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Miller details academy storm, quake damage

Earthquake, hurricane, plebe summer — it’s been a hectic last few months for the Naval Academy.

Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Michael Miller on Monday briefed the 15-member board that oversees the school, reviewing everything from plebe summer physical test scores to the damage caused by the two recent natural disasters.

The 5.8-magnitude earthquake Aug. 23 caused mostly minor damage, including cracking to the boathouse and other buildings, but caused no injuries, Miller said. It shattered the clock tower on Mahan Hall.

“Because of torsion on the building, we broke the glass on two sides,” Miller said.

Only a few days later came Hurricane Irene. The academy sortied its fleet of yard patrol craft, used for midshipman training, to Baltimore to ride out the storm. The storm felled about 80 trees on the campus and naval station, Miller said. He didn’t provide a cost estimate for the damage.

In the meeting, Miller also highlighted the academy’s recent high rankings by two publications. Forbes rated Annapolis the 17th-best college in the country; U.S. News and World Report ranked it the top public school and the 14th-best national liberal arts college.

Plebe summer

Miller said the class of 2015, a month into its academic year, already boasts a number of firsts. It set records both for the largest number of applicants and the fewest number of admissions offered, making it one of the most selective classes in history. And in the entire freshmen class, only 13 mids failed the physical test at the end of plebe summer, surpassing the previous record of only 46 failures.

The number of minority and female students in the class of 2015 is down from previous years. Women only make up 19.2 percent of the class, the smallest proportion in eight years. There are 405 minority students in the class, a drop of 33 from the year before, but still forming a third of the class.

Class of 2016

Applications are coming at a pace to exceed last year’s record, with 14,000 applications already submitted.

“I don’t know where we’re going to end up in January but it seems to be on track to exceed last year’s number,” Bruce Latta, dean of admissions, told the board.

New board members

At the meeting, two new presidential appointees joined the board:

• Roland Garcia, a shareholder with the law firm Greenberg Traurig.

• Rear Adm. Michelle Howard, 1982 Academy graduate who is chief of staff to the director for strategic plans and policy on the Joint Staff. She is the first female graduate to sit on the board.