On a recent summer afternoon at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts of the University of New Haven, a gaggle of high-school students sat inside a studio, intently and quietly focused on drawing the still-lifes in front of them — a Georgia O’Keeffe-like cow skull, among them. They worked under the aegis of Michael Viera, a Lyme Academy graduate who has won awards from, among others, the National Arts Club in New York.

In a nearby room, a group of adults were gearing up to sketch a model in the figure drawing session with Jerry Weiss, who, in addition to being a noted artist, also teaches at the Art Students League of New York.

These classes are all part of a new Center for Arts Programming created this year by Lyme Academy. The center features art programs for area high school students and for adults, both those who have and those who don’t have arts experience; art lectures; artist critiques; artist-in-residence workshops; and satellite classes in New London.

The idea behind it, says Campus Dean Todd Jokl, is community engagement. The Lyme Pre-College Academy is providing high-caliber, college-level instruction for high schoolers, he says, and a full palette of offerings for adults.

Marguerite d’Aprile Quigley was hired as director of this new center to develop its programming. The Lyme resident’s resume includes working as director of communications at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts and as director of external affairs at the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

When Lyme Academy was founded in 1976, one of its missions was to offer non-credit classes so area residents could come in and study drawing, painting and sculpting, according to Quigley. That is what the academy is trying to do again, to “make this a place where people can come and paint and discover their creative voice,” she says.

Lyme Academy has held public classes before, but not with the same breadth and sheer volume — maybe three or four, compared to the current number. Over the summer, the center offered 18 studio courses to the public; 12 of those were continuing education for adults and six were pre-college programs aimed at high school students. (High schoolers could participate in the former group if they wanted.) The sessions ranged from plein air painting to figurative sculpture to animation, 3D modeling and illustration.

Registration for the center’s fall line-up opens on Sept. 15. Included will be portrait painting, figurative drawing, landscape painting, photography and more.

The pre-college classes will be on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and the Saturday open figure draw will continue during the autumn as well.

In addition to that, the academy’s center is reaching out to New London students specifically — and is collaborating with the Lyman Allyn Art Museum to do so.

A number of students from New London had wanted to attend the summer’s pre-college programs, and the academy offered full scholarships — but they ended up not being able to get transportation to Old Lyme.

That led Lyme Academy to look at running a class at a satellite location in New London. Lyman Allyn Art Museum was the perfect option. That venue has an art education room and is not currently doing programming for high school students.

“So it became a win-win,” says Quigley, who happens to be married to Lyman Allyn Director D. Samuel Quigley. “They were looking for ways to get high school students more involved in the museum. We were looking for a satellite location so we could teach pre-college classes in New London. And the instructor we hired (Teresa Bonillo) is a high school art teacher from Stonington who happened to grow up in New London, knows the area well, and she was looking for a way ... her students and others could do life drawing.”

The center’s Pre-College Academy has drawn students from near and far, with some game to spend considerable time traveling each day to get there. Mitch Vecchione comes to Lyme Academy from Trumbull, along with his cousin, Noelle Beach, who lives in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., but is staying in Trumbull during the Lyme Academy session. Eva Melin-Gompper, who is from San Francisco, Calif., discovered the classes by researching on the Internet things she might do while vacationing here.

Leah Donovan, who is going to be a sophomore at Montville High School, has only recently become interested in creating comics and, by taking a comics illustration course at Lyme Academy, she says, “I thought it would be interesting to increase my skill with that. But this has turned into something way better and amazing.”

She had been to Lyme Academy before, but this is the first time she’s really gotten to know the place — and is now considering applying to it after she graduates from high school.

Luke Hoffman, who’s heading into 10th grade at Lyme-Old Lyme High School, took three classes this summer at Lyme Academy — on animation, drawing and comic drawing.

“It’s really fun. I’ve learned a lot,” he says, adding, “I’ve learned how to draw better and, with animation class, I’ve learned how to use animation better.”

In addition to classes, the Lyme Academy’s Center for Arts Programming is holding critiques that are open to all professional artists, with the next one happening Monday, Aug. 17. (The critique runs from 7 to 9 p.m. and costs $15; space is limited to 12 people.)

Many artists work in isolation in their studios and, Quigley notes, “By doing an open critique, it gives them a forum, a way they can come in and meet other artists in the area and then have a dialogue, share comments about each other’s work.”

A Lyme Academy faculty member has led the sessions, where everyone participates in the critiques of the four to seven pieces each artist brings along. In the future, the center might bring in other professionals — perhaps a gallerist, museum director or art critic — to provide multiple voices in these sessions.

Artist lectures are part of the mix, too, with a trio to be scheduled, one each in October, November and December.

And the center’s inaugural artist-in-residence was T. Allen Lawson, who led a weekly workshop in early August. The Lyme Academy alum, who has become an esteemed plein-air painter, drew participants from around the country. Because of limited housing during the school year, the next artist-in-residence wouldn’t come in until next summer.