Has there been any word on what will happen if the government shuts down? How will this affect our sons and daughters at USNA? Will professors be able to teach?
Yes and no. Military professors will still be able to teach. Civilian professors will not. The military instructors are going to help cover the civilian classes (this will work better in some departments than in others). In my civilian run classes, they're mostly just trying to make sure we keep up with the reading or other work to not fall too far behind. At the very least we're going to have to show up for all of our classes.
King Hall food service won't be affected. I think people forget that this is the school that only missed classes for one day after a hurricane. They'll make sure we're learning.
Truth is, perhaps more important than "learning" is ... accreditation, i.e. is a Carnegie unit, really a Carnegie unit. Time on task cannot be ignored, and those are specific measures of classroom time.