This entry is a subentry of Service Academies.
The U.S. Naval Academy is a four‐year undergraduate institution whose mission is to educate and train officers for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. The academy was founded in 1845 by Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft. He overcame years of congressional opposition to a naval school by transferring Fort Severn, an old army post on the banks of the Severn River in Annapolis, Maryland, to the navy for a naval school. Earlier, American naval officers were trained on shipboard by schoolmasters or chaplains, but the inefficiency of this system led to appeals for a naval school ashore. The Naval School opened 10 October 1845 with fifty‐six midshipmen and seven faculty members under the direction of the first superintendent, Franklin Buchanan. Five years later, with a new four‐year curriculum, summer cruises, and major improvements to the physical plant, the school became known as the U.S. Naval Academy.
Over its 152‐year history, the U.S. Naval Academy has expanded from the original 10 acres and antiquated buildings of Fort Severn to a modern, 338‐acre campus designed by Ernest Flagg in 1894. His French Renaissance buildings, including Bancroft Hall and the Naval Academy Chapel, were completed early in the century, but complemented in the 1960s by the addition of three classroom buildings, the Nimitz Library, Halsey Auditorium, and recently a Brigade Activity Center.
The Naval Academy program is supervised by a board of visitors and administered by an academic board composed of the superintendent, commandant, academic dean, and division directors. Once called “naval cadets,” since 1902 students have been referred to as “midshipmen,” a name originating in the days of sail. A need for more junior officers just prior to World War I prompted expansion of the student body to a regiment of 1,240 men. Today, the Brigade of Midshipmen numbers about 4,600, including women, who were first admitted in 1976 and now comprise about 10 percent of each class. Three African Americans entered the academy in the 1870s, but the first to graduate was Wesley A. Brown, Class of 1949. The number of minorities was increased from 9 midshipmen in 1965 to 178 by 1974; today, minority midshipmen compose about a fifth of each entering class.
Applicants to the academy must qualify scholastically, physically, and medically, and obtain an executive nomination. Once admitted, midshipmen are educated at government expense in a four‐year program taught by a civilian‐military faculty. In the 1960s, Superintendents Charles C. Kirkpatrick and James F. Calvert expanded the core curriculum with the Trident Scholar independent study program, elective majors, and more professional courses. Midshipmen are under military discipline and are bound by the honor concept, which states: “A Midshipman may not lie, cheat, or steal.”
Athletics, first encouraged as intramurals by Adm. David Dixon Porter, superintendent after the Civil War, remain important to the academy program, and all midshipmen are required to participate in year‐round sports. A navy football team was organized in 1882 and played the first Army‐Navy football game at West Point on 29 November 1890. Blue and gold colors were chosen in 1893 and a navy team mascot, Bill the Goat, was first adopted by Commandant of Cadets Cmdr. Colby M. Chester (Class of 1864) in 1890.
U.S. Naval Academy graduates are awarded a bachelor of science degree, first given in 1933, and commissioned as ensigns in the U.S. Navy or as second lieutenants in the U.S. Marine Corps. Because their education is paid for by the government, they are required to serve five years on active duty following graduation. Although the academy provides only a fraction of the navy's officers, many senior naval officers have been or are Annapolis graduates. Distinguished graduates include Admirals George Dewey and William Sampson; Fleet Admirals Ernest J. King, Chester Nimitz, and William F. Halsey; Nobel Prize winner Albert Michelson; historian Alfred T. Mahan; inventor Bradley Fiske; Adm. Arleigh Burke; and President Jimmy Carter.
[See also Education, Military; Leadership, Concepts of Military.]
Bibliography
- Jack Sweetman, The U.S. Naval Academy: An Illustrated History, 1979. United States Naval Academy Catalogue, 1988–89
