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- Craig Newbold, Chairman of Newbold Technologies, gave a lead gift of $25,000 for the opening of Alexandria Academy.
- The Community Foundation / National Capital Region has pledged its support.
- The Camp-Yount Foundation has made a multi-year $100,000 grant to support the opening of Alexandria Academy.
- Merrick (Mac) Casey, CEO of the Lexington Institute has joined the Virginia Committee for Classical Education.
- Jeff Martineau, President of the American Academy for Liberal Education has joined the Virginia Committee
- On June 18th the Fund held its Annual Meeting at Alexandria, Virginia.
The Fund is currently organizing a program of enrichment courses for the 2009-2010 academic year. Course offerings available to area students will include:
Introduction to Formal Logic
The primary objective of this course is to impart the functional ability to reason well. It is to cultivate discrete habits of mind, including abduction, induction, deduction and binary or Ramist logic. In addition to familiarizing students with elementary methods of observation, reflection, composition and argument, the course covers fallacy analysis and methods of validation. The course provides an excellent foundation for advanced coursework in mathematics, science, rhetoric and writing.
Shakespeare's Roman Plays
Students undertake a critical reading and interpretation of Shakespeare's three tragedies set in ancient Rome - Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. They study the language of the plays and explore the larger questions that underlay each work. Particular attention is paid to Shakespeare's appropriation of classical ideals from ancient Rome into the context of Elizabethan English drama. Students practice their analytical skills through a sequence of focused writing assignments, including summary, analysis, comparison & contrast, thesis and synthesis.
The United States Constitution
Students gain a thorough understanding of the historical and cultural context in which American democracy was created and become intimately familiar with our nation’s most important founding document. Students critically read the U.S. Constitution as a primary text, tracing its historical origins and fully exploring the workings of the governmental system of checks and balances it created. By the conclusion of the course, students will have developed the skills needed not only to understand but also to analyze, interpret and apply what they have learned about the Constitution.
The Art and Craft of Rhetoric
Students learn the habits of mind and rhetorical skills necessary to speak with power and persuasion. They do so by studying and emulating some of the great speeches from world and American history, from ancient times to the present day. Speeches read include Demosthenes’ Philippics, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address, Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches and the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. As students learn from these great examples of effective and stirring rhetoric, they compose and deliver speeches of their own.
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