It seems that nothing has been going right for the Naval Academy during the last few years. Midshipmen are charged with cheating on electrical engineering exams, with sexual harassment, and with disregard for the honor code. Even the football team has been a source of embarrassment.
The basic problem is that the Naval Academy has strayed from its mission of developing young men and women into military officers and leaders, becoming instead an "almost university." The trend toward demilitarization must be ended, and the Naval Academy's programs need to be refocused:
· The curriculum needs to be trimmed and reoriented.
· Midshipmen need to be held to higher standards of behavior.
· The athletic program needs to emphasize martially oriented sports and develop varsity schedules with appropriate opponents.
For those of us who graduated before 1957, the Naval Academy was casually and irreverently referred to as the "boat school" or the "small boat and barge school." The program was simple: a lockstep curriculum that focused on the operation of ships, with some math, science, and general engineering thrown in. The degree awarded was not in engineering; it was a Bachelor of Science.
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, stunning the Free World and the U.S. armed forces. As a nation, we were obviously behind the power curve in fundamental areas of technology—basic math, science and engineering. It was a wake-up call, and the nation responded. So did the service academies. The Naval Academy initiated the first of a long series of changes in modernizing its curriculum. The lock-step program was abandoned. New, more stringent courses were introduced. Previous college credits were accepted, new majors were approved, and a wider range of degrees appeared. Today, degrees are offered in 18 majors: eight in engineering, six in math and science, and four in liberal arts (political science, economics, English, and history).
Has the Naval Academy gone too far in establishing too many degree programs? Today, its academic program differs little from undergraduate programs at most public and private colleges and universities. Consider some sample numbers of degrees awarded by the Academy in 1993: Only 26 (2.4%) midshipmen graduated with majors in electrical engineering, 21(2.0%) in marine engineering, and 22 (2.1%) in chemistry, while 155 (14.5%) graduated with majors in political science. Majoring in liberal arts were 365 graduates (34.08%), a number significantly higher than the 19.83% just seven years earlier.
These majors figures raise several issues: Should the Naval Academy be competing with colleges and universities by teaching liberal arts to a large portion of the Brigade? How expensive is it to maintain a large number of academic departments, each of which teach a small number of midshipmen? What level of educational quality can we expect from a wide range of academic programs in a relatively small institution?
What can the Naval Academy do?
First, phase out liberal arts degrees. Higher-quality liberal arts degrees are available at lower cost from colleges and universities—public and private. Dropping these programs will allow the Naval Academy to focus on the remaining science and engineering majors, enhancing their excellence. Savings in faculty and staff—thus in dollars—would result. The Naval Academy would no longer be duplicating academic programs available—at better prices—in the private sector.
The focus on a science-and-engineering curriculum is more appropriate for high-tech armed forces that will become even more technical in the future. Graduates of such a program will be better prepared to lead the evolving forces. A solid underpinning in the humanities is essential—liberal arts degrees are not.
Phasing out liberal arts degrees will, of course, reduce the percentage of faculty committed to these programs, as well as department heads and other staff. Faculty members may argue that it will be difficult to hire top-quality academics to teach survey courses rather than full liberal arts degree programs, but in fact there is a buyer's market in the humanities today.
Second, sharpen the focus on technology-based disciplines. Since a technical education enhances problem-solving abilities in a high-tech environment—especially in operational and crisis situations—technology disciplines are vital to the success of the armed forces of the future. Dropping liberal arts degrees and refocusing the curriculum on science and engineering may result in a temporary slump in applicants to the Naval Academy. With an increased reputation for its technology-based program, however, the Naval Academy might eventually receive increased numbers of applications from more technically oriented youth.
Third, reintroduce and emphasize foreign language study. All midshipmen, not just liberal arts majors, should be required to study at least two years of a foreign language. In today's increasingly Interdependent world, the Naval Academy needs to move toward, rather than away from, increased understanding of other peoples and cultures. Any complete education should include some knowledge of a foreign language. Such knowledge is both an introduction to different cultures and a basis for later study, as career assignments may dictate. Study of a foreign language improves the understanding of English, as well.
In fairness, it should be pointed out that those days before Sputnik carried their own challenges. Because we all took the same courses, I had the dubious privilege of enduring three years of freshman English—first at a college I attended after high school, then at a prep school, and finally at the Naval Academy. Many other midshipmen also arrived with college credits; some had even completed a four-year degree program elsewhere. Except for their selection of foreign languages, midshipmen in the 1950s followed identical academic paths.
The backgrounds and capabilities of midshipmen were significantly different. Some had graduated from prestigious high schools with rigorous math and science programs; others came from far weaker schools. Many went unchallenged, and some were downright bored. The curriculum was broad, bland, and shallow.
Still, each of us got a basic engineering education with a focus on shipboard systems, from both a marine engineering and an operational standpoint. New ensigns were comfortable when they reported for their first assignments at sea, and this education provided the basis for a continuum of solid ship and operational knowledge for many years of each shipboard naval officer's career. (Marine Corps, Supply Corps, and Air Force officers obviously did not receive comparable benefits.)
What else can the Naval Academy do?
Issues of honor and ethics must be examined anew. Even more important than the overhaul of the academic curriculum is fulfillment of the Naval Academy's mission: "To develop midshipmen morally, mentally, and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor, and loyalty in order to provide graduates who are dedicated to a career of naval service and have potential for future development in mind and character to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship, and government."
Midshipmen should be held to a higher standard than those in the general culture. Many people today—including elected and appointed officials—seem more willing than in the past to shade the truth or even lie outright. It is no surprise that problems of discipline and ethics continue to be most troubling. The exam-cheating problems— reflecting as they may broader problems in ethics throughout the Naval Academy—are exceptionally serious because of the impact they may have on the character of future officers. The biggest mistake that can be made is to make marginal changes in the ethics program (e.g., in the Honor Concept) and then announce that the problems have been solved.
Discipline, too, becomes less rigorous with each passing year. Recent changes in plebe-year indoctrination have scaled back this basic training to a single summer. A visitor to Annapolis finds midshipmen outside of the Yard at nearly all times of the day and night. Even the Commandant of Midshipmen recognizes the problems and has started tightening some of the behavior standards. Now all hands—not just plebes—are up at reveille; all hands—not just plebes—are in proper uniform.
The Naval Academy should be a military school, not a university with a military program or flavor. Virginia Tech, Texas A&M, the Citadel, and Virginia Military Institute have programs with more military content and higher standards of personal behavior than the Naval Academy.
Finally, make some changes in the athletic and extracurricular program. Even after weakening the schedules, current football and basketball schedules are counterproductive to accomplishing the Naval Academy's mission. Navy can no longer compete successfully with nationally ranked colleges and universities in these varsity sports, especially where athletic scholarships and opportunities for professional sports contracts exist. Winning is important, and winning varsity sports seasons provide many incentives for midshipmen to support their teams and certainly help maintain high morale.
The Naval Academy should encourage and support martial sports, such as rifle, pistol, fencing, water polo, lacrosse, soccer, track, boxing, wrestling, and sailing. Last year, the Naval Academy's fencing and pistol teams lost their varsity status, joining boxing which lost its varsity billing many years ago. One might ask how a military school can discontinue martial sports that are central to the military ethos.
The Drum and Bugle Corps is another example of the civilianization of Naval Academy traditions. Over recent years, the corps looks and performs little differently from a regular college or university marching band, complete with popular music, complicated formations, and waving of colored flags. The corps must be more than a spirited, talented group of young people; it stands for the centuries that armies, (and navies) and music have gone together into battle.
A service academy must be a school for the education and training of officers of the armed forces. The course work should emphasize the handling of weapons, drilling, tactics, strategy, ceremony, and leadership of men and women. Further, the instruction must include science and general subjects to accommodate the increasing part played by science and technology in organizing for modern warfare. Midshipmen must learn to behave like the officers and leaders they are striving to become.
It is time for the Naval Academy to become, once again, a truly military institution.
A 1957 graduate of the Naval Academy, Colonel Smith served 20 years on active duty. As a consultant, he is working on a congressional study about consolidation of the services’ command and staff colleges.