MMA to require laptops for students> Portable computers practical tools at sea

CASTINE — Starting in September, all incoming students at Maine Maritime Academy will be required to have laptop computers.

Leonard H. Tyler, the academy’s president, said Monday that MMA is one of the first colleges in the nation — and the first maritime college — to make the portable computers a requirement.

“That’s a fairly significant change,” he said in an interview. “But it’s an important one. We’ve had a reputation for providing students with the education they need to go into the workplace. I think this will allow us to refine and develop that reputation.”

The campus recently was rewired to allow computer connections throughout the dormitories, various departments and the library, he said. As technology changes, he forecast that more and more students will be going into class and opening their laptops, rather than opening their books.

“It’s an important tool for all students, but it is especially practical for our on-ship students,” he said. “On ship, they live in pretty tight and confined quarters. A laptop will fit on ship where they would not be able to take their desktop computers.”

Tyler said he understands that the requirement means an additional expense for students and said the academy would work with them to provide assistance.

Tyler also said enrollment at the academy appears to be on target to reach 800 by 2002.

He said the school has 631 students enrolled this term, after starting the academic year with 668. Last fall’s freshman class had 226 students, he said.

“Applications are running about the same as last year, so we expect we’ll bring in another class of 200-plus next year,” Tyler said. “So we’re on target to have 800 graduate students here.”

Enrollment increases in the past several years have been driven, in part, by the variety of programs available at the academy, he said. A decade or so ago, the academy offered just two majors, both of them geared to a Coast Guard license that is required for a career in the merchant marine. The academy offers 10 majors, including an international business and logistics program added two years ago that has attracted a lot of interest, Tyler said.

The difficulty in the past had been that enrollments varied depending on the state of the shipping industry, he said.

“When times have been good, we’d have more students than we needed; when times were bad, we had fewer than we needed,” Tyler said.

The academy’s five license programs, for both deck (or navigation) and engineering students, have a steady enrollment of 400 to 450 students each year. The remainder of the students are enrolled in the school’s five nonlicense programs: small vessels, marina operations management, ocean studies, power engineering technology (a shore-side power plant operations program), and the international business and logistics program.

At this point, the academy is not considering adding any programs to the curriculum, but Tyler did not rule out such additions.

“We’re always looking,” he said. “But they would have to fall within our mission as Maine’s ocean college and would have to have some connection with the ocean or transportation. At this point, there’s nothing in the wind.”