A Brief History of Thomas Aquinas College
Part I - The Early Years
[Following is Part I in a three-part series on the history
of Thomas Aquinas College.]
"American Catholics are becoming increasingly aware
of the growing tendency of Catholic colleges to secularize
themselves - that is, to loosen their connection with the
teaching Church and to diminish deliberately their Catholic
character."
Thus begins A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic
Liberal Education, the founding document of Thomas Aquinas
College published in 1969. The story of how this document
came to be is also the story of how Thomas Aquinas College
came to be. The College and the "Blue Book" (as
the Proposal came to be known from the color of its
cover) are inseparable. The Blue Book is the College's Declaration
of Independence, as it were.
The Blue Book arose from conversations among several philosophy
professors who were concerned about the direction of modern
Catholic liberal education. They wanted not to return to some
earlier form of education in America, but to something that
resonated with the kind of academic excellence that flourished
in ancient Greece or in the great medieval universities in
Europe. Simply put, they wanted to return not to the 1950s,
but to the 1350s. At the same time, they were thinking ahead.
The Great Books Movement
The Great Books became a focal point of consideration. In
1921, Columbia University had established a program in which
students read, not textbooks, but the original works of the
greatest minds, both ancient and modern, in Western Civilization.
These works, which came to be called the "Great Books,"
probe the core of human experience, whether through philosophy,
mathematics, science, literature, or drama, and articulate
ideas about things as they really are, regardless of time
or place.
In 1930, the University of Chicago instituted a similar program,
and in 1937, St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, made
the Great Books the exclusive feature of its curriculum. Subsequently,
St. Mary's College, Moraga, near Oakland, California, modeled
its Integrated Liberal Arts program after St. John's.
Teaching at St. Mary's in the 1960s were Dr. Ronald McArthur,
Dr. John Neumayr, Dr. Frank Ellis, Mr. Marc Berquist, and
Brother Edmund Dolan, F.S.C. Conversations about the plight
of modern Catholic liberal education began with McArthur,
Berquist, and one of Dr. McArthur's former students, Peter
DeLuca III, who was then the Western Director of the Intercollegiate
Studies Institute. Those conversations extended to others
and resulted in a draft of the "Blue Book."
An Idea
The "Blue Book" discussed the crisis in modern
Catholic education as essentially a false conflict between
faith and reason, and it illustrated how faith can illumine
understanding. It clarified the scope of academic freedom
and underscored the freedom that comes through Catholic education.
Defining the role of the Catholic teacher, it recalled a proper
understanding of liberal education and distinguished the parts
and order of that education. Showing the relation between
liberal education and the Christian faith, the "Blue
Book" proclaimed the urgent need for genuine liberal
education and set forth a model curriculum.
St. John's would in many ways serve as the model. The Great
Books would be the exclusive feature of the proposed curriculum.
Classes would cover the range of the liberal arts, encompassing
philosophy, theology, mathematics, laboratory science, grammar
(Latin), literature, history, and music. In classes of no
more than twenty, students would learn through the Socratic
method - a rigorous discussion of the readings. The curriculum
would be fully integrated - each class would build on and
interrelate with all other courses in the program. There would
be no electives and no majors or minors. Students would take
the same courses from freshman through senior year.
But the new program would be essentially different from the
program of St. John's College: the Catholic Faith would guide
the intellectual life. Students would take "tutorials"
not only in mathematics and language, but also in philosophy
and theology, giving special attention to the philosophy of
Aristotle and the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. The seminar
would cover literature, history, and those theological and
philosophical works not otherwise essential to the curriculum.
Mass and the sacraments would be encouraged and a strong Catholic
moral life would prevail.
A Reality
In 1968 the project was gaining steam. DeLuca had previously
worked for a company owned by the oil magnate and conservative
philanthropist, Henry Salvatori. He and McArthur approached
Salvatori about providing seed money for the start-up of the
new college. Salvatori, somewhat skeptical of the endeavor,
nevertheless gave them $10,000 saying, "You can no
more start a college than you can fly, but everyone deserves
a chance to fail once."
On October 14, 1968, articles of incorporation were filed
for the Institute for Christian Education, a non-profit educational
corporation formed to implement the "Blue Book."
The seven original board members were McArthur, Berquist,
DeLuca, Ellis, George, Neumayr, and Lt. Col. William S. Lawton.
McArthur was named president and chairman.
In the spring of 1969, Dominican College of San Rafael agreed
to let the incipient college open an office on its campus
and use its facilities. On May 28, the corporation was renamed
"Thomas Aquinas College" and offices were opened
in July, with DeLuca serving as the principal administrator.
On April 25, 1970, the College staged a major promotional
dinner at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, attended by
450 people. Speakers included the Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen
and L. Brent Bozell. The members of the now expanded Board
of Governors, especially San Francisco attorney John Schaeffer,
played a substantial role in the success of the event.
But shortly thereafter, Dominican College rescinded its agreement.
Board member Francis J. Montgomery turned to Los Angeles Cardinal
Archbishop James Francis McIntyre, who had earlier endorsed
the project enthusiastically. Cardinal McIntyre met with the
founders and assisted the College in relocating to the Los
Angeles Archdiocese. The College then leased, on June 1, 1971,
the facilities at Claretville, the former novitiate and college
seminary of the Claretian order in Malibu Canyon outside Calabasas,
California.
A freshman class was recruited, and on September 11, 1971,
thirty-three students enrolled. Classes began three days later.
In 1975, the California Deptartment of Education gave the
College power to grant degrees, and on June 7, the College
graduated its first class. H. Lyman Stebbins, founder of Catholics
United for the Faith, gave the first Commencement address.
1 | 2
| 3
|
