At the heart of a classical education is conversation. Nowhere is that more in evidence than in our Humanities Seminars, where students gather for a double-period every day and talk about texts and ideas of the first consequence to their own lives. Gathered around a table, where they can engage their peers face-to-face, our students are drawn into conversation not only with each other, but with a host of brilliant and meaningful authors, from Shakespeare and Melville to Aristotle and Burke. Seated right alongside them, their teacher facilitates the discussion rather than dominating it, allowing the students to take greater direction of the conversation as they progress through their four years. The conversations that students have in their Humanities Seminars are typically among the most meaningful and memorable classroom experiences our students enjoy.

The scientific discoveries of the modern world, along with their remarkable technological applications, have totally transformed the human experience. At LGA, we want our students to be fully prepared to know the world as it is revealed to us in modern science, and to apply those insights towards the betterment of man’s estate. That is why we have designed challenging and substantive sequences in our Math and Science programs. Our unique curriculum allows students to explore these subjects with all the rigor expected of an advanced high school course of study, but within a broad intellectual context that allows them to appreciate these disciplines as reflections of the divine light implanted in both themselves and the wondrous world surrounding them.

At the end of Junior year, our students begin deliberating over the subject of their Senior Theses. Each student chooses a subject drawn from his or her own reflections on the previous three years of study.

Over the next few months, working closely with their advisor, students will read, reflect, and discuss this subject until they have arrived at a deeper and more refined grasp of its significance. At this stage, about half-way through Senior year, they begin writing their papers and preparing to present and defend their ideas in front of a panel of scholars.

The Senior Thesis project allows our students to explore their own intellectual interests, while simultaneously delving deeper into much they have learned in their time at LGA. Few schools in New Jersey provide their students with an opportunity to culminate their studies in such a substantive and enriching manner.

From St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas to G.K. Chesterton, the intellectual riches of the Catholic philosophical tradition are immense. From St. Peter’s Basilica and Chartres Cathedral to Dante and Michelangelo, the riches of the Church’s artistic tradition are equally awe-inspiring. As a committed Catholic institution, we regard it as our mission to transmit these traditions, and to form our students in light of the wisdom and beauty to be found in them. The faith that structures the prayer and worship of our school day infuses our curriculum as well, so that in their reading and their classroom encounters, our students can experience the true splendor that is “the mind of Christ.”