Joseph Keefe writes a regular column for MaritimeProfessional.com and his column regularly reports on various aspects of the state of maritime education. His most recent column, Kings Point at the Crossroads, is an important one. He recognizes that there is a major leadership problem at the Academy:
“[T]he next few weeks and months will be critical for the academy as it tries to dig itself out from a largely self-inflicted mess. But the issues and failures in leadership brought out by the MSCHE [n.b. Middle States Commission on Higher Education] didn’t manifest overnight or because somebody said or did something inappropriate on a merchant ship 1,000 miles out to sea. From the outside looking in, there were – and still are – many signs of what was happening then, and still likely to come at Kings Point.
And he knows that reaccreditation is the elephant in the room and that the day of reckoning (March 1, 2017 is the due date for the Academy to respond to the MSCHE accreditation team) is now upon us:
With the smokescreen represented by the sexual harassment allegations levied at U.S. credentialed mariners now in the smoky, U.S. EPA Tier Zero wake of the Academy, it is finally time to address the real issues on campus. Looking straight in the face of five failing grades out of a total of 14 accreditation categories, academy administration and staff will (at long last) have to address their considerable shortcomings and what they have done to correct them.
Read the whole thing. He covers a lot, makes some excellent points, and is an entertaining writer as well.