United Commonwealth Naval Academy (Antilles)

  

United Commonwealth Naval Academy

Motto	Ex Scientia Tridens (Latin)
Motto in English	From Knowledge, Seapower
Type	U.C. service academy
Established	10 October 1845 (1845-10-10)
Superintendent	Vice Adm Edward Copeland
Provost	Rear Adm John Philips
Commandant of Midshipmen	Rear Adm Terrance Robinson
Academic staff	318
Students	2,074 cadets
Location	Whiteport, Hispaniola, Antilles
Colors	Navy Blue      Gold
Sporting affiliations	NCAA Division I
Website	www.ucna.edu

The United Commonwealth Naval Academy (UCNA) is the service academy of the Antillean Navy and the Antillean Marine Corps, the naval services of the Antilles, and is located in Whiteport, Hispaniola. The Naval Academy was originally established in the North American mainland in 1845, in Annapolis, Maryland, before being reestablished in the Antilles after the Federalist Party defeat in the Continental Revolutionary War. The campus of the Academy is located near the site of the largest naval base in the Antilles.

The Naval Academy is known as the most selective of the three Antillean service academies, typically with less than 5% of applicants being accepted. A candidate must apply for admission to the Academy and also separately apply to a member of the House of Representatives or the Senate for a nomination to attend. Students are officer candidates and hold the rank of midshipman, with the Navy paying for their tuition in exchange for at least six years of active service upon graduation. About 1,000 new cadets, nicknamed "plebes" after the Ancient Roman plebeians, enter the Academy in late June to begin the Plebe Summer. The educational curriculum includes a broad program of both sciences and humanities, with an emphasis on military leadership, as well as mandatory participation in competitive sports. Those that graduate are commissioned as ensigns in the Navy or as second lieutenants in the Marine Corps. The Naval Academy has some of the highest paid graduates out of all Antillean universities on the basis of starting salary.

Training ships

From 1912 to 1957, the Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes, captured by the pre-Continental United Commonwealth Navy near Cuba after the Spanish–American War in 1898, served as a training ship for the Academy. It was salvaged and repaired before entering service in the UCN as the UCAS Reina Mercedes, and remained docked near the Naval Academy in Annapolis, where the cadets and the commandant of cadets had their quarters. The ship later was used by some naval personnel to escape to the Antilles in 1921 as part of the Federalist evacuation of the mainland. Reina Mercedes was then docked at Whiteport and served the same role at the reestablished Naval Academy.

In 1957 the ship was returned to Spain as a diplomatic gesture by President Amelia Abarough to improve relations with European countries, where it was formally decommissioned and scrapped by the Spanish Navy.

Appointment process

A potential candidate applying to the Academy must receive a nomination from a member of Congress or the vice president. Depending on the number of nominations that have been given by members of Congress, the Naval Academy also selects some of the applicants that have not receive a congressional nomination, who are then given a nomination at large by the vice president. All candidates that receive a nomination from Congress are reviewed by the Academy, and if any of them are not chosen by the interview board, then a vacancy is created that can be filled by another candidate.

The Secretary of the Navy may also appoint up to 100 cadets to enter the Academy each year due to special circumstances. Those include enlisted members of the Navy or the Marine Corps, relatives of sailors or marines killed in action, or children of naval personnel.

Notable alumni

• Mitchell Vargas, current Vice President of the United Commonwealth of America (2021–present)