education (Boren Awards)
- National Guard Bureau
- Minority Leaders Research and Collaboration Program
- S. Air Force
- S. Army
- S. Army Materiel Command and
- S. Marine Corp.
“This type of national conference is valuable to our students, as it shows them viable career pathways in government where they can use their competitive skills and knowledge to tackle grand challenges. Faculty can leverage direct contact with agencies to advance their research and find professional opportunities to further their career goals,enabling UTSA to strengthen its relationships with key government entities,” explained Dr. Bernard Arulanandam, UTSA vice president of Research, Economic Development and Knowledge Enterprise.
This is the second time UTSA will be hosting the event; the first time was in 2013.
Taking the Pentagon to the People is open to any university, organization or small business that has an interest in learning more about working with the DoD, particularly Minority Serving Institutions, Hispanic Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the country.
