Trouble at Kings Point
May 3rd, 2010 | Sea Air Space | Posted by Phil Ewing
Three of America’s four-star service chiefs — the chief of naval operations and the commandants of the Marine Corps and Coast Guard — said Monday they have trouble getting regular Americans to recognize and understand what their services do and why they’re important. Their civilian counterpart, deputy administrator of the U.S. Maritime Administration, David Matsuda, said he has it even worse:
“General, if you think you have it tough explaining to people about the Marines, imagine trying to explain the merchant marines, and getting the next generation of merchant mariners,” Matsuda said to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway.
That lack of general awareness could be one reason why the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., is in such bad shape. Matsuda said the physical plant at Kings Point has been neglected for many years, and that a recent investigation found “facilities that were deteriorated and outdated and in poor condition.”
MarAd’s budget request this year would double the capital fund for the Merchant Marine Academy, Matsuda said, and his goal is for it to become the equal of the other U.S. service academies that belong to the departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
Comments
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Mike Hoffman Says:
May 3rd, 2010 at 2:12 pmThe Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) is just as important as any of the other service academies and and honored part of our nation’s heritage.
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mark scease Says:
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:54 pmNice to see the condition of the facilities have caught up with the condition of the graduates. How about sending the money to MMA in Castine?
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Mike Says:
May 4th, 2010 at 9:48 pmMaine sucks
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Luca Brasi Says:
May 4th, 2010 at 10:07 pmWell the point is 99.9% of people will tell you MMA stands for Mixed Martial Arts. I appreciate that you mention Castine, so I can use the google machine and discern whether or not you are referring to Massachusetts, or some kind of barren wasteland located somewhere in North-Eastern America, in some state whose northern one-third used to be occupied by the imperial super power of… Canada.
In the fields especially concerning shoreside power plants and shipyard facilities, KP engineers are in high demand. Often I hear that managers are requesting engineers with either years of experience, or Kings Point Alumni.
I will be the first to tell you the situation of the campus has rapidly declined, this due mostly to Federal oversight and restricting Kings Point alumni from the more managerial roles on campus. Twice, KP Alumni were barred from applying for the position of superintendent of the midshipmen.
In my humble opinion, alumni must be brought back to run this school, and reverse the inept policies on campus life and academics inacted in the past decade. It has resulted in both poor morale and lower first-time license pass rates for the past two classes.
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Luca Brasi Says:
May 4th, 2010 at 10:07 pmplease tell me about maine
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Luca Brasi Says:
May 4th, 2010 at 10:08 pmi have heard virtually nothing about it, it seems so irrelevant in the shipping industry
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Midshipman Says:
May 4th, 2010 at 10:41 pmAlthough the facilities are lacking in all sense of the word, the midshipmen and staff are (for the most part) world class. You will not find a smarter, more motivated group anywhere else. I will not even bother responding to Marks idiotic comment. Throwing insults and Academy differences aside…expanding the budget would allow for better facilities, both berthing and classrooms and hopefully additional staff. In addition to the budget the school would benefit from new staff, some of the faculty has been here since the Academy’s inception (we benefit from their experiences but not from their senility). The regimental staff needs to be more in touch with the midshipmen, I don’t know how it has been in the past but the CO’s are so out of touch it’s surprising to see they even make their way to work daily.
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Leisa Tebbs Says:
May 6th, 2010 at 9:11 amI am extremely proud of my 2 sons that are attending the USMMA. I do agree that the facilities and the athletic facilities need to be improved upon.
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Charles Cumming Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 7:28 pmI just attended a KP alumni function today and, strangely, most of the comments submitted to this website were also topics of discussion at the meeting.
First of all, I would like to address the comments about the state schools. I am a Kings Point graduate and I feel that I received a decent, but not world class education. I had the privilege after graduating of sailing and working with graduates of all the state academies (except Texas). Some of the best seamen, engineers and managers I know came out of the state schools. By the same token, some of the biggest jerks I ever worked with graduated from state schools. Kings Point is no exception to that rule. The real life rule is that the school you went to really has little to do with how good you are – that is a function of the individual and not your alma mater. Therefore, I have very little patience with the idiots who have inferiority or superiority complexes about the schools they attended. In short, grow up and get over it.As far as the education the cadets get today, I think the distinctions between the schools start to get a bit more subtle. The state schools recognized years ago that the career options for a traditional maritime school graduate were becoming more and more limited, particularly with the collapse of the American flag fleet. The state schools, unencumbered by the statutory restrictions on Kings Point, were able to make their curricula more flexible and responsive to the needs of a changing industry. They started offering degrees in maritime business that did not require licenses, and offered non-degree programs in things like marina management. As a result, the state schools’ missions have changed and adapted, whereas Kings Point has been stuck with a model based upon a 1940′s era industry. Although the curriculum has changed drastically at KP in the decades since I graduated, the Academy is still not responsive to the maritime industry’s immediate needs. Since it is a federal school and still requires acceptance into the USNR and all the military B.S. that goes along with that, the school now functions as a sort of junior varsity military/naval academy that puts nearly half of the graduating class into active duty military posts. I don’t think that serves either the institution or the government well.
At the end of the day, the Academy now attracts the same type of person as when I attended – mostly middle to lower class kids that are very bright, but are economically unable to consider a higher education at big name universities. However, because of the erosion of talent and misguided efforts of the government and the alumni, the administration of the school has been left largely to government types looking for a soft landing, who have little knowledge of the school, its mission, or its needs. As a result there is an ever widening gap between the school’s needs and what its administration is capable of delivering. That explains, at least in part, the steady decline in the physical plant and the abysmal state of most facilities (particularly the library).
I am not a genie and have no magic wand to cure all the problems. However, a good place in fixing the Academy and bringing it to the public eye as a first class institution is to clean out the dead wood. For example, take a look at the faculty pages on the KP website. How many PhD’s do you see? How many advanced degrees do you see? How many heads of departments have doctorates? How many faculty members have published in any kind of professional or academic publications? I guarantee that I can go to most community colleges anywhere in the U.S. and find a greater proportion of doctorates in the faculty than there are at KP. The same is true of the administration.
Unfortunately, I have little hope that substantive changes will be made in my lifetime. Kings Point is administered by a backwater of the federal government that is slowly, but surely headed for extinction. Current funding is at the mercy of a fractured and dysfunctional Congress that cannot come to grips with the very serious problems that the nation now faces. in the final analysis, the future looks grim for Kings Point – at least from my perspective. -
The Scoop Deck – Unhappy mids, unhappy cadets Says:
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The Scoop Deck – Righting the ship Says:
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