Prep school retooled for future mids - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Prep school retooled for future mids

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Midshipmen entering the Naval Academy from its preparatory school were arriving with badly underdeveloped study skills for the past two years, the academy’s superintendent said, which is why the prep school curriculum got a major overhaul this autumn.

Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler said plebes who had come from the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, R.I., had so much trouble with basic studying that academy officials decided to redesign the courses at NAPS to focus on completing assignments and asking for help.

“We decided the first thing that was most important was, get young people to do homework, supervised homework, in class, because that seemed to be the biggest thing over my two previous years: They’re not turning in any homework,” Fowler said. “We found out they didn’t know how to do the homework, or they had questions on it, and at nighttime even if they wanted to ask, the support [at NAPS] wasn’t as robust as we would like.”

Fowler fired NAPS’ previous commander, Capt. Leland Sebring, on Aug. 31. Fowler would not discuss the reasons for Sebring’s relief, but he did describe the new curriculum for NAPS students: During the first portion of their 10-month course of study, students take classes, then do their homework immediately after, together with their classmates and instructors — rather than that evening in their dorm rooms.

Fowler said all plebes needed to make the same freshman adjustments as civilian students, but he wanted plebes who came from NAPS to get preparation on top of their remedial classes at the prep school.

“Any college is tough compared to high school, and the Naval Academy, with all your other responsibilities, is so pressurized — [we needed to] get them the habits they don’t have,” he said.

Fowler talked about the problems and changes at a Dec. 7 meeting of the academy’s Board of Visitors, which also was attended by NAPS’ new commander, Capt. Jim Cunha, who is to take command in mid-December.

Cunha, who said he was looking forward to the job, also said he had not yet been briefed about the situation at NAPS or the success so far of the new class models. Fowler said he was satisfied with the new curriculum for the time being but wouldn’t rule out future changes.

Critics of the Naval Academy, including one of its English professors, Bruce Fleming, have said the academy uses NAPS as a backdoor conduit for mostly nonwhite students who don’t meet its academic standards. Fowler has boasted that today’s Brigade of Midshipmen is the most diverse in its history, but Fleming and others say that achievement has come at the cost of an admissions process that accepts lesser-qualified nonwhite applicants, many of whom are brought through NAPS.

Setting sights on cyber

The Board of Visitors also heard that the Naval Academy is lagging behind other service academies in helping prepare students for careers in the cyberwarfare of tomorrow, its officials acknowledged. But they say it’s catching up.

The academy has no formal information-warfare curriculum for midshipmen, nor does it have a cyber combat club to bring together interested students, but both are in the works.

“We are behind the other academies,” Fowler said, but that’s only because cyberwarfare “has not been one of our customer’s high priorities,” he said. “We’re going to catch up very quickly. We have a real sense of urgency to try to catch up.”

As the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence agencies put a larger focus on attacking and defending computer networks, tomorrow’s officers will need to enter the fleet with a better foundation about what cyberwarfare is, Fowler said.

Today, though, courses in information combat aren’t required at the Naval Academy and midshipmen have no formal club for it, although courses and clubs are reported in place at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

Midshipman 1st Class Chris Wheeler, who was brought before the Board of Visitors to talk about his internship with the National Security Agency the week of the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, said “he was sorry to say” Army’s cyber combat team had beat Navy in an NSA competition last year.

Midshipman clubs help students who are interested in the warfare areas they want to pursue after commissioning; for example, the academy’s Dolphin Club brings together aspiring submariners and helps mids interact with the submarine fleet beyond their normal Navy engagement.

Fowler showed a notional set of cyberwarfare courses that academy officials are considering, including some information-warfare courses for all midshipmen; new electives and summer training; cyberwarfare emphases for computer science and information technology majors; and a cyberwarfare club.

Academy officials hope the new courses and options will be in place as soon as next year.