Four members of Foxcroft School's Junior Class have been named to attend 2013 Virginia Governor's Summer Programs, Academic Dean Alexander O. Northrup announced recently. The group, Foxcroft's largest contingent in at least eight years, represents nearly 10 percent of the Class of 2014 and includes the School's first selection to the Governor's Foreign Language Academy for Latin.

Alicia Holz of Delaplane, VA, and Lydia Bubniak, a Leesburg resident, will attend Governor's Summer Residential School for Mathematics, Science, and Technology, and the Humanities, respectively. Kate Eagen of Middleburg was selected for the Foreign Language Academy for Spanish and Lilly MacDonald (Bluemont) became the first Foxcroft student chosen for the Latin Academy.

All four girls underwent a rigorous application process to gain access to these programs, which offer Virginia's most able students an intensive academic experience living for three or four weeks on college and university campuses. Students must be nominated by their high school, which is allowed only one candidate per program, and then must advance through regional and statewide stages based of a number of criteria.

At Governor's Summer Residential Schools, students are involved in classroom and laboratory work, field studies, research, individual and group projects, and seminars with noted scholars, visiting artists, and other professionals. The Foreign Language Academies offer a unique challenge for students who have excelled in language study, often including a full immersion environment.

Holz, a beneficiary of Foxcroft's innovative program in the all-important STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields, will focus on those subjects at Lynchburg College from June 30–July 27. An All-Conference field hockey goalie and head of Foxcroft's environmental club, she is the daughter of Cynthia and Jack Holz of Delaplane.

A talented singer, Bubniak will attend the Summer Residential Governor's School for Humanities at Radford University from June 23–July 20. The daughter of Rita and Thomas Bubniak of Leesburg, Lydia is one of just three juniors elected this year to Foxcroft's Cum Laude Society, an academic honor modeled on the collegiate Phi Beta Kappa.

Eagen and MacDonald, the other juniors named to Cum Laude this year, are both outstanding scholars and athletes. They each have eight varsity letters, several all-conference honors, and team captaincies to their credit. Lilly, the daughter of Cricket and David MacDonald of Bluemont, will study intensive Latin, introductory Greek, and Roman culture at Randolph-Macon College from June 23-July 14.

Eagen, who is also co-head of "Banneker Buddies" (a service group that visits the local elementary school weekly) and a leader in the freshman dorm, will attend the Spanish Academy at Washington & Lee College June 22-July 13. She is the daughter of Dr. Maria Eagen of Middleburg and James Eagen of Purcellville.