Clarksville, TN – On Monday, May 10th, 2021, retired Maj. Gen. Walt Lord, former Military Executive Director to the Reserve Forces Policy Board in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, will join the Austin Peay State University (APSU) senior leadership team as the institution’s second military adviser in residence.
In this new role, Lord will advise the APSU leadership team on how the University can better serve and recruit military students, and he will help develop Austin Peay State University’s new Institute for National Security and Military Studies.
“Austin Peay has a long, proud history of supporting its military-affiliated students and our surrounding military community,” APSU President Michael Licari said. “That’s why this is such a vital position within the University’s senior leadership team, and Maj. Gen. Lord, with his impressive leadership skills, is the perfect person to inspire and advocate for our students. I’m excited for him to join our team and help us do even more for these individuals.”
In 2018, A special University task force studied how well Austin Peay State University serves students with a military connection, and after months of research the task force recommended creating this new, senior-level position. That September retired Brig. Gen. Scott Brower was appointed as APSU’s first military adviser in residence. Brower left the University earlier this spring to serve as director of Vanderbilt University’s Bass Military Scholars Program.
“I’m grateful to Dr. Licari for the confidence he’s shown in inviting me onto Austin Peay’s senior leadership team,” Lord said. “These are exciting times for our community of military-affiliated students, and I really look forward to growing that community and helping to ensure that we’re doing everything we can to take great care of them. The recent announcement of the establishment of the Institute for National Security and Military studies is a clear signal that Austin Peay will be taking a leading role in a critical field for our nation and the state of Tennessee, and I’m thrilled to be positioned to contribute to its development and success.”
Lord, a Philadelphia-native, enlisted as a 17-year-old, and he was commissioned as an officer in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard two years later. He entered active duty in 1990, and throughout his career as an armored cavalryman, Lord has led at the platoon, company, squadron, and coalition headquarters levels. In June 2012, he was put in command of NATO Headquarters Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he has held other critical army and joint staff positions, including allied coalition positions in the U.S., Germany, Belgium, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, and Afghanistan.
In his previous role leading the Pentagon’s Reserve Forces Policy Board (RFPB) staff, Lord and the Chairman of the RFPB provided advice directly to the U.S. Secretary of Defense on policy issues that impact the nation’s seven military Reserve Components.
Lord attended the Senior Executive Seminar at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies and the General/Flag Officers and Ambassadors Course at the NATO Defense College. He is a National Security Fellow of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He earned a master’s degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College and a master’s degree in Strategic Studies from the Army War College.
Austin Peay State University is the state’s largest provider of higher education to military-affiliated students, with about 25 percent of enrolled students having a military connection. The Tennessee Higher Education Commission previously honored the University’s support of this population by naming Austin Peay State University a Veterans Education Transition Support (VETS) Campus, and earlier this year, APSU opened the Newton Military Family Resource Center to provide seamless support to military-affiliated students, from applying for admission to securing employment after graduation.
For more information on how Austin Peay State University serves the military community, visit https://www.apsu.edu/military.
