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Albuquerque Academy (known locally as simply The Academy) is a private co-educational school for grades six through twelve located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. It is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest and the New Mexico State Department of Education. Albuquerque Academy is also a member of the National Association of Independent Schools. It is not to be confused with Albuquerque High School, the first high school established in Albuquerque, which was originally named Albuquerque Academy.

Albuquerque Academy is split into three different divisions: the six-seven division (or "lower school"), the eight-nine division, and the ten-twelve division (both in the "upper school").

History

Albuquerque Academy was founded in 1955 as a school for boys in the basement of a small Albuquerque church. Between 1957 and 1964, the Academy received a large tract of undeveloped land north of Albuquerque. The Academy has an enrollment of just over 1,000 in grades 6 through 12, with students drawn from throughout the Albuquerque metropolitan area and the state of New Mexico. The current headmaster is Andrew T. Watson.

The Albuquerque Academy celebrated its 50th anniversary during the 2004-2005 school year with a year-long celebration of the school's history.

Facilities

The school sits on an approximately 312 acre (1.5 km²) gated campus in the northeastern part of the city, near the base of the Sandia Mountains. It is divided into two campuses, the West Campus or lower school and the East Campus or upper school. The two campuses are separated by about a quarter of a mile, with the library, science building, and athletic fields in between. The school buildings conform to a consistent, Mediterranean-influenced architectural style, which incorporates brick buildings, arches, and tile roofs.

West Campus

The West Campus comprises eight buildings including sixth and seventh grade classroom buildings, an administration building, a dining hall, and a gymnasium. In addition, the Visual Arts building and Natatorium are on the West Campus. All of the buildings except the Natatorium were designed by Robert McCabe of Flatow, Moore, Bryan, and Associates, and opened in 1984. The Natatorium was added to the West Campus Gymnasium in 1997.

Simms Library

The Dr. Albert G. Simms II and Barbara Young Simms Library (almost always shortened to "Simms Library") is the Academy's most iconic building, housing the school's collection of over 100,000 books, periodicals, videos, and recordings. It is comprised of two wings that open onto a central lobby, with the fiction/nonfiction section housed in the larger north wing and reference materials in the east wing. The Library was designed by Alexander "Sandy" Howe of the Boston firm of Shepley, Bullfinch, Richardson, and Abbot and opened in 1991 along with the Science Building. The Library spire is the highest point on campus.

Science Building

The Science Building sits across from the Library on a brick plaza. It houses all of the Academy's science classrooms, labs, and faculty, as well as some teachers from other departments. The building comprises two classroom wings and two laboratory wings grouped around a square central courtyard. The main foyer houses a large Foucault pendulum (another, much smaller pendulum is located in Brown Hall on the East Campus). The Science Building was also designed by Howe and opened at the same time as the Library.

East Campus

The East Campus currently houses grades 8-12. It includes the Academy's four original buildings, all grouped around a central quad: North Hall, the 8-9 classroom building, Brown Hall, the 10-12 classroom building, the Administration Building, which includes the office of the Head of School, and the gymnasium-dining hall complex. All were designed by Edward O. Holien of Holien and Buckley and completed in 1965. The Simms Center for the Performing Arts was designed by George Pearl, completed in 1975, and remodeled in 2000. The last building added to the East Campus was the Music Building, designed by Bill Sabatini of Dekker/Perich/Sabatini and completed in 1996.

Athletic facilities

The Academy's largest sports facilities are Harper Memorial Stadium (used for football and soccer games and track and field meets), the East Campus Gym (basketball and volleyball), and the Natatorium (swimming and diving). There are also several soccer, baseball, and softball fields, a 16-court tennis complex, a cross country course, a weight room, and basketball courts.

Bear Canyon

The Academy has a 270 acre (1.1 km²) Bear Canyon tract in the Sandia Mountains and other sites throughout the state, which students and faculty regularly use to supplement the curriculum.

Student body

The Academy devotes an entire day to diversity each year, called Diversity Day. This Day features a forum with music, dancing, and movies, a special lunch with foods from many different countries, and a long row of booths featuring Academy's many clubs. The school is roughly half boys and half girls, and nearly one third of the students have non-white backgrounds. The Academy also ranks among the top independent secondary schools with regard to need-blind financial aid offered to students, totaling nearly one-third of the student body.

Albuquerque Academy prides itself on its personal attention to its students with an 8:1 student/teacher ratio, but simply in terms of such tangibles as facilities and average SAT score, the school now ranks alongside such schools as St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas and the Kinkaid School in Houston.

Extracurricular activities

Extracurricular activities are an important part of the Academy experience. Some of the larger activities include The Advocate (a student newsmagazine that has recieved numerous awards from the Albuquerque Tribune and the New Mexico Press Women), speech and debate, Science Olympiad, and theater. Students are able to submit proposals to the 10-12 Student Senate to create a new club or activity, which nearly always approves activities.

Another aspect of extracurricular activates are senior projects. Completed by all seniors at the end of their high school careers, the projects allow students to broaden their mind with topics outside of the school curriculum.

Rivalry

The Albuquerque Academy Chargers hold a fierce rivalry with St. Pius X High School's Sartans that has lasted for decades. Albuquerque Academy and St. Pius had evenly matched teams and were the only two major independent schools in the Albuquerque metropolitan area for years, helping the rivalry to grow in the 1980s. Signs of the rivalry show up occasionally in acts of vandalism; Academy students have defaced the statue on the St. Pius campus numerous times, while St. Pius students allegedly burned a large X into the field at Albuquerque Academy. (Whether or not St. Pius students actually burned the X is debatable. Some have attributed the act to students at a local public high school.)

Most recently, students at St. Pius X High School were held responsible for defacing a memorial site on the Albuquerque Academy campus and for spray-painting other areas around the campus, inciting outrage from both Albuquerque Academy and the St. Pius administrations. Though the offending students were dismissed, numerous members of the St. Pius community publicly protested what they viewed as an unfair punishment.

A notorious event in the rivalry's history occurred in the 1970s when St. Pius students set fire to Albuquerque Academy's stadium. Another well-known event occurred in 1996, when a St. Pius football center played with two buckles on his helmet that were made razor sharp by his father. One Charger football player was hospitalized. Academy coaches generally regard this as the work of an individual rather than a plot by the St. Pius student body.

Notable alumni

• Notah Begay III
• Martin Chavez (A computer programmer and Wall Street broker, not to be confused with the Albuquerque Mayor of the same name.)
• Albert Chainey Umphrey (Graduated in 1988; Member of the 1996 U.S. Men's Gymnastics Olympic Team.)

Notable former and current faculty

• Robert Creeley

External links

• Albuquerque Academy website
• Quick facts on the school

References

1. http://www.isasw.org/home/
2. http://www.aa.edu/today/facts
3. http://www.aa.edu/programs/beyond/
4. "Protestors say St. Pius vandals treated unfairly" (December 16, 2005). KOB Eyewitness News 4.
5. "Football player who sharpened buckle banned" (1996). Associated Press.
6. Nelson, Robby (September 2002). "'X' Marks the spot: a rivalry since 1954". The Albuquerque Academy Advocate.

• Private schools
• High schools in New Mexico
• Independent Schools Association of the Southwest
• Private schools in the United States