Lyceum academic programme to be named after retired Classics teacher at St Stephen's School.

St Stephen’s in Rome has received a major donation in support of the school's Lyceum programme which offers students International Baccalaureate courses in Classical Greek and Latin languages as well as Classical Greek and Roman studies.

A group of alumni, parents and former staff members have pledged $675,000 towards the signature project in what is the biggest contribution to an academic programme in the history of St Stephen’s, an American international school located near the Circus Maximus in the Aventino area of Rome.

The school describes the donation as "a transformational commitment that will allow generations of students to benefit from the teaching of the Classics on campus."

Modelled after Aristotle’s idea of university, the Lyceum involves an inclusive and interdisciplinary approach, combining the study of ancient Greece and Rome with science, art and technology.

Field trips

The project also allows students to join day and weekend field trips, from studying Ovid’s poetry at his birthplace in Sulmona to examining Roman architecture at Herculaneum and Pompeii.

The Lyceum co-sponsors the original publication Remus, the sourcebook for the Sandra and Grenville Craig City
of Rome Course, a required class that enables students to "use Rome as a living laboratory for their study of the city, its monuments, buildings, and physical spaces."

The programme is to be renamed as the Dr Helen Pope Lyceum at St Stephen’s School, in honor of the Lyceum’s founding faculty member, Dr Helen Pope, who retired recently after more than three decades of teaching Classics.

It is named and endowed thanks to the lead gift from Christina and Jeff Sagansky, whose daughter Summer Sagansky was taught by Dr Pope as part of the Class of 2012.

The Big Dig

In 2021 the Pope Lyceum will bring to fruition the Aventinus Minor Project (AMP), a ground-breaking partnership with The American University of Rome.

Known affectionately as the "Big Dig", the project is an interdisciplinary collaboration among Classics, history, science, mathematics and the arts to excavate the Aventine Hill, "right in St Stephen’s backyard."

The school says the dig will "help students gain critical knowledge of archaeology, the methodologies of excavating and archaeological drawing, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, 3D laser scanning and printing, archival studies, record-keeping, iconography, cartography, topography and photography."

Classical legacy

The school says the Lyceum is at the core of its mission "to engage new generations with our Classical legacy."

The Pope Lyceum Founding Donors are:
Donna Bachle and Thomas Aden, Class of 1968
Sandra and Grenville Craig
William Gruy
Teodolinda Barolini, Class of 1968
Duncan Pollock
Nigel Redden, Class of 1967
Danna and Harvey Stone
Christine and Jeffrey Sagansky
Wheelock Whitney III, Class of 1968

St Stephen's is a non-profit and non-denominational, co-educational, American international day and boarding
IB World School. It enrolls students from ages 14-19 in grades 9-12, plus an optional postgraduate year.

For more details about the school, and the Pope Lyceum, see St Stephen's website. Photo Herculaneum.