Private Donors Help Naval Academy’s Finances

The U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, which raised about $253-million during a fund-raising campaign that ended in 2005, is gearing up for another fund-raising drive, reports the Associated Press.

The foundation aims to augment federal funds the academy receives, not replace them, and the donations it has raised have helped with needs such as renovating the academy’s sailing center and supporting professorships, much in the way private donations to private colleges and universities have helped those institutions. Adm. Charles Larson, the former academy superintendent who created the foundation in 1996, tells the news agency that a fund-raising campaign “rejuvenates people” and can help encourage major projects to take shape.

In other Naval Academy news, the academy foundation and the Naval Academy Alumni Association are losing their leader, as George Watt plans to resign this summer from the chief-executive post, the Associated Press reports.

Mr. Watt’s resignation comes amid an ongoing lawsuit by two alumni against most of the association’s trustees, who say term-limit rules were violated in the organization’s 2006 election, the news agency reports.

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