Stuff that didn't fit elsewhere:
Retention Rates
The first two years of SFA are hard. This applies for all branches - yet is more so the case for the San Francisco campus, where the pressure of being the elite only makes it worse. For San Francisco: for Plebe Summer, 10-15% of the Plebes separate from the Academy before the summer is done. This is expected and to some degree necessary; if Starfleet were to face a situation where every Plebe stayed on, or even if only 5% of Plebes left during Plebe Summer, they'd have severe space issues.
But more broadly, at San Francisco, 15-20% of the Plebe class doesn't make it to their second year. (The branch campuses, it's a bit better, 10-15%, due to the lack of quite the same pressure.) This can be for any number of reasons: Physical disqualification, mental issues, academic issues, discipline issues, you name it.
Once you make it to your second year, you're a lot less likely to quit. It's not uncommon for not a single Youngster to quit, even in the face of the "Night of No Return" that marks when the Youngsters incur their service obligation.
Past that point, voluntary separations are very, very rare. The hardest 2 years of the Academy are behind you, for one thing. It's still possible for you to be separated involuntarily for discipline issues (usually after a meeting of the Cadet Honor Board that recommends dismissal to the Commandant and then the Superintendent, as most of what causes that are Honor Concept offenses), or academic issues (where this takes a meeting of the campus Academic Progress Board, a group of professors who reviews all facets of the Cadet's record to determine if they're worth retaining), or obviously physical or mental problems, but it's not common.
[Note that Starfleet has never expereinced a drawdown in the force, canonically, to the best of my knowledge. So we have no idea how they'd handle that.]
How the staff is organized
Okay, from the top.
At the top of the Academy chain of command is Starfleet Command, namely the Commander of the Starfleet Training Command, usually a full admiral (four pips). (Usually, stuff from SFA that reaches SFC goes before a bunch of admirals, but the Commander of SF Training Command handles day to day stuff.)
Below him is the Academy Superintendent, a vice admiral (three pips). He acts in many ways like the President of a civilian college, except with greater powers and responsibilities. Starfleet does not follow the old US military practice of the Superintendent being on their final tour. Often, the Superintendent will be a flag officer recalled from retirement, or will be an officer pulled from the line for the purpose, but plenty of officers have served as Supetintendent and then gone on to higher posts in Starfleet. The Superintendent serves out of San Francisco.
The Academy Superintendent is advised in his governance of the Academy by the Board of Visitors, a statutorily-established body consisting largely of Federation Council members - the statute states that "The Board shall inquire into the state of morale and discipline, the curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods, and other matters relating to the Academy that the Board decides to consider."
Here the chain of command and responsibility gets a little complicated. Starfleet Academy was founded as a one-campus institution; many of its organizational structures have not caught up to the establishment of branch campuses.
[Given how we only have the barest mentions of Academy annexes in canon, I have to assume they were established quite recently.]
For the Branch campuses: Each campus besides San Francisco is headed by a Rear Admiral (two-pips), officially entitled the "Commander, Starfleet Academy, <branch> Annex". These officers have basically the same duties as the Superintendent does in relation to the San Francisco campus.
Each brigade of Midshipmen, including San Francisco, has a Commandant of Midshipmen. This officer, a Starfleet Captain, oversees all activities of the Brigade of Midshipmen at the campus. Below the Commandant, experienced Starfleet officers are assigned as company and battalion officers, providing guidance to the Midshipmen within their assigned company or battalion, acting as role models of Starfleet officers, and handling some administrative and disciplinary tasks.
On the Academic side, the Academy is overseen by an Academic Board, consisting of the Superintendent (or Branch Commander), the Commandant, and selected deans of the various division. Each campus offers the same academic program, set by the Superintendent in conjunction with Starfleet Training Command, but the Academic boards handle a lot of routine stuff.
The Academy's faculty is divided as such:
There are the divisions, groupings of academic departments. The divisions group several departments, or related special programs, under a dean (or in the case of the military training and officer development divisions, a commander).
Divisions
Humanities and Social Sciences
Mathematics and Science
Engineering and Weapons
Pre-Medicine and Pre-Counseling
Pre-law
Officer Development
Military Training
Physical Trauining
Library
Below the divisions are the academic departments. These are not unlike academic departments at civilian universities, and are headed by department chairmen.
[I'm not going to try to list every single academic department at Starfleet Academy.]
Civilian faculty are adjunct, assistant, associate, and full professors. (Adjunct professors are part-time. Everybody else is full-time.) It is not uncommon for there to be "Diplomats-in-Residence" posted by the Federation Diplomatic Corps, who are ranked as assistant professors, as well as other visiting faculty. All civilian faculty members have PhDs (or their equivalent).
About 40-60% of the faculty are Starfleet officers - the percentage varies, but is usually hovering above 50%. These officers almost all have Master's degrees (or the equivalent) - a few have PHDs. Unlike Civilian faculty, Starfleet officers on the faculty do not receive tenure. Generally, Starfleet officers are posted as Academy faculty in 3-year tours, but there are a limited number of Permanent Military Professors, who serve at the Academy until retirement, and advance along the civilian faculty path from assistant to full professor. The Divisions of Military Training, Physical Training, and Officer Development must, by regulation, be led by active-duty Starfleet Officers, and virtually all of the faculty in those divisions are active-duty Starfleet personnel.
SFA uses a good number of Enlisted personnel, especially in the Physical Training and Military Training Divisions. Almost without exception, these are experienced NCOs, starting with the Command Master Chief for each Academy Branch.
Outside of the Academic structure, SFA is in many respects like a normal university. There are admissions folks, and HR folks, office staff, and so forth and so on. These are typically civilian employees of Starfleet hired specifically to work at that Academy campus.
Components of the Academy that fit nowhere else:
The Academy Infirmary, at each of the campuses, is not unlike a small clinic. Staffed by Starfleet medical personnel, they handle (among other things) the intake physical exams of Plebes and the pre-commissioning physicals of upperclass cadets, and do the other things you might expect from a Starfleet sickbay aboard any ship. (Hospital care is typically provided by Starfleet hospitals, where possible.)
{If the Academy has chaplains, they have a Chaplains section, if not a Chapel. I'd see chaplains deployed at the Academy battalion level for the cadets.]
Post-Graduate training
On SFA's expansive San Francisco campus, numerous advanced training programs are hosted.
Among some of them:
Starfleet Medical School, known often as "Starfleet Medical", operates under the auspices of the Starfleet Medical Command. This institution trains Starfleet's physicians.
[It makes more sense to imagine that Beverly Crusher commanded the Starfleet Medical School, not the entirety of Starfleet Medical Command, which seems more like an Admiral's job than a Commander's.]
Starfleet Counseling School, which trains Starfleet Academy cadets destined to become counselors.
Starfleet Command School, which is required of all officers en route to serving as Executive Officers or Commanding Officers aboard Starfleet ships, units, or bases.
Advanced Tactical Training, a twenty-four week program for commissioned officers focusing on advanced starship and ground tactics.
[This is the program taught at by Chakotay and attended by Ro Laren, expanded to cover ground tactics.]
Starfleet School of Law, training future lawyers for the JAG's office and Staff Judge Advocate positions across Starfleet.
Remaining stuff
The elite "squadrons", such as Nova Squadron or Red Squadron, by all accounts, produced far more problems than they solved. Hence, after being suspended in the wake of the Leyton Coup, the squadrons were formally disbanded in 2375.
Instead, cadets are recognized through several honors programs:
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Advanced Combat Training Program - established only in 2379, this program is open to the top 40 cadets heading into their senior year. On top of everything else for senior year, cadets in this program train extensively in combat tactics, both personal and collective, in a variety of environments. It requires screening by Starfleet Intelligence to enter, as the program deals with the details of starship and ground tactics and strategy, at levels from one-on-one combat to fleet engagements and regimental engagements. Program lasts for the entire year, and the cadets live in their own dormitory. Beyond that one exception, cadets otherwise receive no extra privileges.
Semester in Space - select first or second-class cadets may enroll in this program, which places them aboard a starship for one semester, rotating through departments and serving as a junior officer, while still undergoing their regular SFA curriculum.
Faculty-Student Research Program - select Midshipmen may, for academic credit, apply to act as research assistants to faculty members in their own research projects. Particularly popular with sciences and premed students.
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Starfleet Academy cadets may also be awarded scholarships to study at noted graduate institiutions across the Federation, including Oxford University, the nearby University of California - Berkeley, and the Vulcan Science Academy.
The top-scoring cadet being commissioned in that year's class may, at Starfleet Command's option, be commissioned at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade.
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And I've run out of stuff that seems like it belongs.
