North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics: Difference between revisions
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[Pronounced bell (bĕl)] Following its 1929 opening, the Valinda Beall Watts Pavilion housed 50 of the Watts Hospital's most luxurious patient rooms. The four-story building now houses |
[Pronounced bell (bĕl)] Following its 1929 opening, the Valinda Beall Watts Pavilion housed 50 of the Watts Hospital's most luxurious patient rooms. The four-story building now houses the English Department on Ground Beall as well as three all-female residence halls: First Beall, Second Beall, and Third Beall. |
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Revision as of 06:32, 15 July 2006
| North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | |
 | |
| , | |
| Information | |
| Type | Public boarding school |
| Established | 1980 |
| President | Dr. Gerald Boarman |
| Grades | 11th and 12th |
| Number of students | 650 |
| Mascot | Unicorns (Unis) |
| Website | ncssm.edu |
The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) is a two-year, public residential high school located in Durham, North Carolina. The school accepts rising juniors from across North Carolina and enrolls them through senior year. Though NCSSM is a public school, enrollment is limited, and applicants undergo a highly competitive review process prior to admission. NCSSM is a founding member of the NCSSSMST and a member institution of the University of North Carolina.
History
The brainchild of former NC Governors Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford, and well known author and academic John Ehle, NCSSM opened its doors in 1980 as the first school of its kind in the United States.
NCSSM is located on the site of the former Watts Hospital, which operated there from to 1908 to 1976. One of the school's buildings is still known as Watts and houses the math department, many administrative offices, and the school registrar. During the 1993-94 school year, the front of Watts was transformed into a 1920s-era Virginia State Colony for the Feeble-minded and Epileptic to serve as the backdrop for scenes from the made-for-TV movie Against Her Will: The Carrie Buck Story, starring Marlee Matlin. NCSSM's campus is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and is home to a refurbished lunch counter from a F.W. Woolworth's in Durham, in commemoration of a sit-in that took place in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 7, 1960.
The student body has grown to approximately 650 students since 1980. Since its inception, NCSSM has been fully funded by the state, meaning no student is required to pay any tuition, room, board, or other student fees. A tuition fee was considered for the 2002-03 school year, but was abolished at the beginning of the term and students were able to have the fee refunded. In 2003, the NC Legislature grantied all graduates of NCSSM free tuition to any institution in the University of North Carolina System as an incentive to encourage NCSSM's talented students to stay in North Carolina.
NCSSM has served as a model for 18 similar schools, many of which are now members of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST).
Academics
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Designed with a strong focus on science and math, all students are required to take two trimesters of physics, chemistry, and biology during their two-year stay, and are required to complete at least five math credits.
Although focusing in science and math, the school maintains strong humanities programs as well. Many humanities offerings are more innovative than those at traditional public high schools, with courses ranging from interdisciplinary combinations of History and Literature to studies of contemporary culture in Latin America and Africa.
NCSSM also requires that each student take six trimesters worth of a single foreign language. These languages include but are not limited to Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish and Latin.
Every teacher is required to have at least a Master's degree, and one instructor has five PhDs. The educational staff are highly qualified and knowledgeable in their fields. A prime example of this would be one of the foreign language instructors who has studied thirteen different languages.
A unique aspect of academics at NCSSM is the existence of a two week (eight academic days plus two weekends) "miniterm" in the spring where students are able to design their own independent project or study with staff support, travel abroad in a faculty designed study, or participate in one of a wide range of small classes designed by faculty including: A Short History of Nuclear Weapons, Blues People: The African American Oral Tradition, The Human Genome Project and Disease, and Shakespeare.
Students also have the option of designing trimester-long seminars in topics of their choice for partial academic credit.
NCSSM is currently run on a three trimester system rather than two semesters. The school switched to this from year long classes in 2004. This allows students to enroll in a greater variety of classes but, due to the need to condense courses, less material is taught. For example, students in the past needed to take one year of physics to meet graduation requirements. Now, however, only two trimesters are required.
The mathematics department offers classes such as "Game Theory and Combinatorics," "Vector Functions and Partial Derivatives," and other post-calculus mathematics courses. NCSSM's budding computer science department offers both introductory programming classes and upper-level classes that combine advanced algorithms with discrete mathematics.
Students at the school are strongly encouraged to become involved with computers and technology. One example of this is "Neverland," the official name of the entirely student-run, Linux-based server. The server, whose web site resides at neverland.ncssm.edu, provides personal and academic web space to students as well as computing resources to research groups on campus. The student administrators, who change each year, have traditionally also maintained a lab of Linux-based computers used to instruct other students in the use of Linux through seminars. This lab was displaced during the 2004-2005 academic year, and it has not yet settled into a new location.
NCSSM students are not given a class rank and are encouraged to strive for their best rather than competing against other students, but students have consistently done extremely well in national academic competitions. It was not until several years ago that students were given grade point averages to simplify the college application process. Even without the standard methods of encouraging academic achievement, students attending NCSSM strive to be challenged intellectually and to succeed in their courses.
Demographics
NCSSM houses approximately 600 students, equally divided between males and females. About 65% are Caucasian, 18% are Asian American, 12% are African American, 3% are Hispanic, and 1% are Native American. Each class has an average size of 18 to 20 students, with about 10 students for every teacher. All faculty have at least a master's degree; 33% have a doctorate.
Residence halls
Beall
[Pronounced bell (bĕl)] Following its 1929 opening, the Valinda Beall Watts Pavilion housed 50 of the Watts Hospital's most luxurious patient rooms. The four-story building now houses the English Department on Ground Beall as well as three all-female residence halls: First Beall, Second Beall, and Third Beall.
Bryan
This building was a brick addition to the Watts Hospital that was completed in 1953. This annex served as the main hospital entrance and housed operating rooms, x-ray facilities, over 100 patient beds and a kitchen. Now the Joseph M. and Kathleen P. Bryan Living and Learning Center, the five-story building houses NCSSM's cafeteria, library, science department as well as three residence halls: Second Bryan, Third Bryan, and Fourth Bryan. As of the 2006-07 school year, the three residence halls are all-female, but in the past have also been all-male and male and female.
Hill House
Hill House was the nurses' dormitory when Watts Hospital was in service, but it does not date back to the hospital's original 1908 construction. The dormitory was named after John Sprunt Hill, the son-in-law of George Watts and the founder of the Watts Hospital. Of all the dorms and buildings on the NCSSM campus left over from the Watts Hospital, Hill House has remained the least changed and is still very much the same as it was when it opened. Although Hill House has previously served as an all-female dormitory, it has been an all-male dormitory since the mid-1990s. Hill House contains two residence halls: First Hill and Second Hill.
Hill House is located in a central location on campus, and it is close to the NCSSM cafeteria (PFM) and the recreation center (PEC). On the ground floor of Hill is the foreign language department as well as a tunnel connecting Hill House to the original Watts Hospital Building. The foreign language floor is equipped with a state-of-the art language laboratory.
Hunt
The male dormitory Hunt has four stories and comprises First Hunt, Second West, Second East, Thrid West, Third East, Fourth West, and Fourth East. It was named for Jim Hunt.
Reynolds
The female dorm Reynolds is made up of Ground Reynolds; Reynolds 1C, 2C, and 1D; and Reynolds 1E, 2E, and 2D.
Royall
The female dorm Royall is made up of Ground Royall and First Royall. It was named for Kenneth Claiborne Royall, Jr., the son of Kenneth Claiborne Royall.