UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY — According to an Air Force Academy (USAFA) faculty advisor, the institution's efforts to replace departing civilian faculty with uniformed military personnel aren’t working.
Dr. Kent Murphy has served as the senior pre-medical advisor at the Air Force Academy for the past seven years, helping dozens of cadets get into medical school each year. He is a 1980 graduate of the Academy himself.
“We've been trying to refill positions in different departments now for months and we're not finding almost anybody,” said Dr. Murphy. “And sometimes we find them and they don't want to volunteer.”
Through his volunteer role as an advisor, Murphy said he’s been in contact with multiple academic departments and individuals at the highest levels, specifically in STEM-based departments.
Murphy said many faculty members have come to him this year, expressing concern about the Air Force Academy’s efforts to fire, replace, or force out dozens of civilian faculty members and replace them with active-duty military educators.
“Simply put, we have to find military people who; Number one, have the requisite degree, which is particularly tough in STEM-based stuff because it's very technical,” Murphy said.
In a second point, he noted if uniformed military personnel do have the proper degree, they might not be current in the academic field since they are likely busy serving the nation in whatever station or mission the Air Force has assigned them.
“And number three, their commanders have to be willing to say, ‘Hey yeah, take off for 3 years,’” he said. “Well, the Air Force is already stretched thin operationally. We don't really just have this sort of buzzing pool of military educators out there that have all the right degrees that are current, and they're just waiting for a phone call to show up at the Air Force Academy.”
Other interviews conducted during the course of reporting on these controversial civilian cuts have brought up the points above, but Dr. Murphy is the first source to directly speak to the concerns as someone familiar with the ongoing discussions and efforts to hire.
Just two days after News5 published an August report detailing the experience of an Academy engineering professor who was resigning in the wake of the efforts to push out civilian faculty, USAFA leadership issued a press release aimed at assuaging the ongoing outcry of current and former faculty and staff. Watch our previous coverage in the video player below.
The release, titled ‘U.S. Air Force Academy adapts to civilian workforce reduction, maintains academic excellence,’ appeared to be in direct response to that News5 report.
In the release, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Tony D. Bauernfeind reiterated previous News5 reporting that the Academy had identified 140 positions to be defunded this fiscal year, of which 36 were still occupied. Not all of those positions were teaching faculty roles.
The remaining positions to be eliminated appeared to already be vacant due to the Department of Defense’s earlier Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), which was part of the larger federal government campaign–led by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency–to shrink the federal workforce in the early months of the second Trump Administration.
Superintendent Bauernfeind said in the release only 25 faculty members had departed this year through DRP or what he referred to as “natural or early retirements,” along with term positions ending.
He said of those 25 departing faculty members, 19 have been replaced with uniformed military personnel. In a recent Board of Visitors meeting at the Air Force Academy, Bauernfeind acknowledged it has not been a “one-to-one” replacement of faculty.
But many who’ve spoken to News5, including Dr. Murphy, have said numerous times they are skeptical of those numbers provided by USAFA leadership.
“Observations from the faculty who are there every day is they believe that number is far closer to 75 or 100, so we feel like the superintendent's comments are a bit disingenuous,” said Dr. Murphy. “I don't wanna say he's lying, but it just may be that he is counting things differently than the people who actually have to show up every day, every week, and teach those courses.”
Previous sources and interviews with News5 have said apart from teaching faculty, they’ve been losing civilians who serve as lab technicians and other roles they said are important to maintaining rigorous and strong academic instruction.
Despite worries from those current and former staff who have spoken out, USAFA has stressed no majors have been cut. In the recent Academy press release, Superintendent Bauernfeind thanked the Dean of Faculty professionals through this tumultuous year and said “They are adjusting quickly, making the needed changes to ensure we can continue to offer the majors we promised through the Class of ‘26.”
Critics immediately pointed to that specific statement as evidence that the Academy is planning to cut (or cannot guarantee) majors past the Class of 2026. USAFA has maintained multiple times that there are no plans to eliminate majors and has pointed to the addition of three new minors this year.
USAFA leadership has stressed its efforts to reduce civilian faculty and staff members is part of a broader Air Force-wide effort to eliminate 5,000 civilian roles.
Dr. Murphy said he’s been in contact with some on Capitol Hill and the Senate Armed Forces Committee, pleading with them to help put a pause on the faculty reduction efforts.
He surmised elected Republicans might fear speaking out on the cuts so they don’t publicly go against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. In his confirmation hearings, Hegseth decried civilian professors as “woke” and coming from so-called “woke universities.”
Murphy noted Hegseth himself graduated from Princeton University. Murphy said he’s been speaking to Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, and eight others on Capitol Hill who are also Democrats.
“I personally am not a Democrat. I'm very conservative. I've never voted Democrat in my life, but that's where I'm finding the support,” Murphy said. “Republicans are having a little bit of a hard time because they feel like maybe they're going against Secretary Hegseth, who is close to President Trump. And so what does that look like for them?”
In the August USAFA Board of Visitors meeting, Republican Congressman Jeff Crank, whose district includes the Air Force Academy, also voiced support for keeping civilian faculty.
Murphy is ultimately imploring Congress and the Secretary of the Air Force to place a pause on the civilian faculty reductions for the time being. He described the potential diminishment of Air Force Academy instruction as a national security concern.
“We're barely gonna hold it together for 2026 and we think 2027 is gonna be an absolute collapse,” Murphy said. “So taxpayers, be aware. Look at this. This is your service academy.”
Murphy accepted that speaking out about this issue could lead to the end of his professional and direct involvement with the academy, but he said it’s worth the risk.
“From the standpoint of anything that could possibly happen to me personally or professionally, I'd say that the only thing that could happen is that maybe I become persona non grata as a premed advisor,” Murphy said. “And you know, I'm willing to sacrifice that if it has to happen. I feel like the whole institution is just so much bigger an issue than what happens in that department. But I'm speaking out now because I feel like it's almost too late.”
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