Fairchild Hall
Fairchild Hall is the main academic building and where cadets spend the majority of their day. Inside they have access to state-of-the-art labs and classrooms, departmental offices, as well as medical and dental clinics. There’s even a barber shop and several eateries. Here, faculty and staff are dedicated to developing cadets as officers and scholars. The rigorous curriculum at the Academy couples the critical thinking skills of humanities and science education with the applied problem solving disciplines of social sciences and engineering. At Fairchild Hall you can build satellites, study the classics, explore global socio-economics, and even operate jet engines! The academic building is named after the first commander of Air University, Gen. Muir S. Fairchild.
Frank J. Seiler Research Laboratory
An Air Force research pioneer and former high school chemistry teacher, Col Frank J. Seiler was a strong advocate of in-house research and the effective use of young scientific officers and officer-candidates. Civilian university students had always participated in research, and Seiler envisioned that if U.S. Air Force Academy cadets could be involved in real-world research efforts, they would be better prepared for their future assignments.
CETF Annex
The CETF Annex is home to our Biology and Chemistry departments. The building houses classrooms and fully functional labs to enable cadets to conduct real world experiments. The annex also houses labs from the Civil Engineering department that includes a two story machining lab for cadets to get hands-on with creating materials. Along with Civil Engineering the annex also has labs for the Astronautics departments where cadets plan and configure satellites for future space missions.
Collaboration
The student-faculty ratio at the U.S. Air Force Academy is 8:1, and the school has 65.5 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. This allows cadets and faculty to have a more personalized learning experience.
Technology
Fairchild supports innovative classroom design and faculty work with cadets to ensure the effective use of technology to deliver learning experiences. An increasingly technological society demands that our cadets have access to proven (evidence-based) technologies and practices that enhance learning experiences across the diverse areas of study at the academy.
Research
The U.S. Air Force Academy is the No. 1 funded undergraduate research institution in the country, according to a survey conducted by the National Science Foundation. In addition, Forbes recently named the Academy the No. 5 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) school in the United States.
Our research program is fueled by partnerships, with 24 research centers and institutes, cadets, faculty and industry all working together for the benefit of tomorrow’s Air and Space Forces.