The Academy seeks to reward excellence, broaden horizons, and expand vision. Its academic program stresses the development of each student's critical thinking abilities, adaptibility, creativity, and orientation to the future. In the Academy, teachers and students deal with the conceptual, historical, and philosophical foundations of learning. Class time is not spent in improving technical skills, nor are courses taught in traditional ways. Students have opportunities through independent effort to develop their personal and intellectual skills under expert supervision.
All Students attend an introductory interdisciplinary humanities course.
Each elective course will address the theme of the Commonwealth Honors Academy 2001 from its own perspective. Each student participates in a seminar focused on issues of personal development. In small group discussions, students explore topics such as interpersonal communication, family and peer relationships, choosing a university, civic responsivility, and the relationship of the program's theme to their own lives. Finally, each student will prepare a final project that will be determined by the individual instructor for his or her class. Projects may involve individual research, experimentation, or other activity.