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USNA makes plans for football hall, cyber security centerDec 04, 2012 (The Capital - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Paging Roger Staubach. Days before the 113th annual Army-Navy football game, Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Michael Miller has announced plans for a new Navy football Hall of Fame in Ricketts Hall. Tentative plans were unveiled at Monday's Board of Visitors meeting. The football Hall of Fame would not replace the existing Naval Academy Athletic Hall of Fame in Lejeune Hall. Instead, officials said, it would be a historical display highlighting Navy football, officials said, although all sports would be represented. Much of the board's attention, however, was devoted to accreditation of a new cybersecurity program. Boyd Waite, the academy's vice academic dean, said the school would like to have the program accredited within four years by ABET, a Baltimore-based nonprofit accrediting agency for applied science, computing and engineering. The academy hopes to make its Cyber Operations major available next fall, so that current plebes can choose it at the end of their first year. The school also has plans for a $100 million cybersecurity facility on campus. The Center for Cyber Security Studies would be on a triangular plot between Nimitz Library and Rickover Hall, looking out on the Severn River. Miller told the Board of Visitors the academy was working to gain authorization for funding in fiscal 2014 through the National Defense Authorization Act. Board members U.S. Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, D-Baltimore County, and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., pledged to help. "We can make sure it's under discussion," Mikulski told Miller at the meeting. In other board action: --The U.S. Naval Academy Museum plans to introduce an audio tour for visitors in May. The tours will be accessible through iPhones and Android cellphones. They will be narrated by midshipmen speaking in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. Lt. Cmdr. Claude Berube, an author and interim director of the museum, said 5 to 7 percent of the museum's 125,000 visitors a year speak foreign languages. --With help from the academy's public affairs team and multimedia support center, the museum's staff plans to launch a video series, "History of the Navy in 100 Objects," modeled BBC Radio's "History of The World in 100 Objects." The academy will release two videos a week about historically significant objects, many on display at the museum. Berube said he hopes the series will raise public awareness of the museum. --The academy believes its engineering programs' accreditation review with ABET in October was successful, although results aren't back yet. Waite said the academy believes two new majors -- Computer Engineering and General Engineering -- will become ABET-accredited as well. --The academy recognized five midshipmen who were awarded the Rhodes, Marshall and Mitchell scholarships for 2013. The five scholarships tied the academy's previous record, set in 2005. Midshipmen 1st Class Katie Whitcombe of Phoenix and Christian Heller of Beulah, N.D., were named Rhodes scholars. --U.S. Rep. Robert Wittman, R-Va., was re-elected chairman of the Board of Visitors. ___ (c)2012 The Capital (Annapolis, Md.) Visit The Capital (Annapolis, Md.) at www.hometownannapolis.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |