Academy Superintendent

Lockheed Martin Corp. will donate $25,000 to the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation to help support the school's Center for the Study of Military Ethics, foundation officials said yesterday. Founded in 1998, the center's goal is to enhance ethical training at the academy through "education, research and reflection." The academy superintendent, Vice Adm. John R. Ryan, said the gift will "help raise the bar of excellence" among students and "create an environment for midshipmen that is stimulating and challenging."

100 years agoAdmiral McNair, U.S. Naval Academy superintendent, in a special order strongly condemns hazing at the academy. In case of its revival, he will resort to severe measures to suppress it. -- The Sun, Dec. 10, 1898.Professor Daniels at St. John's College is making a catalog of the college's 12,000 volumes. In the list are a number of books published during the revolution when the college was known as King William's School. -- The Sun, Dec. 26, 1898.Pub Date: 12/20/98

75 years agoGibson Island was viewed yesterday by nearly 400 guests of the Gibson Island Club, the party making the trip on the steamer Annapolis. It is planned to establish a summer colony there.The Sun, Oct. 11, 1921.Coach Bob Folwell's Navy 11 outplayed and outgeneraled the Princeton Tigers this afternoon in a football game on Farragut Field for a solid 13-0 victory.The Sun, Oct. 15, 1921.State's Attorney James M. Munroe and Mrs. Munroe, of Annapolis, announce the engagement of their daughter, Miss Adele Munroe, to Lt. Cmdr.

Like her classmates at the U.S. Naval Academy, Midshipman 1st Class Dagmara Broniatowska learned how to salute, ran the endurance course and memorized the body of American military information, history and quotations known as the Rates. In her "four years by the bay," as midshipmen sometimes describe their time at the academy, she has studied oceanography, Russian and Arabic, competed with the varsity offshore sailing team and trained aboard a Navy destroyer. She expects to graduate with her classmates next spring.

Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt announced yesterday the appointment of Navy Capt. Charles J. Leidig Jr. as the 80th commandant of midshipmen, a title equivalent to dean of students at a civilian university. The appointment will be effective Sept. 17. Leidig, who will be responsible for the day-to-day activities of 4,000 midshipmen, succeeds Marine Col. John R. Allen, who has been promoted to brigadier general. Allen's next assignment has not been announced. Leidig, a Baltimore native and a career submarine officer, has been the academy's deputy commandant of midshipmen since June.

ISSUE: At Navy away games, with the exception of the Army-Navy and Notre Dame contests, a raucous band of cheering Mids, clad in white, will no longer fill the stands. Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler has ended the practice of offering midshipmen special incentives, including travel reimbursements in some cases, to attend out-of-town football games. Capt. Margaret Klein, the commandant, said some activities must be reduced to allow midshipmen to fulfill their military obligations.

25 Years Ago* $75 million proposed expansion program for the U.S. Naval Academy was unveiled today. It includes a new library, auditorium, engineering complex and math and science buildings. Rear Admiral Kauffman, academy superintendent, said that the brigade strength has increased by more than 50 percent over the past 25 years. -- The Sun, May 5, 1968.* Anne Arundel Community College has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. -- The Sun, May 16, 1968.

A female midshipman was pronounced dead yesterday afternoon after being found unconscious in her dormitory room at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, college officials said. Roommates found the first-year midshipman unconscious and not breathing in her bed in the academy's Bancroft Hall in the late morning. She was pronounced dead at 12:46 p.m. at Anne Arundel Medical Center. The academy did not immediately release the student's name, pending notification of next of kin, or provide a cause of death.

A former Naval Academy instructor who is accused of sexually assaulting a female midshipman will be court-martialed, an academy spokeswoman said Thursday. Marine Corps Maj. Mark A. Thompson, a former history instructor at the academy, is accused of assaulting the midshipman in his Annapolis apartment following the annual croquet match between the academy and St. John's College in 2011. Adm. Michael H. Miller, the academy's superintendent, referred the case to a general court-martial after reviewing information from a preliminary hearing that concluded this month in Washington, spokeswoman Jenny Erickson said.

Amelia Earhart's name is back in the news these days with the recent release of the Hollywood biopic "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank as the ill-fated flier, and Richard Gere as George Putnam, her husband, publisher and public relations executive. Critics have not exactly given soaring reviews to this film treatment of the pioneering aviator's life and accomplishments. "The filmmakers spend so much time turning her into a dopey romantic figure that they never give her the animating, vital will or even much of a personality that might explain how a Kansas tomboy turned Boston social worker took to the skies and then, through her deeds and words, encouraged other women to chart their own courses," Manohla Dargis wrote last month in The New York Times.