The Lyceum Academy

The Lyceum Academy was established by Gordon Massengill in 1998 at New Hanover High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. Inspired by Aristotle's famous Greek Lyceum, the modern Lyceum Academy educates high school students (Junior and Senior class) in an accelerated college preparatory program. Initially the Lyceum Academy primarily offered Advanced Placement courses to its students, but has expanded to include honors courses as well as some regular courses to accommodate all motivated college-bound students. In 2000, the Lyceum Academy began to offer courses in the field by including excursions to Key Largo, Atlanta, Asheville, Costa Rica, Italy, DC and Arizona among others.

The Program

The Lyceum Academy is comprised of 100 students in the Senior Class, and 100 students in the Junior Class. These are selected through an application and interview process, the latter of which is sometimes conducted with the aide of graduating Academy members.

The program meets at 7:30 am Monday through Friday, but weekend obligations can sometimes be required.

The Lyceum Academy is often cited as the prime example of integrated education. The Lyceum Academy teaches in all four of The Primary subjects: English, Math, Social Studies and Science. All projects assigned to the students are designed such that a mastery of all four subjects is necessary for a decent grade. The midterm required of the Junior academy members, for example, involves creating an individual from the 1800s and explaining how all four subjects had a major impact on their lives.

On the various excursions that the Academy members participate in, the teachers will incorporate their fields of expertise. This might include seeing a Shakespearean play, cataloguing wildlife, visiting the capital, or doing regression analyses of graveyard data.

Courses

The Lyceum Academy offers the following courses to its members:

Junior Year:

AP Language

Advanced English

Pre-Calculus

AP Statistics

AP Biology

Honors Biology

AP US History

Honors US History

Senior Year:

AP Literature

Advance English Literature

AP Calculus

Honors Discrete Math

AP Environmental Science

Honors Environmental Science

AP World History

Honors Contemporary Issues

The Lyceum Academy Homepage 1

"The Horrors of School" - An article on the fundraising activities of the Lyceum Academy 2

"Academics, such as Lyceum Academy, can draw students" - An article on the impact of the Lyceum Academy