Aggies By The Sea: Texas A & M University At Galveston

Aggies by the Sea tells the story of Texas A&M University at Galveston, an unusual educational institution that began operation in 1962 as a maritime academy with only twenty-three students and now enrolls more than 1600 undergraduates studying the sciences, technology, business, and cultural aspects of the sea.

The first class of students (all men, as Texas A&M required at the time) had no dormitories when classes started in Galveston, so the students were bunked in the nurses’ dorms at the University of Texas Medical Branch. They borrowed their beds from the University of Texas and their training ship from the New York Maritime Academy. By 1968, though, the school had opened a full campus on Pelican Island. By then, some 150 students were studying in the program and it had its own home ship, the Texas Clipper. In 1973, the campus admitted its first female student—believed to be the first woman maritime cadet in the country—and added maritime science to its degree programs.

Nearly one hundred photographs portray the growth of the Galveston school from its humble beginnings to what it is today: a full university, nationally prominent for its focus on the world’s oceans.

Filled with lively anecdotes, reminiscences, and biographical sidebars, this lavishly illustrated book presents history with a bounce. While its appeal will be targeted to those who have passed through Galveston’s program, the record it preserves also records an important chapter in the story of the state of Texas’ public university armada.