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 sixteen hundred 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. However, by 1968 the school had opened a full 
campus on Pelican Island, and some 150 students were studying in 
the program, which now 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 marine 
sciences to its degree programs.

    Ninety-one photographs portray the growth of the Galveston 
school from its humble beginnings to what it is today: a four-year 
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.

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STEPHEN CURLEY has taught at Texas A&M University at 
Galveston for more than thirty years and has witnessed most of the 
development he describes in this book. He has chaired the 
interdisciplinary General Academics department and originated the 
school's Maritime Studies degree program.



What people are saying about this book

". . . a really good read, filled with interesting anecdotes, and written 
in a thoroughly engaging style."—Robert R. Stickney, Director, Texas 
Sea Grant College Program