The 'Naval Postgraduate School' is a
graduate school operated by the
United States Navy. Located in
Monterey, California, it grants primarily
master's degrees plus some
doctoral degrees to its students, who are mostly active duty officers from U.S. and foreign military services.
Its campus was once a
resort hotel; some of its buildings and its
cactus garden date from that time.
History
On
June 9,
1909,
Secretary of the Navy George von L. Meyer signed General Order No. 27, establishing a school of
marine engineering at
Annapolis, Maryland.
On
October 31,
1912, Meyer signed Navy General Order No. 233, which renamed the school the 'Postgraduate Department of the United States Naval Academy'. The order established courses of study in ordnance and
gunnery,
electrical engineering,
radio telegraphy,
naval construction, and
civil engineering as well as continuing the original program in marine engineering.
During
World War II,
Fleet Admiral Ernest King, chief of naval operations and commander-in-chief of both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, established a commission to review the role of graduate education in the Navy. In 1945,
Congress passed legislation to make the school a fully-
accredited, degree-granting graduate institution. Two years later, Congress adopted legislation authorizing the purchase of an independent campus for the school.

Herrmann Hall
A post-war review team, which had examined 25 sites nationwide, had recommended the old Hotel Del Monte in Monterey as a new home for the Postgraduate School. Negotiations with the Del Monte Properties Company led to the purchase of the hotel and 627 acres (2.5 km²) of surrounding land for $2.13 million.
In December 1951, the Postgraduate School moved across the nation, establishing its current campus in Monterey.
Today, the school has over 40 programs of study including
engineering,
physical sciences,
space science,
computer science,
operations research, business, international relations, and other disciplines, all with an emphasis on military applications. It is home to the Center for Information Systems Security Studies and Research
(CISR) and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security
(CHDS). CISR is
America's foremost center for defense-related research and education in Information Assurance (IA), Inherently Trustworthy Systems (ITC), and defensive information warfare; and CHDS provides the first homeland security master’s degree in the United States.
Future
In the summer of 2005, the School was placed on a list of possible base closures by the
Base Realignment and Closure Commission along with the
Defense Language Institute (DLI). Suggestions were made to combine NPS with the
Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) and possibly move NPS to
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Another idea considered was to combine NPS with DLI and leave them in the Monterey Bay area.
On
August 25,
2005, the BRAC commission voted unanimously to keep NPS and DLI in Monterey, and to keep them separate. Under the terms set by the commission, the Navy will relinquish control of the Postgraduate School's classes and research projects to an oversight board (made up of a combination of representatives from the school and civilian educators), which will report to the
Secretary of Defense. The plan is intended to cut costs by giving the school more authority to make changes to the curriculum and minimize duplication between NPS and AFIT in the
aerospace engineering community of practice.
See also
★
★
★
America's Army, a training video game developed at the
MOVES Institute at NPS
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Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center
External links
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Naval Postgraduate School