A
system of schools in the
Taiwan, with an
American educational system and a
evangelical fundamentalist Protestant Christian emphasis.
There are three (closed) campuses:
- Morrison Academy Taichung: This is the main campus, with grades K-12, and the only boarding school with dorms.
- Bethany: This one is in Taipei. Grades K-9.
- Morrison Academy Kaohsiung (MAK): In Kaohsiung, naturally enough. Grades K-8.
- Yangmei: This is a "satellite" school, with a very small and fluctuating student body, and no real campus.
Trivia:
Total enrollment is about 800. I am a senior at the Taichung campus. Our high school has about 200 students, and my class is about 60. Its homepage, which I was (mercifully) briefly webmaster of, is located at http://www.mca.tc.edu.tw/high_school/
The school year is of 180 days. The school day is from 8:00 to 3:10 normally, with eight 45 minute periods. Wednesdays and Thursdays are block schedule, with four periods lasting 85 minutes. Wednesdays afternoons conclude with an Activity Period which may be free, an assembly, or class meetings. Thursday afternoons conclude with a mandatory chapel. This chapel includes a student-led happy-clappy worship and praise music session, followed by a speaker, either the chaplain or a guest speaker. On Spiritual Life Week, the periods are shortened and each day concludes with a chapel featuring a guest speaker. This is supposed to be one great big revival, that gets everybody worked up and repentant by Friday, though they will be back to their usual selves by Wednesday at the latest. We also generally have about three "sex chapels" in a year, usually at least one sex-segregated one--during which the evils of lust, fornication, and the like are expounded most wearily.
Bible classes are mandatory as well. Freshmen, juniors, and seniors have at least one prescribed Bible class, and may pick their other Bible classes.
MCA offers AP English, U.S. History, and Calculus every year. Additionally, some programs in Computer Science, Statistics, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry may be available.
Facilities (of the Taichung campus) include a cinder outdoor 400-meter track, two indoor basketball courts/gymnasiums, a fitness center (weight room), a soccer field and a general purpose (soccer, softball) field, a blacktop (with basketball hoops) and a playground, a medium-sized L-configuration swimming pool with a deep end and two diving boards, a hot tub, two libraries (an EMS (elementary and middle school) library and a high school library), four networked computer labs (high school library, EMS library, high school lab, EMS lab), computers in several other rooms, and other facilities you might expect to find at a school MCA's size.
Due to Taiwan law, all students must hold foreign passports, but many are Chinese. Americans are a large minority, as are missionaries, whom the school was established to serve (and still puts in first priority).
High school varsity teams include track, soccer, basketball and volleyball. Soccer and basketball teams compete in an overseas tournament yearly.