Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer took only four days to appoint a new president of the Naval War College, announcing the appointment on Friday, just days after removing the college president who came under investigation over questionable behavior, according to the Navy Times.
Rear Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, age 53, was at the post-graduate institution in Newport, Rhode Island, on Friday for graduation. About 550 students crossed the stage, and about 1,000 students graduated from the distance learning program. Spencer challenged them to be innovative and act with urgency.
Shortly afterward, he released the announcement about the school’s new leadership. Because she’s the first woman to take the helm of the 185-year-old school, Spencer called her Friday appointment “a historic choice.”
“She is the embodiment of the type of warrior-scholar we need now to lead this storied institution as it educates our next generation of leaders,” he added. Both Spencer and Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, were involved in picking Chatfield reports NBC News.
A native of Garden Grove, California, Chatfield graduated from Boston University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations and French Language and Literature and received her commission as a Naval Officer through NROTC in 1988.
She served as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at USAFA and a Deputy Executive Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, and then commanded a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Farah Province, Afghanistan in 2008.
Chatfield assumed command in Guam, of Joint Region Marianas, in January 2017. As a career helicopter pilot, she previously commanded the Providers of Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 5, the Island Knights of Guam’s Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 and Helicopter Sea Combat Wing, U.S. Pacific Fleet.
