{"id":13172,"date":"2021-01-29T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T14:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/graduation-of-senior-course-137\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T09:31:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:31:37","slug":"graduation-of-senior-course-137","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/graduation-of-senior-course-137\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduation of Senior Course 137"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Committee(First row, r to l) LGEN Rittimann, Committee Chair LTC Julien Mariani, Committee Vice Chair COL Matthew Smith, Faculty Adviser COL Darius Zalewski and Mentor Dr Cynthia Salloum
(Second row, l to r) LTC Victor Manuel Vela Rodriguez, LTC Pasquale Savino, Navy CAPT Everett Alcorn, First Secr Samet Ekici, COL Jesko Peldszus and LTC Jinsung Park
” \/>
Committee 7, winner of the Eisenhower Award.
(First row, r to l) LGEN Rittimann, Committee Chair LTC Julien Mariani, Committee Vice Chair COL Matthew Smith, Faculty Adviser COL Darius Zalewski and Mentor Dr Cynthia Salloum
(Second row, l to r) LTC Victor Manuel Vela Rodriguez, LTC Pasquale Savino, Navy CAPT Everett Alcorn, First Secr Samet Ekici, COL Jesko Peldszus and LTC Jinsung Park
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>

On 29 January 2021, the NATO Defense College held the Graduation Ceremony for Senior Course 137. The awarding of the Eisenhower Prize for best Committee Project also took place during the ceremony. The Graduation Address was delivered by Lieutenant General Brice Houdet, Vice Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe<\/a>, who joined the ceremony online. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we are participating in our first graduation ceremony: you as Course Members, me as Commandant of the NDC,\u201d began Lieutenant General Olivier Rittimann, Commandant of the NDC in his welcome remarks to SC 137. He highlighted the \u201cmotivation, engagement, adaptability and, most importantly, incredible resilience and personal discipline\u201d all Course Members displayed during these recent months.<\/p>\n

He then gave the floor to Lieutenant General Brice Houdet, Vice Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. LGEN Houdet, who is an Ancien from SC 109, talked about his previous experience at the NDC, and gave a few recommendations to Course Members from SC 137. He also spoke about how SHAPE is continuing to operate and accomplish its work, despite the pandemic, \u201cwe do everything in our power to maintain NATO operations and capabilities during this pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Course President Colonel Laurent Fontaine (FRA, A) and Course Vice-President, Senior Lecturer Ronneaug Holmoey (NOR C) delivered a joint farewell address. They acknowledged the high level of adaptability of all their colleagues and how \u201cCourse Members coming from various horizons and backgrounds really developed our Human Quotient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Stephen J. Mariano, Dean of the NATO Defense College, then announced the names of those who wrote the best Individual Papers from SC 137. He then revealed the winner of the Eisenhower Award for best Committee Study Project: Committee 7.<\/p>\n

The ceremony concluded with the conferment of diplomas to the 54 Course Members, representing 22 NATO and partner nations, who now officially become part of the Anciens\u2019 Community.<\/p>\n

Ambassadors, Defense Attach\u00e9s, Italian authorities and distinguished guests followed the ceremony via the NDC\u2019s social media channels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

NDC Public Affairs Office
(Prepared by Ms Laura Garcia Pesquera, ESP C)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"post_badge":[],"class_list":["post-13172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"NDC","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/author\/admin_3rwqf6tj\/"},"modified_by":null,"author_meta":{"display_name":"NDC","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/author\/admin_3rwqf6tj\/"},"featured_img":null,"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","trp-custom-language-flag":"","morenews-featured":"","morenews-large":"","morenews-medium":""},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":0,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["News<\/span>"]}},"relative_dates":{"created":"Publi\u00e9 5 ans il y a","modified":"Mis \u00e0 jour 6 mois il y a"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Publi\u00e9 le janvier 29, 2021","modified":"Mise \u00e0 jour le janvier 15, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Publi\u00e9 le janvier 29, 2021 15:20","modified":"Mise \u00e0 jour le janvier 15, 2026 09:31"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13172"},{"taxonomy":"post_badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ndc.nato.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_badge?post=13172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}