PRESS KIT: Gould Academy Backgrounder

Gould Academy At a Glance

The Education

Gould Academy offers students in grades 9 through 12 and post-graduate a traditional college prep, liberal arts education enhanced by novel experiential opportunities, including outdoor education and international travel. Academic departments include English, history, modern and classical languages, science, mathematics, visual and performing arts, and computer technology. Gould fields more than 25 competitive teams in 17 sports and offers multiple extracurricular activities. The school has more on-snow programs than any other school in New England. Those programs take place at nearby Sunday River Ski Resort or on cross-country trails that leave from campus.

The Mission Statement

The mission of Gould Academy is to inspire young men and women to achieve high standards in their academic, artistic, and athletic pursuits; to demonstrate responsibility to the community; and to explore the natural world.

We expect Gould graduates to go on to college with confidence built on success and tempered by experience, while holding on to timeless virtues such as honesty, kindness, and civility. We are committed to the seven-day boarding school as an ideal environment in which to weave love for ideas together with readiness for personal and collective challenge.

Three values at the heart of any Gould endeavor are the energy to try, the willingness to risk, and the capacity to tolerate.

The History

The school opened in the fall of 1836 as Bethel Academy, serving 134 students who paid $2.50 for tuition and $1.50 for room and board in the town. In 1843, Bethel Academy became Gould's Academy (eventually Gould Academy), named after Reverend Daniel Gould of Bethel, who left his entire estate ($842) to the school. From the beginning, the school served both the town of Bethel and a coeducational boarding population.

At the turn of the century, William Bingham 2nd from Cleveland discovered Bethel and Gould. By the 1930's, he began gifting much of his inherited wealth to Gould, helping build many of the major buildings. His love for Gould continues through the Bingham Betterment Fund.

In 1969, with the opening of Telstar High School to serve students in the area, Gould became a private boarding school with a small day population. Since that time, the curriculum has focused on college prep subjects for a total student population of about 230, with 45 percent from Maine, 15 percent from New England, and the remainder from other parts of the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Today, Gould Academy is richer for its unique blend of traditional and state-of-the-art curriculum, facilities and capabilities. In addition to the McLaughlin Science Center, Gould has built in recent years a new dining hall, a competition center for skiing and snowboarding at Sunday River, and a post and beam barn (built by students) that is home to yoke-trained oxen, sheep and other animals. Gould's technology infrastructure is second to none. All buildings are networked on fiber links and provided Internet access. Gould has converted converted its core servers to the Linux operating system, and it has a 45-megabit ATM connection to the Maine Schools and Libraries Network that connects schools and colleges throughout Maine.

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