Lyceum Mission

Our Mission: To inspire a life-long love of learning through enrichment programs that stimulate intellectual promise, awaken individual creativity, and foster academic achievement.

Our Mission: To inspire a life-long love of learning through enrichment programs that stimulate intellectual promise, awaken individual creativity, and foster academic achievement.

Our mission is to inspire a life-long love of learning through enrichment programs that stimulate intellectual promise, awaken individual creativity, and foster academic achievement.

The Lyceum of Monterey County is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1960. We offer classes, camps, and academic events for students in Monterey County.

Enrichment Classes

A hands-on experiential approach to learning is the cornerstone of each Lyceum program.  This method successfully captures the attention of students who have a variety of individual learning styles, and encourages them to use and strengthen their thinking skills.  Research shows that students learn best when they are involved in experiences that challenge the mind and engage the body. 

Academic Events

Annual academic events offer a unique opportunity to students to work on a major project through-out the year in addition to their regular course work.  Events like Mock Trial and Model UN are highly valued on college applications. Our 4th &5th grade Spelling Bee creates a unique opportunity for students to get excited about spelling and to go on to compete in the Scripps Howard competition.  We also offer History Day and EYH.  These events all incorporate common core educational requirements in a unique and fun way for students.  

Founders

All of this would not have happened without the vision of its founders, two educators Vera Hering, Claire Kennedy and their friend Ruth Fenton. These three friends saw the need to “inspire a love of learning”— the Lyceum’s mission statement—through after school programs for students, especially gifted students. At the time, there were no academic enrichment programs anywhere in the county and they were the first to jump-start this innovative concept in 1960. 

The three friends named their new nonprofit organization, “Lyceum”, a Greek word meaning a public place, such as a public hall, for classes and lectures that were made popular during Aristotle’s period. In modern times, Lyceum means a secondary school, a school for students intermediate between elementary school and college. Incidentally, today’s Lyceum also means a public hall for lectures and concerts.

Adhering to the founders’ belief that hands-on classes in a fun environment is the best way for a student to learn—whether science, humanities, art or music—today’s Lyceum's offers a diverse menu of classes that continues to enrich the daily lives of students by introducing them to the joy of learning through interactive and innovative classes.