May Session

Because the Missouri Academy is considered a high school and Northwest is in school for fewer days than the regulation for Missouri high schools, the Academy has to hold classes during May, in what is aptly called May Session.

May sessions are generally considered some of the best times at the Academy. Since there is only one class to worry about, afternoons and evenings are largely free for students to pursue their own interests.

Academia

Historically, during May Session, there have been four classes offered. This may increase due to an expected growth of the student population, but as of May 2005, there are still only four. These classes are taken in the mornings from Monday to Thursday, generally starting at either 7:30 or 10:10, depending on the course load. As a general rule, a four credit-hour course will start at 7:30, and a three credit-hour course will start at 10:10. Note that Calculus II is a five day per week class.

The philosophy of May courses was once that students would be offered classes that wouldn't be available during the school year and would most likely be of interest to someone at a science, math, and computing school, but the trend recently has been to offer humanities courses because students are required to take at least one humanities course in order to graduate.

Previously, it was the custom to allow a large number of departments to submit class proposals, and then allow the students to vote on them. If this year is any indication, most departments will find out about the submission deadline after it passes, and classes will be selected with no student input unless a sufficiently large reaction is made, at which point nominal concessions will be made.

What can be discerned of future plans for May sessions is that two of the courses offered will fulfill graduation requirements, and the other two will be electives. However, this is subject to change at the discretion of the powers that be, which have historically been less than receptive to the opinions of students.

During May session, study hours are also different from usual. They only last one hour, rather than the traditional two, but this may start anywhere from eight to nine, depending on the year.

This upcoming session the following classes will be offered:

• Western Civilization II
• Visual Basic .NET
• Comparative World Religions
• Calculus II

In the past, students voted on a selection of four classes from a long list of choices. Among the classes chosen were:

• Quantum Mechanics
• Forensic DNA Science
• History of Science and Technology
• Islam and the World
• Comparative World Religions

Community Service

Community service is the more time consuming part of May session. Community service starts about 1 pm and lasts until 4 pm. Every student in the Academy is required to partake in a community service activity. The second half of colloquium is dedicated to second years figuring out which community service projects they want to head. However, any student can organize their own project.

The City of Maryville does not support the Academy, so community service is in no way "giving back to the community". In fact many community service opportunities hardly qualify as such. The purpose of community service is to sell the Academy to lawmakers. If it appears that the Academy is somehow contributing to the community in more ways than pumping money through the conduits of the University itself and Walmart, then it's more likely that we'll continue to receive funding.

All in all, anybody who manages to secure a group of Academites spending their community service with them gains forty manhours of slave labor per person. This labor will range from enthusiastic and productive to reluctant and relatively unproductive, but as noted above, this matters little since the entire purpose of community service appears to be for the sake of appearances.

Past Community Service Projects:

• Crocheting for the Salvation Army
• Academy Clean up
• Maryville Clean up
• Helping elderly with outside jobs
• Humane Society
• Historical Museum
• Mozingo Lake
• Maryville Library
• Recruitment video
• Study guide for future classes
• Various physics projects

Food

In May session, meals are also rather different from the rest of the year. All food is served in Bobby's Grill in the Union, unless of course the Academy student government doesn't ask them to close because SGA is providing a voluntary meal and accordingly wants to remove all other options. During breakfast and lunch on weekdays, you order from a menu that wouldn't seem terribly out of place at a Hardee's (or Carl's Jr.), and pick from a wide array of chocolate and sugar for your deserts. For dinners and the poorly named weekend brunches, there is a buffet consisting of a grabbag of food available in the food court during the rest of the year.