Shady Side Academy

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Shady Side Academy
"Fide Semper Vincere" ("By Faith Always to Overcome")
Location
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
USA
Information
President Thomas N. Southard

Thomas F. H. Trigg (Associate President)
Head of school Cheryl Little (Junior School)

Amy Mindlin (Middle School) Jeremy LaCasse (Senior School)
Dean David Szlachetka

Jeffrey Suzik, Ph.D.
Enrollment

Approximately 1,000 students
Type Private (5-Day Boarding and Day)
Grades Pre-K – 12
Athletics conference WPIAL, IPSL, PIAA
Mascot Indian
Color(s) Old Gold and Navy Blue
Established 1883
Homepage http://www.shadysideacademy.org

Shady Side Academy is an independent school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.[1]

Contents

[edit] Overview and timeline

  • Shady Side Academy was initially founded as a boys' day school in 1883 on Aiken Avenue in the East End neighborhood of Shadyside, and in 1921 the Senior School was established at its current suburban campus in Fox Chapel. This move also resulted in Shady Side becoming a boarding school, first with a traditional seven-day program and later, with the five-day program that the school currently offers.
  • A later merger in the early 1940s with another local boy's private school, The Arnold School, resulted in the creation of another new campus: a Junior School, located in Pittsburgh's Point Breeze and serving kindergarten through fifth grade students.
  • In the 1950s, the Academy purchased an estate less than a mile from the Senior School campus, creating a middle school for grades six through eight.
  • In 1973, the Senior School embraced the concept of co-education and began admitting female students (popularly referred to, particularly in newpapers, as "The Shady Ladies") for the first time. The Junior and Middle Schools followed suit in the 1990s, with the first K-12 "Lifer" female students graduating in 2007.
  • Opening in the fall of 2007, a pre-kindergarten has been added to Shady Side. It is located on the Junior School campus. The total enrollment across all grades fluctuates but is generally slightly under 1000 students, with about 500 of them enrolled in the Senior School (grades 9-12 or "Forms" III-VI).
  • Shady Side Academy serves as a member school of the Chewonki Foundation's Maine Coast Semester[2]

[edit] Campuses

[edit] 'Green' campuses

Shady Side Academy has made some recent strides to implement "green", or environmentally-friendly, changes to its campuses. The 2006 renovation of Rowe Hall, the main academic building, put into use a number of "green" concepts. The $6.8 million renovation of this primary Senior School facility emphasized environmentally-friendly approaches, from glass that allows more light into classrooms to rainwater collected in an underground cistern that is then used to flush toilets and urinals. In the fall of 2007, the Rowe Hall Complex earned Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification, the only high school in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to have done so.

'It's something these kids can really sink their teeth into,' said Marc Mondor, principal of evolveEA, a green consulting firm in the Friendship neighborhood of Pittsburgh. 'It's saving the earth, but it's also giving them a better environment.'"[3]

[edit] Extracurricular activities

[edit] Academic

Currently, Shady Side participates in Model United Nations conferences, NAQT quiz bowl competitions, the Western PA Math League, Science Olympiad, North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad, National Science Bowl, and Forensics (Speech and Debate) competitions, principally the National Forensics League.

In 2004, Shady Side placed 3rd in the nation at the National Science Olympiad Tournament at Juniata College, a tournament with over fifty schools from all around the nation. They did this after placing 1st at both the Regional and State Science Olympiad Tournament, which earned them a position in the National tournament. In 2005, the team also placed 1st in the Regional and State Science Olympiad Tournaments, which got them into the National Tournament again, this time held in the University of Illinois. In the 2007 State Tournament, Shady Side's team placed second, as runners up to Sewickley Academy, once again securing a place in the 2007 National Science Olympiad Tournament in Wichita, Kansas.

In 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007, Shady Side was the season champion of Pittsburgh-based game show Hometown High-Q. At the 2006 NAQT Nationals, the team finished 5th overall.

Shady Side also regularly sends students to the National Catholic Forensics League and National Forensics League state and national competitions.

A sample of the clubs offered at Shady Side Academy includes: American Conservative Club (ACC), Liberal Alliance, Current Events Club, Chinese Club (Mandarin Chinese is taught at the senior school), Sign Language (ASL) Club, Speech and Debate (Forensics), Christian Fellowship, Girls HOPE (a club whose purpose is to raise money for breast cancer awareness and research), a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance), The Led Zeppelin Club, Guitar Club, Robotics Club, and many others not listed here. In 2008, the Robotics Club sent a team to the U.S. FIRST Annual Robotics Competition.

Additionally, Shady Side has an active chapter of Amnesty International, a Middle Eastern Culture and Dance club, as well as numerous language and nationality clubs, i.e, Spanish Club, German Club, German Club, Latin Club, French Club, etc. While Italian is not offered at Shady Side Academy, there is an active Study of Italian Club. In the winter of 2007, an active Arabic Study Club also formed. Additionally, there are Southeast Asian, Black, and Jewish Student Unions.

[edit] Arts, theater and music

Since 2003, the school has sponsored a benefit concert led and organized by a student group with the name "Untucked" as a homage to the school dress code which before 2004 required all shirts to be tucked in. Recent bands to appear at Untucked include local favorites The Clarks, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Better than Ezra and Sister Hazel. The "Untucked" event is usually held at the end of the year and includes many activities beyond the band itself, including food and carnival games.

Shady Side Academy's main theater, the 650-seat Richard E. Rauh Theater, is named after local teacher, actor and arts patron Richard Rauh. It resides in the newly constructed Hillman Center for Performing Arts on the Senior School campus.[4] There is also a blackbox theater (The Kountz Theater), which holds many smaller productions, such as the annual Children's Homecoming Play and the Senior One-Act Play Festival . Recent theater performances include: Amadeus, Footloose, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Pygmalion, South Pacific, Oliver!, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Kiss Me, Kate, Babes in Arms, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 2006, the Academy launched a public performing arts series with the Golden Dragon Acrobats, River City Brass Band, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. The series' theme is "The Best of Pittsburgh and the World" with a World Music focus and endeavors to bring excellent local and touring artists to the school and regional community.

The Academy produces several publications; one is a monthly newspaper, The SSA News, which is written and produced on campus by Senior School students. The Egerian is the school's literary magazine, produced once a year under the leadership and editing of a student committee. Angles is an annual collection of creative non-fiction. A science magazine, SSA Frontiers of Science, helps to relay to the community significant scientific advances; it is produced once a term under the leadership of a student committee. A political magazine, The Forum, is also published, sponsored by the Senior School History Department and a committee of student editors.

[edit] Athletics

Shady Side's athletic team name is officially the Indians. It is not widely employed, but attempts to change it have been thwarted by various alumni.[5]

In 1924, Shady Side Academy was a founding member of the Interstate Prep School League (IPSL) -- a league composed of Mid-West preparatory schools. In 1993, the school joined the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL), which is the league that local public schools compete in and is part of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA). The switch allowed them to compete for regional and state championships against local schools. Since the switch, Shady Side has won five state championships: two in boys' basketball, one in boys' swimming, one in girls' tennis, and one in boys' tennis, along with numerous WPIAL championships, in several sports including tennis, soccer, football and golf. The Shady Side Girls' Tennis and Field Hockey Teams won the 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 WPIAL Championship titles for AAA and AA, respectively. The Girls' Tennis team went on to place second in the 2007 PIAA Championships and first in the 2008 PIAA Championships. Shady Side's Lauren Greco also won the PIAA and WPIAL AAA girls' tennis singles championships. The boys swim team recently won their 7th conscutive(8 in 9 years)WPIAL championship.

Several teams do not compete in the WPIAL. The ice hockey teams compete at the Division 1 Prep Level. The boys' team is a member of the Midwest Prep Hockey League and the girls' team competes in the Women's Ice Hockey League of the Mid- Atlantic. The boys' lacrosse team, which won the Western Pennsylvania Scholastic Lacrosse Association championship in 2004 and were State Runner-Ups in 2004, participates in the Midwest Scholastic Lacrosse Association as well as the previously mentioned WPSLA. The squash team also is a prep level team, composed of top rated junior players.

Shady Side Academy competes against Sewickley Academy, The Kiski School, Western Reserve Academy, Fox Chapel High School, University School, Vincentian Academy, and The Ellis School.

[edit] Boarding Program

Shady Side Academy has a long-standing boarding program. Bayard House (1924), Croft House (1931), Ellsworth House(1922) (now called Hunt Hall), and Morewood House (1922)--all at one time or another residence halls on the Senior School campus--have served as home to the many generations of Shady Side students since the school moved to suburban Fox Chapel from the city neighborhood of Shadyside in the early 1920s. Bayard, Morewood, and Ellsworth were named after streets surrounding the former campus, now the home of The Winchester Thurston School. At times nearly 200 students boarded at Shady Side, some as 7-day boarders, some as 5-day boarders, some as Senior Schoolers, some as Middle Schoolers. Since the 1960s, Shady Side has hosted 5-day Senior School (Grades 9 through 12) boarding exclusively, and is one of only six schools nationwide to offer such an option for its students. With all boarding students going home for the weekend each week, boarders almost always come from the three-state area of eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and northern West Virginia. Today, two residence halls are in active use at Shady Side: male students board in Croft House and female students reside in Morewood House.

[edit] Financial Aid

Shady Side has a financial aid program. It is directed by Ms. Andrea Lovelace.[6]

[edit] Counseling

College, personal, and academic counseling are offered on the Senior School campus. College counseling is available to all students in the Kassling College Counseling Center in the main academic building (Rowe Hall). Personal counseling is also available. Academic counseling is also offered to all students in the form of the Advisory Program, in which all students are assigned an advisor, who also acts as a homeroom teacher. They are assigned a new advisor for each academic year, and each advisory group consists of 4-10 students on average. A homeroom meets once a week, and sits together in all-school assemblies, which are held at least twice a week. Additionally, however, each student also meets individually during a free period with their advisor to discuss any academic difficulties they may be having, and their academic life in general. If a student is meeting with extreme difficulties, they may be directed to see an additional academic counselor or the course registrar for additional help. If an advisor is not performing their duties adequately, students can contact their head form advisor or the director of the advisory program, Ms. Mary Krauland.

[edit] Grading Policies

For each class a student is enrolled in (a minimum of five per term), they are given a grade at midterm of the first term and the conclusion of each subsequent term. Each grade has two parts, a quality grade and an effort grade. The Quality Grade is the grade used to calculate the GPA, and the grade to which a letter is assigned. There is also an effort grade from one to five. One is "unacceptable", five is "exemplary effort", and a rating of three indicates average (expected) effort. All students with a GPA of 3.3333 or above, grades of B- or better, and an effort rating of 3 or above is awarded honors. For high honors, a student must achieve a GPA of 3.6667, with grades of B- or better and effort ratings of three or greater. Highest honors are awarded to all students possessing a GPA of 4.0000 or better with grades of A- or better and effort ratings of 4 and above. Shady Side Academy has a chapter of Cum Laude, which was established in 1929 and consists of the top 20% of the senior class.

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] Department chairpersons (Senior School)

  • Arts Department: Mr. Scott Aiken (Interim Chair)
  • Athletics Department: Mr. Eugene Deal
  • Computer Science Department: Mr. B. Dawson Haytock
  • English Department: Mr. Paul Ejzak
  • History Department: Mr. Caswell Nilsen
  • Math Department: Ms. Christine Czapleski
  • Science Department: Dr. Kathy Malone
  • World Languages Department: Dr. Carol-Jean McGreevy-Morales

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Top American College Preparatory Private Day School Ranking". Retrieved on 2006-02-14. 
  2. ^ Sending Schools for Maine Coast Semester. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.
  3. ^ Chute, Eleanor. "Shady Side Academy plans green renovation", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2005-06-09. Retrieved on 2006-02-13. 
  4. ^ New Works Festival honors Rauh - Tribune-Review
  5. ^ Dunlap, Colin. "Nicknames of teams still source of conflict", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2005-07-01. Retrieved on 2006-12-16. 
  6. ^ Shady Side Academy Student Handbook. Premier Agendas, 2007. 29.
  7. ^ Gangewere, R. Jay (July/August 1997). "Astronaut Jay Apt: Director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History". Carnegie. 
  8. ^ Eugene Baker Profile. Scout.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-16.
  9. ^ Summer 2007 Teacher Workshop. Retrieved on 2007-06-16.
  10. ^ Behe, Regis. "Tom Tom Club to drum up support for Haiti at benefit", Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 2002-09-26. Retrieved on 2006-12-18. 
  11. ^ Guido, George. "SSA lacks experience, not heart; Fast Facts Sidebar", Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 2005-08-21. Retrieved on 2006-12-19. 
  12. ^ Sherman, Jerome L. "Presidential biographer gets presidential medal", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2006-12-16. Retrieved on 2006-12-18. 

[edit] External links

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