Massachusetts Maritime Academy - History

History

Massachusetts Maritime Academy was founded by an act of the state legislature on June 11, 1891 as the Massachusetts Nautical Training School; the name was changed in 1913 to the Massachusetts Nautical School and it took its present name in 1942. The school's first training ship was the USS Enterprise on loan from the Navy.

The school was located at a pier in Boston until 1936. It then was moved to Hyannis, MA on Cape Cod, where it remained until after World War II. In 1946, the Academy acquired land at the State Pier on Taylors Point in Buzzards Bay, MA at the southern end of the Cape Cod Canal with a berth deep enough to accommodate the USS Charleston, the school's new training ship. A classroom building was built, but life and education at the school continued to revolve around its training ships for the next 25 years.

In 1972, the state legislature appropriated money to build brick dormitories, a cadet mess hall, the library, a second classroom building that also encompassed the school's administrative offices, a football and baseball diamond, and a gymnasium. At that time, the structure of the Corps of Cadets shifted from ship-based watches and divisions to a platoon, company and battalion system similar to that of the Naval Academy better suited to the new dormitories.

Women were first admitted to the academy in 1978, with the Class of 1981. At that time, the existing battalion structure was expanded to become a two-battalion regiment as two additional company dormitories were completed. The most recently completed building was for the school's radar simulator trainer.

One unique off-campus program run by the Academy is the scale model ship-handling program (similar to the supertanker training school in France) that is run on a pond ten miles from the campus. It is the only program of its kind in the United States. Many types of 'ships' and several scale model 'ports' are set up on the pond. The quality of the training ship's officers receive from this program is such that the U.S. Coast Guard will remit a quarter of the sea time required to upgrade a deck officer's license from Chief Mate to Master upon successful completion of the course.

Mass. Maritime's traditional Marine Transportation or Marine Engineering majors were expanded to include many additional maritime-related majors in 1990 (see Academic Programs, below) in time for the school's centennial celebration. At the same time, for the first time the Academy began offering master's degree programs in various disciplines.

In 2008, the Academy acquired a Vestas 660-kilowatt wind turbine and began installation of solar power screens on top of the dormitories. As the windspeed across the campus averages 12 to 15 knots year round, the location is ideal for wind power. At present, 30% of the Academy's power needs are supplied by the wind turbine and solar power. The current administration hopes to eventually make Massachusetts Maritime Academy's campus self-sufficient in regard to electric power. As it is, the Academy is the 'greenest' of the twelve colleges in the state college system and one of the greenest colleges in the country.