NYMA: Credit Where Credit is Due
At NYMA we teach many subjects, but one that infuses all we do is leadership. Good leaders give credit where credit is due, so it’s important to thank our faculty. Confronted with the complications of COVID-19, other schools are doing less for their students. I am proud to tell you that at NYMA, this challenge has prompted us to find ways to do even more for the young men and women entrusted to us.
Instead of changing our schedule so that students have fewer days of in-person instruction, our cadets will continue to have class Monday through Friday and now on Saturday mornings as well. The Saturday classes reflect our desire to keep our students on campus in order to minimize their exposure to people who have not been tested for the coronavirus.
Yet our tireless faculty also understands that even our energetic cadets need time to regroup and reconnect with loved ones. That’s why we’ve moved from the semester system to the trimester system, which allows for longer breaks and more uninterrupted time at home.
The trimester system also enables our cadets to take more classes and earn more credit hours in a single school year. This provides them with important advantages, including opportunities for academic reinforcement when necessary and, when possible, even more academic enrichment through an expanded slate of elective courses, including new subjects such as Latin, religion, philosophy, Ancient Greek, horticulture and landscape architecture, African American history, art history, and forensics.
We teach our cadets that good leaders view challenges as opportunities to make themselves stronger, smarter, more nimble, and better, Higher hurdles make possible even higher expectations.
As Dean, I’m grateful to our talented faculty for serving as role models of precisely the sort of principled, exacting, and dynamic leadership that NYMA has always been proud to impart.
– Christine McDonald, Dean of Academics
