Academy

The emphasis on character has always distinguished the service academies from other institutions of higher learning. Officers are expected to be gentlemen, not just good students. Dishonor is a deadly sin. The moral ground is presumably so high that only the most sterling young men and women are allowed XTC the opportunity to climb.Yet here is the U.S. Naval Academy -- the place where midshipmen do not lie, cheat or steal -- preparing to take action against 125 students who lied, cheated and/or stole a notoriously difficult electrical engineering exam in December 1992.

Producer Robert Rehme, a Hollywood veteran, has been named the new president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- the group that runs the Oscars every March. He replaces Karl Malden, who led the 5,000-member organization for the last three years."I don't envision any major projects in the next year," says Mr. Rehme.Co-producer of "Patriot Games," from Paramount, Mr. Rehme has been a board member for eight years.

NEW YORK - A new book by a Naval Academy faculty member about the invention of the atomic bomb was withdrawn from bookstores yesterday by its publisher after four historians complained that it contained at least 30 passages that are similar, or in some cases identical, to phrases and passages in their own works. Michael Pietsch of Little, Brown and Co. publishers said he was ordering that copies of Pandora's Keepers: Nine Men and the Atomic Bomb by Brian VanDeMark be recalled because "after consultation with the author ... we felt this was the appropriate action."

The traditional plebe scramble to pluck a "Dixie cup" hat from the top of a grease-slicked obelisk marks the opening today of the Naval Academy's commissioning week, a celebration that ends Wednesday with the graduation hat toss at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.At 2 p.m., plebes, or freshmen, will swarm over lard-covered 21-foot Herndon Monument, to retrieve the plebe hat and replace it with an upperclassman's white hat, signifying the end of their first year at the academy.According to legend, the plebe who switches the hats will become the first member of the class to become an admiral.

Portland, Oregon. -- We are reducing our military budget and rethinking our military roles and doctrines. Shouldn't we reorganize our service academies as well?America has four of them: the Military Academy at West Point, New York; the Naval Academy at Annapolis; the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut. This was once a useful arrangement. It is no longer so in the post-Soviet era.Ideally, we should eliminate the academies and adopt a system such as that in Israel, which has a unified land, sea and air force in which the senior soldiers move from drafted recruits to non-commissioned officers, to graduates of officer-candidate school, and then up the ladder of promotion until they reach the general staff.

Washington-- --With most in the Navy courtroom wearing their summer whites -- short-sleeved shirts and chalky, chunky shoes -- the atmosphere seemed more clinical, almost dental really, than judicial. But as it turns out, the court-martial of star Naval Academy quarterback Lamar S. Owens Jr., now under way at the Washington Navy Yard, is as messy as any civilian rape trial. As the judge, Cmdr. John Maksym, characterized the case during one of his blunt declarations from the bench yesterday, "This is straight-out, consent-no consent, he said-she said."

Retired teacher Judy Koenick was so moved by the moment that she drove uninvited from Chevy Chase just to blow a ram's horn: four abrupt, shrill sounds that stole, momentarily, the crowd's attention. To Koenick, whose father used to sound the horn, or shofar, at synagogue, the loud bursts symbolized the biblical story of Joshua and the crumbled walls of Jericho, of how an army of desert nomads supported only by faith triumphed against overwhelming odds. Yesterday, the dedication of the $8 million Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel was an event just as momentous, she said.

On Dec. 13, 1841, the first building of the new home for Darlington Academy was ready for occupancy. Darlington Academy was founded with the help of a $150 state appropriation and governed by a board of trustees that held its first meeting on May 21, 1836. In 1877, the academy became jointly run with the public school system. By 1891 the original stone building was in significant disrepair. A new two-room frame structure was built on the site, using the original stone for the foundation.