Updating the Academies

The unchanging problem of U.S. service academies is how to cram two educations, military and civilian, into the time normally required for one. In an age of awesome weaponry and a worldwide battle of ideas, the problem is getting some new answers, notably at the new Air Force Academy north of Colorado Springs--where the aim is "education, not training," the curriculum is evenly split between science and the humanities, and the students hardly touch their seats to cockpits in four years. Last week the Army and Navy turned in the same direction.

The Naval Academy announced that it was junking six "hardware'' courses, e.g., "Naval Boilers'" and "Ship Stability," in favor of "studies of a fundamental nature which will not soon go out of date." Among them: a new course in vector calculus, a 25% increase in the basic physics course, a general shift in all engineering subjects "away from applied engineering to more of a basic science approach." In another innovation, Annapolis will credit 190 incoming middies this fall for a total of 316 college courses they took before entering the academy. The new students will move straight into advanced classes, later on they may earn the right to take "overload" electives in addition to their normal curriculum. Of this year's middies, 367 are signed up for overload courses, mostly in science (which still outranks the humanities at Annapolis by 2 to 1).

At West Point, students will increase work in the humanities by about 15% this fall. Vocational courses such as map reading and graphics will be clipped enough to increase classes in the social sciences by ten minutes each. But like Annapolis, West Point will continue to emphasize science (62% of the nonmilitary curriculum). This year West Point will boost studies in nuclear physics, electronics, the effects of radiation. Plebes who are tops in mathematics will leapfrog into advanced subjects, e.g., vector analysis.

The Military Academy is still in the middle of a wide-ranging study of the curriculum, begun last year by querying 13,000 West Point graduates (including Dwight Eisenhower) on what changes they thought should be made. The alumni came up with a good many provocative ideas, e.g., women instructors, but agreed on little. West Point then called in a panel of consultants headed by Dr. Frank Bowles, president of the College Entrance Examination Board, who urged 1) some elective courses, 2) more humanities and 3) more specialization in the upper classes. "The problem is where to put it in the curriculum," said Bowles, who estimates that revisions will go on gradually for the next five years.

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