<p>West Point wants to expand number of students</p>
<p>Times Herald-Record </p>
<p>By Greg Bruno
February 01, 2007</p>
<p>With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan straining Army resources, the U.S. Military Academy plans to expand the number of students it trains as future leaders.</p>
<p>The move, which would require approval from Congress before its implementation, is aimed at increasing the corps of cadets to 4,400 students, up from 4,200, school officials said yesterday.</p>
<p>West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, who was in Washington yesterday to brief lawmakers on the plan, said the increase would help address the shifting needs of a military at war.</p>
<p>"It's gone to Department of Army staff, and yesterday, at my meeting with the secretary of the Army, he agreed to support it," Hagenbeck said. "We would hope that by this fall, we would get approval from Congress."</p>
<p>Measuring the size of the West Point student body has always been something of a shell game. Incoming classes in recent years have been around 1,300 students, meaning that there could be more than the federally approved number of student officers enrolled at any given time.</p>
<p>But under the proposed increase, the number of students enrolled the day before graduation could not exceed 4,400.</p>
<p>Officials say the increase would add leaders to an Army expected to grow by as many as 35,000 soldiers over the next five years. "We're talking about increasing the end strength of the Army," said Col. Michael Colpo, the military academy's chief of staff. "We are going to need more officers."</p>
<p>The size of West Point's student body has fluctuated before. The first class to graduate, on Oct. 12, 1802, did so with just two members.</p>
<p>In the late 1980s and 1990s, when the Army was cut from three-quarters of a million troops to under a half-million, West Point's student body also shrank, to around 4,000 cadets.</p>
<p>But the most recent buildup at the historic Hudson River institution comes amid another expected growth spurt: The inclusion of the academy's preparatory school. A Pentagon plan approved in 2005 mandated the school relocate from its home at Fort Monmouth, N.J., to inside the military academy's gates by 2011. Moving the prep school would add another 240 students to the campus.</p>
<p>Officials are confident they can handle the population increases. Expanding existing facilities, including a new library, science center and barracks, will help reduce the burden.</p>
<p>The expansion and corps surge plans were unveiled in Washington yesterday during an update to the military academy's federal oversight board.</p>
<p>In a wide-ranging discussion, academy leaders provided details on academy programs, progress and challenges, from future funding needs to infrastructure goals.</p>
<p>An update on efforts to curb sexual assault and harassment, a subject of increasing focus in recent years, drew praise from overseers. "The fact is, we are on top of it and it has our attention," Commandant of Cadets Brig Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr. told board members. "I want to know when these incidents occur," the general said, "so we can prosecute."</p>