Governor's School comes to a close at RU

The 2014 Virginia Summer Residential Governor's Schools in the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts have come to a close at Radford University.

This year, Governor's School provided exceptional high school students with an early look at the college experience, full of academic challenges and the opportunity to live on campus from June 22 through July 19.

As students prepared to say goodbye to the RU campus and the new friends they made, they reflected on the academic and social experience of Governor's School.

"The classes here are great," said Elizabeth Dinneny, a rising senior from Potomac Falls High School in Sterling. "They're so different from ours in school. Instead of worrying about tests and grades in the same way, we can just have great discussions with our teachers and other students."

For Anna Alpern, a rising senior from Monacan High School in North Chesterfield, the chance to live the life of a college student for a month was one of the best aspects of Governor's School, she said.

"It's different being at a college," Alpern said. "I liked all the freedom I had here."

Since 2010, RU has been selected by Virginia Department of Education to host the program, which gives junior and senior high school students the opportunity to use their creativity in music, visual and performing arts and the humanities. Students choose the classes that most pique their interest from a varied curriculum taught by RU faculty members and guest instructors.

Paul Thomas was one of those faculty members. In his course "The Cultural Significance of Monsters," students discovered that creatures, such as Frankenstein and Dracula, aren't just fictional boogeymen, but reflections of the society that created them.