The contest between professionalism and academic effort figured heavily in the founding of the school and has been evident in its affairs ever since. The present Superintendent intends to see that the balance—"the balance between Athens and Sparta," he calls it—is retained. But, he reminds us, Annapolis' fame rests on having produced effective leaders, not renowned scholars.
One hundred and twenty-five years ago this month about 60 somewhat disheveled young men assembled in an old Army fort on the Severn River along with some officers and a small group of civilian instructors. The formation was unimpressive but, nevertheless, important from a historical point of view. The U. S. Navy, after prolonged controversy, had decided to move its officer education program ashore—the formation marked the beginnings of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The conservatism which so often becomes part of the character of men who deal with the sea was particularly evident in this controversy. How could young men learn to be naval officers except by going to sea? If the professors who, in 1845, were a small, but established, part of the Navy, were permitted to get the midshipmen ashore in some sort of permanent school, who could tell what would happen? Certainly nothing good!
Nevertheless, two developments had come about which made the move appear, on balance, to be necessary for the long-term well-being of the Navy. First, there was a growing need for more professionalism in the Navy's officer corps. In the fall of 1842, a near-mutiny had occurred in the brig Somers while she was returning from the African coast to New York. A midshipman (who happened to be the son of the Secretary of War) and two enlisted men were tried, convicted and hanged at sea. The resulting investigation and furor focused unfavorable public attention on the conditions in which future naval officers were being trained.
The second factor was the introduction of the steam-driven warship into the Navy. The launching of the Fulton, the Navy's first practical ship of this kind, in 1837, was followed only a short time later by the Ericsson-designed screw-propelled Princeton. It became apparent to many that these new warships and their machinery would revolutionize the Navy and place new requirements on its officers. A school ashore was the logical place for the Navy's midshipmen to receive the more complete education needed to meet the challenge.
These two factors so important in the founding of the Academy—military professionalism and the need for sound education—have played significant roles in its history ever since. To some degree they are always in conflict, but they can, and have lived together in more or less fruitful coexistence on the Severn for 125 years. Each factor has its strong advocates, each has its staunch opponents, but again and again it has been demonstrated that the graduates of the Academy who contribute the most are those who have best combined true military professionalism with sound learning. Clearly, this will be the case in the remaining years of the 20th century. There can be little doubt that the Navy faces difficult times in the years ahead. Budgetary considerations and, indeed, the whole mood of the American people indicate that a lean period is in the offing. Historically, the Naval Academy has played an important role for the Navy in such periods. Will this be true again?
In an attempt to find an answer to this question, let us see if we can obtain some sort of perspective on the history of the Naval Academy as it relates to the Navy and to the nation. Taking the risk inherent in all historical generalizations, I would submit that there have been three great cycles in the history of the Academy. Each of these cycles has been characterized by a period of high military and naval activity, a period of change at the Naval Academy, a period of declining support of the Navy itself by the Congress and, finally, a period of high professionalism and productivity at the Academy.
Let me be more specific. The Academy was barely started when the Civil War disrupted it almost completely. When Admiral David Dixon Porter came back from the war to take over as Superintendent in 1865, the old site on the Severn had been almost wrecked through its use as an Army hospital. He and his Commandant, Stephen B. Luce, had to start from scratch in the renovation of the site and the establishment of an effective institution. The late 1860s were great years of change at Annapolis. Porter and Luce renovated the grounds, introduced new uniforms, commenced military drill, competitive athletics, and the system of graduated privileges which has been fundamental to the military side of the school ever since. Discipline, dedication, and accountability appeared on the Severn for the first time and the Academy began to establish a reputation for professionalism.
The 1870s and 1880s saw the Navy itself neglected by the Congress as the nation turned its attention elsewhere. Ships lay at anchor, promotion stagnated, and the profession seemed to be declining—but there was a great period of productivity at Annapolis. The engineering education was improved, military professionalism remained at a high level, and the Academy received international attention for the quality of its programs.
The second great cycle began with the naval activity associated with the Spanish-American War and World War I. Once again, great changes occurred at Annapolis. The new buildings of Ernest Flagg were put up in the early 1900s and the physical appearance of the Academy, as most of us have known it, came into being. Admiral Dewey laid the cornerstone of the new chapel, smart new uniforms were introduced and, in 1907, Anchors Aweigh was played for the first time at an Army-Navy football game. In the 1920s and early 1930s a new wave of anti-militarism struck American society and the Washington Naval Conference was only the first manifestation of another period of neglect and decline for the Navy itself. As many of the present generations know, however, these same years were a time of great productivity and effectiveness for the Naval Academy.
If this historical analysis has validity, it is entirely possible that we are experiencing a third great cycle at the present time. In a broad sense, World War II, the Korean War, and the Southeast Asian conflict add up to one long period of military activity which has had an impact on American society evident to all of us today. There have been changes at the Academy during the 1960s which, while less significant than those which occurred during the 1860s, are nonetheless among the most fundamental ones in the history of the school. As I said earlier, there are signs that we are entering a period of declining support for the active Navy itself. Will Annapolis be able to maintain its tradition of unusual professionalism and productivity during this apparently inevitable period of slackened activity? Only time will tell, but a sense of history is important to any great organization and there are those of us at Annapolis who are confident that the Academy is just now entering into one of its great periods of service to the Navy.
Let us examine, a bit more closely, what has been happening on the Severn during the 1960s. First of all, there have been physical changes. The first major building program since Ernest Flagg's buildings were put up at the turn of the century is underway. San Francisco architect John Warnecke has been given the task of creating the new look at Annapolis and he is off to an excellent start with the recently-completed Michelson and Chauvenet Halls. While strikingly contemporary, they nevertheless pick up the mansard roofs and generally French flavor of Flagg's 70-year old structures in a manner which avoids an unpleasant clash of new and old. More important, the classrooms, lecture halls, and laboratories of Michelson and Chauvenet are among the finest in any undergraduate institution in the nation today.
Warnecke has been given the contract, along with the George M. Ewing firm of Philadelphia, to develop the new library and engineering studies complex which are the next parts of the master plan for the new Academy. The library design is complete, Congress has authorized and appropriated the funds, and the contract for construction was recently signed. The new library is a superb architectural design which, while similar to Chauvenet and Michelson in motif, is sufficiently different to provide variety and symmetry. It should be ready for use in 1972.
The engineering building design is nearing completion and authorization of the first portion of this sizable undertaking is now under study by the Congress. The laboratories of the new engineering complex will be appropriate to the advances in engineering curriculum which have occurred at the Academy during the 1960s and, which indeed, will enable Annapolis to take its place among the nation's foremost undergraduate engineering schools. This magnificent structure, when completed, will be perhaps the most symbolic of all the new buildings at Annapolis. It is built for, and suited to, the advances in engineering education which have been part of the reforms of the 1960s. It recognizes the new requirements for engineering excellence posed by the ships and aircraft of the modern Navy and it symbolizes the fact that, despite all the requirements placed on it for other academic skills, the Naval Academy must always remain, primarily, an engineering school.
In addition to the new buildings, there has been a significant effort in recent years to upgrade the appearance and maintenance of the Yard itself. The Academy has recognized, with full support from its leadership in Washington, that pride in appearance, always important to a military organization, will be particularly essential for Annapolis during the 1970s.
Fine new buildings and handsome grounds will do very little to accomplish our goals, however, unless the young men who graduate from the Academy have themselves the professionalism and academic excellence symbolized by Annapolis in the past and required in more demanding measure by the future. This is where the main effort must go—and has been going. The story of the curriculum reforms of the 1960s has been told so often that it needs no more than a brief summary here:
- In the academic year 1959-60, provisions were made, for the first time, for entering midshipmen to take validating examinations which could exempt them from prescribed courses within the essentially lock-step curriculum and thus free time for elective courses. Electives thus in obtained, along with overloads authorized special cases, could be combined to produce a minor, or even a major, beyond the basic curriculum.
- The Curriculum Review Board of 1959, chaired by Dr. Richard G. Folsom, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and consisting of four other academicians plus then Rear Admirals Frederick Ashworth and Horacio Rivero, gave specific recommendations in methods of instruction, laboratory procedures, the library, admissions policy, faculty, and administration which provided, more than any other source, a blueprint tor the academic reforms of the 1960s.
- In the summer of 1963, Dr. A. Bernard Drought, formerly Dean of the School of Engineering at Marquette University, came to the Academy as Academic Dean. Shortly thereafter the position of Secretary of the Academic Board, long held by a Navy captain, was abolished and henceforth all Department Heads (seven Navy captains) reported directly to the Academic Dean.
- In the fall of 1964, the basic course of study for midshipmen, known as the core curriculum, was reduced to become 85% of the semester hours, with the remaining 15% made available for electives, so that each Man could obtain a minor without validating or overloading. Validation and overloading could, of course, be employed to produce further enrichment of the program and, in many cases, a major.
- In the fall of 1966, the then Under Secretary of the Navy, Robert H. B. Baldwin, appointed a 12-member Academic Advisory Board to assist the Superintendent in the conduct of academic reforms. This move was partially in response to criticism of the Academy's programs which had evolved from the 1965 visit of the Evaluation Team of The Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Significantly, two members of the 1959 Folsom Board were appointed—Dr. Folsom himself, still President of Rensselaer, and Admiral Horacio Rivero, then Vice Chief of Naval Operations. Dr. Milton Eisenhower, then President of Johns Hopkins University, was the first chairman, and Vice Admiral William R. Smedberg, a former Superintendent, has served on the Board since its inception.
When I arrived at Annapolis in the summer of 1968 to relieve Rear Admiral Draper Kauffman as Superintendent, he summarized for me his general satisfaction with progress in the academic area, but he also flagged three concerns:
- First, the nearly decade-long effort to upgrade the content and quality of the core curriculum (and, in particular, its analytical and principle-oriented engineering content) had resulted in a serious loss of professional emphasis. No one wanted a return to the trade school approach, but there was such concern over the problem that Admiral Kauffman had appointed a board of five Navy captains to study the matter. He presented me with their three-inch thick report.
- Second, the same long-continued upgrading of the core curriculum engineering content had produced a situation where several of the core courses were so difficult that at least a third of the members of each class were having difficulty in getting more than a plug-and-chug understanding of the material.
- Finally, there was clear evidence that academic performance in the elective courses was far better than in the 85% of the program required as core courses. Both Admiral Kauffman and Dean Drought were anxious to develop some means of increasing the percentage of time spent in elective courses.
With these turnover briefings freshly in mind, I turned to the report of the Professional Education Board. It was clear from that report, from my own recent experiences at sea, and from conversations with many officers of the Fleet, that our main task had to center around improving the quality and quantity of professional, shipboard-oriented education and training at the Academy. The reasons for this conclusion were many but they all added up to the same thing—the mission of the Academy is to produce professional officers for the naval service. In our enthusiasm to be responsive to the post-Sputnik wave of concern over American education, we had permitted professional education and training to be pushed too much to one side.
On the other hand, the Academy was faced, in the summer of 1968, with two rather unpleasant, but highly relevant, facts. The combination of long-term, unprecedented affluence in the nation, coupled with a growing wave of anti-military feeling stemming mainly from the war, had begun to have its effect on the Naval Academy, as well as on West Point and Colorado Springs. The number of nominations from Presidential and Congressional sources to enter the Naval Academy had been on a steady overall downward trend and had reached a point of genuine concern. Secondly, the voluntary resignation rate had been increasing and, during the summer of 1968, was a matter of particular concern with the new Plebe class.
All of these factors had to be taken into consideration in the determination of corrective moves. Obviously, some of the factors were conflicting, and considerable consultation and thought were indicated before any specific steps could be taken. I asked for a thorough briefing by each academic department, including the texts in use, visited classes, talked with many professors and midshipmen, discussed the problem with alumni of the Naval Academy, and talked with selected high school teachers and counselors. The fall meeting of the Academic Advisory Board in 1968 was particularly fruitful. Here I was able to get the views of Dr. Folsom and Dr. Herbert Longenecker, President of Tulane, as well as those of Admiral Rivero and Vice Admiral Smedberg. Later in the fall, I discussed the issues with the Board of Visitors, among whose members at that time was Dr. Edwin Harrison, a 1939 graduate of the Naval Academy and then President of Georgia Tech. I was also grateful that during this period I had the opportunity to hold talks with Admiral Moorer, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Clarey, the Vice Chief, and Vice Admiral Duncan, the Chief of Naval Personnel.
By the spring of 1969, the following conclusions had been reached:
- The professional, shipboard-oriented courses in the curriculum were inadequate in quantity and quality. Their timing was not optimum within the four-year period and, in particular, they did not tie in adequately with the summer programs. Practical, shipboard-oriented, engineering, electrical, and electronic principles were not being adequately or effectively taught.
- The core curriculum, constituting 85% of the required semester hours, attempted too big a task. There was something of everything that "each Naval Academy graduate needed to know," but many of the subjects, inevitably, were covered too superficially to be of real value to the midshipmen.
- The minors programs, while aimed in the right direction, did not provide enough time so that any one area could be studied in sufficient depth to provide that vigorous academic experience which must be part of a useful undergraduate education.
- The curriculum was not effective in keeping the Naval Academy competitive with other colleges in attractiveness to capable high school men. In today's world, the young men we need most do, indeed, study college catalogs very closely to see what courses and programs are available.
How could we both increase the professional shipboard-oriented programs (we estimated they needed to be nearly doubled) and, at the same time, produce academic programs capable of keeping the Naval Academy attractive to the realistic and better-educated youth of today? The answer was fairly obvious—we had to stop asking "What must every Naval Academy graduate be able to bring to the Fleet? and start asking "What must every Naval Academy class bring to the Fleet?" The core curriculum had to go and we had to permit each midshipman to select a program which interested him, was oriented to the needs of the Navy, and still left room for the sharply increased amount of professional material being planned.
Once the decision to drop the core curriculum concept had been made, a large amount of flexibility was obtained. The entire program could then be restructured to meet our objectives. Most of the spring of 1969 was devoted to constructing a new academic program around the following guidelines:
- The only courses required by name and number are the professional courses. These comprise roughly one-third of the total program—about double the previous percentage.
- Each midshipman may choose an area of major academic concentration from about 20 available. While the majority of these are in engineering, science, mathematics, and management, there are also majors related to the Navy's interests in international affairs and government.
- Each academic major requires certain minimums in mathematics, science, and humanities. In general these are met by the area elective system—a required number of courses in a given area to be chosen from a list of offerings.
- Each academic major produces enough depth of study in a given discipline to produce a recognized major. Free electives in the major area are available in most programs. The engineering majors are adequate in breadth and depth to warrant Engineer's Council for Professional Development (ECPD) certification. (In order to keep the engineering majors within workable bounds, certain of the professional shipboard engineering courses are omitted, but almost all of this practical material is covered in the engineering major subjects themselves.)
- All engineering, math, and science majors require at least five semesters of mathematics—some more. All of the other majors require at least six semesters of foreign language. Thus, each majors program includes either a rigorous program of mathematics or an in-depth study of one foreign language. There is no easy path.
- Because of the intensity and rigor of the programs, it is necessary for a young man to decide during Plebe summer ma whether he wants to go into the engineering-math-science area or into the international affairs-government area. Specific majors choices must be made before the beginning of the Youngster (second) year. Changes in majors can usually be handled up through tend of Youngster year.
- Ceilings have been established on all general areas of majors programs in order to ensure that the proportion of graduates in the various disciplines is in general consonance with the Navy's P-coded subspecialty structure, the overall Postgraduate program, and the available studies giving projections of naval officer skill requirements in the years ahead.
The majors curriculum was inaugurated in September ii3f 1969 for the three lower classes. The Class of 1970 had gone too far with the old program to shift over. In September of 1970 all four classes were enrolled in the new curriculum. All of the preliminary indications are favorable. Academic performance is up sharply, the percentage of high grades is up, academic discharges are down significantly, and informal reaction among both and midshipmen is excellent. Moral: the young men of today perform better studying in areas of their choice rather than in a lockstep curriculum.
Performance in the professional courses has, thus far, been encouraging. Reaction to the Youngster LPD dedicated cruise is excellent—for the first time in many years there is genuine excitement among the Plebes in looking forward to Youngster cruise.
Developments in regard to interest in entering the Naval Academy in the summer of 1970 have been noteworthy. In what has to have been the wildest spring in the history of higher education in this country, more young men were nominated for entry to the Naval Academy than ever before in our history. Many efforts were undertaken simultaneously with the curriculum change and it is impossible to say what factors were actually operative. However, in a year during which every other officer-producing program in the Navy suffered a decrease in interest, nominations for the Class of 1974 were up 17% over the year before and 29% over the year before that. We will probably not know for some time what the true reasons were, but it is safe to say that the majors curriculum did no harm.
Important as curricular reform is, it can be only part of the effort to shape the Naval Academy for maximum effectiveness in the closing years of this century. The program for discipline, accountability, and routine at the Academy has been examined carefully to see that it remains tough enough to do the job, but is also up-to-date and realistic enough to make sense to young men coming from an environment significantly different from that which existed ten years ago.
In a time when disciplinary standards are being thrown up to question in all corners of our nation, when respect for constituted authority in civilian society is at an all-time low, and when the national interest in academic excellence remains high, there is great danger that the balance between professionalism and academic activity at Annapolis could be distorted in an effort to "keep up with the times." Many critics of the Academy over the past decade have decried the large amount of time "wasted" on military activities, athletics, the disciplinary program, and the leadership activities of upperclassmen. On the other hand, the counter-critics point out that academics are becoming too important at Annapolis, that the place is being turned into a university, and that dedication to the Navy, military professionalism, the competitive spirit, and discipline are being downgraded.
The contest between professionalism and academic effort is not new. As I said earlier, it figured heavily in the founding of the school, and it has been evident in its affairs ever since. The balance between Athens and Sparta must be retained, but I would point out that Annapolis became world famous as a training institution that produced effective leaders, not as an educational institution that produced renowned scholars. Both are highly important, both can exist together with benefit, but the Naval Academy will succeed or fail in the decades ahead to the degree that it produces professional officers who have the dedication and loyalty to remain with the naval service and do an excellent job.
Another area of genuine importance to the Academy during the decades ahead is athletics. Volumes have been written about athletics at the service academies but only rarely do we get at the heart of the matter. Pride and emotion are an important part of military professionalism. The man whose drives and goals deal only with purely rational matters will rarely find satisfaction in a military career—particularly in a period when civilian esteem of the military is low. Team spirit, the battle cry, camaraderie, heroism, the desperate fight against impossible odds—none of these are very compelling to the strictly rational mind. Competent men who stay with a professional service for long periods of time do so for reasons which are at least partly related to spirit and pride.
The same factors apply at Annapolis. Pride in the Academy on the part of the Brigade is important to the Academy's effectiveness. To the type of young men who, in the main, have been attracted to the Academy over the years, pride in athletic teams is an important part of that feeling. This does not mean that a man need participate himself to share that sense of pride. Quite the opposite, in fact. Who among us will forget how much brighter the world looked the day after that memorable game in 1950 when an apparently hopeless Navy football team stunned proud Army 14-2? And for those who are interested in lacrosse, 8 to 7 may be a famous score for at least a few years to come. It is the great victory against heavy odds that catches the imagination, that inculcates a perhaps unreasonable—but invaluable—pride in the organization.
Unless pride, emotion, and dedication can be generated at the Naval Academy in the disenchanted Seventies, then the Academy cannot fulfill its mission for the Navy during these years. Athletics are only a part of that pride, but they are an important part. The Naval Academy, with teams that consistently lose or play listlessly, cannot be the Naval Academy we need. Restricting our program to intramural athletics only might be more rational, but we need more than rationality for the task ahead. We need pride, enthusiasm, and spirit. Athletics cannot do it all by any means but, like the salt in the stew, they can add a lot to the success of the whole.
These, then, are the major areas of change undertaken during the 1960s—important new buildings and a better physical appearance of the plant, a broader and more flexible curriculum featuring renewed emphasis on professional material, a still-tough but updated disciplinary system, and an athletic program which aims to remain competitive against some pretty big odds.
The balance between the professional program and the academic one is important and has been carefully weighed in an attempt to meet the challenge of the 1970s in both these areas. There is no question that the Navy is becoming more technical, that its weapons, ships, and planes are more complex to operate and to maintain. But it is also true that the graduates of the Academy are going into the toughest leadership environment that junior officers have ever known. They need all the intelligent leadership training they can get. But above all, they must have the pride in the organization, the dedication to its goals, the sense of obligation as specially-trained professionals that will enable them to remain with the Navy in the difficult years ahead.
The preliminary results are good—recruitment is at an all-time high, resignation rates are down, and overall retention rates are up—still, it remains to be seen whether or not the Academy can respond to the challenge of the third great cycle in its history. I sincerely believe that our Academy is the answer to many of the deep problems that will confront the Navy in the years ahead. We must use it wisely if it is to fulfill its potential, but that potential, without doubt, is there.
I am occasionally asked by an important government or business leader, "What is it that is so special about an Annapolis education—why can't we do the same thing with ROTC or OCS for much less money? My answer is always the same—the word is "accountability." A young man who aspires to accomplish useful work in our society must accept, in one way or another, the penalties and limits of accountability. He must be accountable for the way he looks, for the integrity and sense of what he says, for the appearance of the areas for which he is responsible—whether it is his room in Bancroft Hall, the engine room in a destroyer, or a factory. He must be accountable for the value and effectiveness of his work—he must be willing to stand and take the blame when it is no good.
Whatever its virtues, whatever its faults, the Annapolis system has, through the years, in the great majority of cases, produced an ingrained sense of accountability. Not all of us like it, not all of us think of it consciously, but it is there. It produces a strong tendency to get the job done without spending an undue amount of time pondering the imponderables which surround the task. Does the system produce doers rather than thinkers? I can think of worse indictments.
Doesn't our civilian college and university system produce just as much of a sense of accountability? It is my personal belief that up until very recently, it produced an adequate amount in most cases. But a philosophy is sweeping over American higher education today that produces just the opposite attitude. Authority, tradition, moral values—anything that smacks of absolute values—is looked upon as not intellectually respectable. I believe that the system of balanced education existing at Annapolis today, stressing accountability but offering flexible and challenging education, is going to get increasing national attention in the years ahead.
The post-Civil War period and the post-World War I period were times of great change, professionalism, and productivity at Annapolis. It is too soon to say what the post-World War II-Asian wars period will produce. Perhaps the correct balance among all the factors has not yet been found; perhaps the military and naval professions will have to be more drastically re shaped than we can yet foresee in order to respond to the needs of our society. But to those of us who have been following events closely on the Severn, there is evidence of a new ferment, a new pride, and a new determination. The second 125 years may prove to be more fruitful and exciting than the first.
A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy with the Class of 1943, Admiral Calvert was a submariner during World War II. He commanded the USS Skate (SSN-578) when, in 1958, she became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole. He was commander of Cruiser-Destroyer Flotilla Eight prior to becoming the 46th Superintendent of the U. S. Naval Academy in July 1968.