An academy (Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership. The name traces back to Plato’s school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece.
In the western world academia is the commonly used term for the collective institutions of higher learning.
Before Akademia was a school, and even before Cimon enclosed its precincts with a wall, it contained a sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, outside the city walls of ancient Athens. The archaic name for the site was Hekademia, which by classical times evolved into Akademia and was explained, at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it to an Athenian hero, a legendary “Akademos”. The site of Akademia was sacred to Athena and other immortals.
Plato’s immediate successors as “scholarch” of Akademia were Speusippus (347–339 BC), Xenocrates (339–314…