“We cannot develop leaders for our nation’s military online”. Vice Admiral Sean Buck, USN, Superintendent, U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1982.
The U.S. Naval Academy is planning to have its 4,400 midshipmen return to campus in Annapolis, Maryland, for the fall, after students completed the last semester with online learning from their homes around the nation due to the coronavirus, academy officials said Monday.
Vice Adm. Sean Buck, the superintendent, told the academy’s Board of Visitors he has been communicating with the leaders of the nation’s other service academies, and they also plan to have their students on campus in the fall.
“I can tell you, as of this morning, every single military service academy in this country is opening in the fall,” Buck told the board in an online meeting. “We all are developing very detailed plans with regards to health, safety and the protocols that we need to put in place to manage risk.”
While academics can be done online, Buck said the other two pillars of the academy’s mission statement are developing midshipmen morally and physically, and those goals require hands-on experiences on campus.