Academy

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.

The charitable arm of the United Services Automobile Association, the Texas-based Fortune 500 company that offers financial services to military families, has given $2 million to endow a faculty chair in ethics at the Naval Academy, the academy's foundation announced yesterday. The gift, one of the largest received by the foundation, creates the Robert T. Herres Distinguished Military Professor in Leadership and Ethics chair, named after the 1954 academy alumnus and recently retired chairman and chief executive officer of USAA.

Navy investigators are probing a break-in last week at the U.S. Naval Academy's chemistry department in which several chemicals that combined to create an explosion were stolen, academy sources said.Academy spokesman Paul Weishaupt confirmed yesterday that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the break-in at Michelson Hall, which took place in the early morning hours of Nov. 22 and was discovered later that day.He would only confirm that chemicals were taken, but would not comment on their explosive nature, saying it was all under investigation.

Hollywood has nothing on Baltimore's own Academy Awards. Forget movie actors. This annual event honors local stars of the hospitality business. It also raises funds -- some $112,000 this year -- for the Academy of Travel, Tourism and Hospitality at Southwestern High School, which gives some city high-schoolers hands-on training in the industry. More than 600 guests entered the Marriott Waterfront Hotel under arches of black, gold and white balloons embellished with inflated red plastic stars.

Saying the initial investigation into the biggest cheating scandal in the history of the U.S. Naval Academy was "botched," an Alabama senator announced yesterday that he will hold a congressional hearing on the probe next week.Sen. Richard C. Shelby, an Alabama Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services' personnel subcommittee, said the hearing will focus on the cheating scandal and whether it was mishandled by the academy administration."It looks to me like the investigation was botched," said Mr. Shelby, who called last spring for the Navy's Inspector General (IG)

In a move praised by both sides of the abortion issue, the Naval Academy has decided to grant a one-year leave of absence to midshipmen who become pregnant or are responsible for a pregnancy.The policy replaces one that made pregnancy grounds for expulsion and is in sharp contrast to a proposal last spring that would have allowed a pregnant midshipman to remain at the academy only if she terminated the pregnancy within 30 days."We want to make sure [midshipmen] have the ability and time to make a thoughtful and well-informed decision," said Capt.

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.

One year after taking charge of a Naval Academy soiled by scandal, the four-star admiral is cleaning the place up.Adm. Charles R. Larson -- the highest-ranking officer to lead the Naval Academy -- has moved fast to erase the cheating scandal that implicated 133 midshipmen and led to the expulsion of 24.The new superintendent has increased the distance between officers and midshipmen, changed the honor rules, tightened leave and dress policies, and begun...

The U.S. Naval Academy badly wants to put behind it the worst cheating scandal in its history and polish up a tarnished image. Contrary to what it had hoped, however, the panel of officers that ruled on misconduct charges against more than 100 midshipmen has not restored confidence that honor and fairness govern what goes on in Annapolis.The 1992 cheating scandal became a scandal in the first place because of suspicions that the academy didn't try to get to the bottom of the problem and didn't mete out punishments equitably.

A nine-year, $250 million project to renovate Bancroft Hall, the Naval Academy's sprawling dormitory, was declared complete yesterday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony inside its ornate central rotunda. Workers refurbished the Beaux Arts building's original interior, stripped out toxic materials such as lead and asbestos, modernized mechanical and electrical systems, and installed 1,600 miles of wires to equip the dorm with a high-tech computer data network. "Today is not just the completion of a renovation of a building - today is the completion of the soul of our naval service," Col. John R. Allen, the commandant of midshipmen, said at the morning ceremony.