The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) is a two-year, public residential high school located in Durham, North Carolina, which focuses on the intensive study of science, mathematics and technology. 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 National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST), and an affiliated institution of the University of North Carolina system. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... A motto (from Italian) is a phrase or a short list of words meant formally to describe the general motivation or intention of an entity, social group, or organization. ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... Educational institutions are often categorised along several dimensions. ... The term public school has two distinct meanings: elementary or secondary school supported and administered by state and local officials, or, in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, a private or independent, fee-paying school, generally not coeducational, which prepares pupils for university. ... A boarding school is an educational institution where some or all pupils not only study, but also live, amongst their peers. ... Nickname: Location in North Carolina Country United States State North Carolina County Durham County Government  - Mayor Bill Bell Area  - City  94. ... Official language(s) English Capital Raleigh Largest city Charlotte Area  Ranked 28th  - Total 53,865 sq mi (139,509 km²)  - Width 150 miles (240 km)  - Length 560[1] miles (901 km)  - % water 9. ... Millie, once mascot of the City of Brampton, is now the Brampton Arts Councils representative. ... The gentle and pensive maiden has the power to tame the unicorn, in this fresco in Palazzo Farnese, Rome, probably by Domenichino, ca 1602 The Unicorn (from Latin unus one and cornu horn) is a legendary creature whose power is exceeded only by its mystery. ... A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually as a report or summary of statistics or facts. ... A Web site (or colloquially, Website) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on a Web server, usually accessible via the Internet or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP... Nickname: Location in North Carolina Country United States State North Carolina County Durham County Government  - Mayor Bill Bell Area  - City  94. ... Official language(s) English Capital Raleigh Largest city Charlotte Area  Ranked 28th  - Total 53,865 sq mi (139,509 km²)  - Width 150 miles (240 km)  - Length 560[1] miles (901 km)  - % water 9. ... National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST) is an alliance of specialized high schools in the United States whose focus is advanced preparatory studies in mathematics, science and technology. ... The University of North Carolina is a sixteen-university system which comprises all public four-year universities in North Carolina, United States. ...

History

The brainchild of former NC Governors Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford, film producer Borden Mace, 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. James Baxter Hunt Jr. ... James Terry Sanford (August 20, 1917 – April 18, 1998) was a Southern Democratic politician. ... Borden Mace (born ?? in Beaufort, North Carolina) is an American movie producer. ... John Ehle (born December 13, 1925 in Asheville, North Carolina) is an American writer known best for fictional novels set in the Appalachian mountains. ...

NCSSM is located on the site of the former Watts Hospital, which operated there from to 1909 to 1976. The hospital's former administrative building, built in 1908, is still known as Watts and houses NCSSM's math department, many administrative offices, and the office of the 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 an F.W. Woolworth's in Durham, at which a sit-in took place on February 7, 1960, in response to the first nationally publicized sit-in of the American civil rights movement at a similar lunch counter in Greensboro, NC, on February 1, 1960. Categories: People stubs | 1906 births | 1983 deaths ... Marlee Beth Matlin (born August 24, 1965) is an Academy Award-winning American actress who is almost completely deaf. ... A typical plaque showing entry on the National Register of Historic Places. ... Foot Locker Inc NYSE: FL (formerly Z) is a United States company specialising in athletic footwear and clothing. ... A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more persons nonviolently occupying an area for protest, often political, social, or economic change. ... February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... Lunch Counter from Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworths now at Smithsonian Institution The Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, leading to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in American history. ... The civil rights movement in the United States has been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all citizens of United States. ... Greensboro is a city located in Guilford County in North Carolina, a state of the United States of America. ... February 1 is the 32nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ...

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. This funding is supplemented by the NCSSM Foundation's private funding, which supports NCSSM's academic, residential, and outreach programs as well as funds some capital improvements. In the past 25 years, the Foundation has raised in excess of $25 million in private support from corporations, foundations, alumni, parents and friends of NCSSM. 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 approved a bill granting tuition costs for any university in the University of North Carolina System to all graduates of NCSSM, starting with the class of 2004, as an incentive to encourage NCSSM's talented students to stay in North Carolina. That bill was amended in 2005 to allow students to use additional tuition monies awarded to cover “costs of attendance.” The North Carolina General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of North Carolina. ... University of North Carolina Seal The University of North Carolina System is a sixteen university system which comprises all public 4-year colleges and/or universities in North Carolina and consists of 16 separate campuses across the state. ...

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). National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST) is an alliance of specialized high schools in the United States whose focus is advanced preparatory studies in mathematics, science and technology. ...

Academics

Cupola atop the 1908 Watts building.

Designed with a strong focus on science and math, all students are required to take two trimesters each of physics, chemistry, and biology during their two-year stay, and are required to complete at least five math credits. Distinctive cupola atop 1908 Watts Hospital building, now Watts building at North Carolina School of Science and Math. ... Distinctive cupola atop 1908 Watts Hospital building, now Watts building at North Carolina School of Science and Math. ... Physics (Greek: (phúsis), nature and (phusiké), knowledge of nature) is the branch of science concerned with the fundamental laws of the Universe. ... Chemistry - the study of atoms, made of nuclei (conglomeration of center particles) and electrons (outer particles), and the structures they form. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

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. Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ...

NCSSM also requires that each student take six trimesters worth of a single foreign language, or complete through the intermediate level in the language. These languages include but are not limited to Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto and Latin.

Every teacher has at least a Master's degree. 33% of the teachers also have a doctoral degree. The educational staff are highly qualified and knowledgeable in their fields, with many faculty active in national organizations. One foreign language instructor has studied thirteen different languages, for example.^{[citation needed]} “M.S.” redirects here. ...

A unique aspect of academics at NCSSM is the existence of a one and a half week (seven academic days plus one weekend) "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. The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the epicenter. ... Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern that typically follows a twelve-bar structure. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... // The Human Genome Project (HGP) is a project to de-code (i. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ...

Students also have the option of designing trimester-long seminars in topics of their choice for partial academic credit.

Starting with the 2004-05 school year, NCSSM switched from the semester system to the trimester system.

In addition to courses in Precalculus and Calculus, the mathematics department offers classes such as "Game Theory and Combinatorics," "Vector Functions and Partial Derivatives,", "Mathematical Modeling", 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. Game theory is often described as a branch of applied mathematics and economics that studies situations where multiple players make decisions in an attempt to maximize their returns. ... Combinatorics is a branch of pure mathematics concerning the study of discrete (and usually finite) objects. ... A vector going from A to B. In physics and in vector calculus, a spatial vector, or simply vector, is a concept characterized by a magnitude and a direction. ... In mathematics, a partial derivative of a function of several variables is its derivative with respect to one of those variables with the others held constant. ... Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... Discrete mathematics, also called finite mathematics, is the study of mathematical structures that are fundamentally discrete, in the sense of not supporting or requiring the notion of continuity. ...

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 2004-05 academic year, and it has not yet settled into a new location. It has been suggested that Criticism of Linux be merged into this article or section. ...

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.

Student life

Although originally founded to provide students with a unique academic opportunity, NCSSM's student life serves an equally important role in the NCSSM experience. In addition to structured programs like residential living, community and work service, physical activities and sports, counseling, and academic and social clubs, student life also encompasses intangibles such as new friends and life experiences.

Residence halls

NCSSM students are housed in six dormitories (Beall, Bryan, Hill, Hunt, Reynolds, and Royall), which are further subdivided into 20 residence halls each housing 20-40 students. Each of the residence halls is headed by a Student Life Instructor (SLI) who is assisted by two or three senior student Residential Life Assistants (RLAs, formerly Dorm Assistants), who serve as peer counselors. Each SLI has a college degree or higher and lives (along with the SLI's family) in an apartment connected to the residence hall, oversees all of the hall's activities, and serves in the place of students' parents. Most of NCSSM's fully furnished student rooms are double occupancy, but there are a few triples and some singles, which are reserved for seniors and allotted through an application process and lottery. Residence halls have common bathrooms and lounges, and students are responsible for cleaning their own and shared living spaces. The term en loco parentis, Latin for in the place of a parent, refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. ...

Beall Pavilion

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. The Beall rooms are among the smallest in the school as a single Beall room that was designed for 1 hospital patient now houses 2 to 3 girls.

The name "Beall" is pronounced like the word "bell" (IPA: /bɛl/). Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

During the 1995-6 school year, a fire in a First Beall dormitory room resulted in the destruction of that floor and significant smoke damage to several of the other Beall floors. First Beall dormitory was reopened during the 1996-1997 school year.

Bryan Center

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. When the school opened in 1980, it was known simply as "the main building" and contained several unused, off-limits areas. Extensive renovations began in 1981 and it was renamed the Joseph M. and Kathleen P. Bryan Living and Learning Center during the 1981-82 school year. 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 the floors have housed male students.

Hill House

Hill House

Built in 1945, Hill House was the Watts Hospital's nurses' dormitory and classrooms. The building was named after John Sprunt Hill, the son-in-law of George Watts and the founder of the Watts Hospital. Of all the 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. Over the years, Hill House has been both all-male and all-female. It has been an all-male dormitory since the mid-1990s. Hill House contains two residence halls: First Hill and Second Hill. In years past, Second Hill was split up into Second Hill North and Second Hill East. 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. ImageMetadata File history File links Hill_house_front_without_little_man. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Hill_house_front_without_little_man. ...

Hunt Hall

The James B. Hunt, Jr. Residence Hall is the only one of the dormitory buildings that was not part of the Watts Hospital. Completed in 1986, the building was named for Jim Hunt, NC governor when the school was founded. The building was built behind Hill House on land that included the hospital's original tennis court. During construction, the Hill House swimming pool (which had been located inside the eastern "corner" defined by the front and rear wings of Hill House) was filled in. The four-story building is divided into two sides, east and west, and houses the health center (on the east side of the first floor) and up to 220 students in its seven all-male residence halls: First Hunt, Second West, Second East, Third West, Third East, Fourth West, and Fourth East. From its construction through the mid-1990s, many NCSSM students referred to Hunt as "New Dorm." James Baxter Hunt Jr. ...

Hunt is the only building on campus that was specifically built to house NCSSM students; the other dormitories were left over from the old Watts Hospital, where most of the rooms were originally intended to house a single patient or nursing student. This distinction means that Hunt dorm rooms are generally the largest at NCSSM.

Reynolds Pavilion

The Reynolds Pavilion comprises three of the Watts Hospital's buildings, which are connected by a two-story breezeway and a ground-level hallway: the C-section of Reynolds was the hospital's women's pavilion, built in 1909; the D-section was the x-ray pavilion and emergency room; and the E-section was the men's pavilion, built in 1911. The remodeling of these buildings into a dormitory was funded by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and was therefore named the R.J. Reynolds Industries Pavilion. Reynolds is divided into three all-female residence halls: Ground Reynolds; Reynolds 1C, 2C & 1D; and Reynolds 1E, 2E & 2D. The RJR Headquarters building (back left) in Winston Salem, NC was built prior to the Empire State Building, which was designed by the same architect. ...

Royall Center

The Royall Outreach Center was known as Wyche House prior to its renovation in 2003, and was renamed for Senator Kenneth Claiborne Royall, Jr., the son of Kenneth Claiborne Royall and long-time friend and advocate of the school. Built in 1911 and originally named for head nurse Mary Wyche, this building served as a living and learning center for the hospital's nurses. In the early days of NCSSM, Wyche served as a dormitory, but was closed during the 1990s and remained dark and locked until its renovation. Currently, Royall houses the chancellor's office, the counseling center and two all-female residence halls: Ground Royall and First Royall. Kenneth Claiborne Royall (July 24, 1894–May 25, 1971) was a U.S. general. ...

Community and Work Service

As a graduation requirement, all students are required to contribute 60 hours of volunteer community service in North Carolina either the summer before or after the Junior year. This requirement is designed to encourage volunteerism while giving back to each student's home community throughout North Carolina. In addition, each student is required to work on campus for three hours per week in one of the many departments or programs. Juniors are required to serve some of their work hours in either the cafeteria (serving food or washing dishes) or on the housekeeping/grounds crew. Other opportunities include work as an RLA (or any other leadership position) or as an academic tutor.^[1]

External Programs

NCSSM also offers a variety of external programs focused on educating teachers and students outside of the school across North Carolina. The school offers workshops for strengthening K-12 math and science education. The programs focus on "teaching the teacher."^[2] These workshops focus particularly in science and mathematics education.

NCSSM hosts Summer Ventures, a state-funded summer program for all rising 11th and 12th grade students in North Carolina. The program is administered by NCSSM over six campuses of the UNC system over a period of few weeks. The programs focus on science and mathematics concepts and applications such as experimental design, mathematical modeling, exploratory data analysis, and computer applications. Such topics and courses are offered extend and supplement the courses taught in high schools. The program is cost free and entrance into the program is decided by an admissions process.

The External Programs of NCSSM also offers a distance learning program dedicated to teaching a wide variety of classes across North Carolina. An entire level of the technology building on campus is dedicated to NCSSM distance learning. It has a full time staff and teachers as well as teachers who teach both NCSSM classes and classes for distance learning . The program reaches out mostly to schools in rural areas of the state. Courses are taught over a one-way camera of the instructor to the students and two-way audio via the North Carolina Information Highway. Some of the courses offered include Advanced Functions and Modeling, the Art of Science and Math, AP Calculus, Genetics and Biotechnology, Physics, Introduction to Programming, AP United States History, and Latin. // Distance Education is a field of expertise exploring situations in which the learner and the teacher are separated in time, space or both. ...

Demographics

NCSSM houses approximately 615 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 20 to 25 students, with about 12 students for every teacher. Students are selected from rising juniors across the state of North Carolina through a rigorous merit-based application system. The student population of NCSSM is designed to be a demographic reflection of the population of North Carolina as a whole; additionally, a certain number of slots are reserved for each congressional district. The 4th edition of Meyers Konversationslexikon (1885-1890) shows the Caucasian race (in blue) as comprising Aryans, Semites and Hamites. The Caucasian race (sometimes called the Caucasoid race) is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as, relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, western Asia, Middle... An Asian American is a person of Asian ancestry or origin who was born in or is an immigrant to the United States. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... The Hispanic world. ... A Hupa man. ...

References

1. ^ NCSSM 2005-06 Student Handbook (PDF) (August 2004). Retrieved on 2006-07-16.
2. ^ NCSSM External Programs -- Workshops & Special Programs. Retrieved on 2007-01-18.

For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... July 16 is the 197th day (198th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 168 days remaining. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the CE era. ... January 18 is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities
• Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
• Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts
• South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics
• Rubisco_(Band)

The Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities The Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities (also The Indiana Academy or simply IASMH) is a two-year residential public high school located on the campus of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, although it operates as a separate entity. ... The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, or IMSA, is a three-year, residential, public high school of approximately 640 students (comprised of sophomores, juniors, and seniors). ... The Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts (LSMSA) is a two-year, public residential high school located in Natchitoches, Louisiana on the campus of Northwestern State University. ... The South Carolina Governors School for Science and Mathematics (SCGSSM, GSSM) is a public two year residential high school. ... Rubisco is a successful Cover Band from NCSSM. The band is currently made up of the members Chuck Fort, Brian Koepnick, Alex Hill, Krishna Karra, and Garrett Schlesinger. ...

External links

• North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
• National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology
• Oral History from NCSSM
• Barry Yeoman, Bad Chemistry, The Independent
• Siemens-Westinghouse winners in 2004
• "Yes, High School Students Can Analyze Chandra Data"
• Images of the former Watts Hospital