AFCEA Awards for Military Institutions

The AFCEA Educational Foundation presents approximately 150 awards for academic excellence in over 30 educational institutions and training commands of the Uniformed Services each year.  

For information on the AFCEA Copernicus Award, please click here.

Service Academy Commissioning Awards

One of the highest honors AFCEA bestows, this award is presented annually at the five service academies: the U.S. Air Force, Military, Naval, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine Academy. The program was established in the late 1940s to recognize the top graduate from the Department of Electrical Engineering at each academy. The current award is a Chelsea quartz ship's clock, personally engraved with the recipient's name. Each recipient is selected by his or her academy.  

The U.S. Naval Academy Award was first given in 1949. It was named "The Captain Boyd R. Alexander, USN Honor Award" in 1980.

Named the "Brigadier General Boyd Wheeler Bartlett, USA Honor Award" in 1981 at the U.S. Military Academy, the AFCEA award for excellence in electrical engineering has been a tradition at West Point since 1952 when the award was a Hallicrafters radio, model SX-42, a single-conversion general-coverage receiver for AM, FM and continuous wave.

Established in 1959, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy recipient receives the "Commodore Edward M. Webster, USCG Honor Award" each year.

Presented to the top deck or dual license midshipman for outstanding achievement and academic excellence in marine electronics, the "Astronaut Elliot M. See, Jr., Memorial Award" was established in 1978 at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Astronaut See was a member of the Class of 1949.

The Commissioning Award at the Air Force Academy was named the "Lt Gen Gordon T. Gould, Jr., USAF Honor Award" in 1983. General Gould, an electronics engineer, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1941 and was instrumental in enhancing the communications career field-giving it the recognition it deserved.  

ROTC Commissioning Awards

The commissioning award for graduating ROTC students was established in 1991. This award recognizes ROTC graduates in each service selected for his or her distinguished academic achievement in the C4I-related fields. The award is a personally engraved ship's clock.

In the Army ROTC program, this award is presented to that newly commissioned officer entering the Signal Corps who stands highest in overall order of merit. For the Air Force and Navy ROTC programs, the top graduating cadet and midshipman in Electrical Engineering or Communication Sciences receive the awards.