Dr. Steven Cain
Profile -- (Fall 2000 Newsletter)
Cheating on tests was no big deal when Steve Cain was in
high school in West Palm Beach, Florida. He couldn’t
understand why his freshman classmate wouldn’t help him
with answers on their Latin test. But Tony Andres was unlike
everyone else. For starters he was the only kid Steve knew,
including himself, whose parents hadn’t divorced. He
was smart, athletic, and came from a family that would stay
up late discussing interesting things. And he was Catholic.
Steve was amazed that Tony wouldn’t help him cheat.
That struck him as a good thing. He then had many serious
conversations with Tony about many serious things that started
him down the road to faith. The oldest of three children,
Steve was baptized Episcopalian, but he was functionally pagan,
raised without any church involvement. “Tony never openly
proselytized me; he simply explained his position about things
I couldn’t fathom, like why he wouldn’t go to the
mall on Sunday.”
On graduation from high school, Tony came to Thomas Aquinas
College; Steve “wasted” a year at Florida State
University. They continued to correspond and to visit on breaks
and their conversations became even better. Steve could see
the impact of the College on his friend. He toyed with the
idea of enrolling himself, but didn’t think it would
be worth going so far from family and friends. And, besides,
it was Catholic and he was not. He decided to head back to
the northeast near his father and attend Connecticut College.
In the meantime, he kept talking to Tony to good effect.
At the beginning of his junior year, he became Catholic. “It’s
a sure sign of God’s existence if you can convert at
a place like Connecticut College.” What Steve didn’t
know, is that Tony had gotten his College friends, including
a young sophomore girl, Mary O’Hara, to pray for him.
During spring break later that year, Steve came to visit
Tony at the College. At the first class, the tutor was late
due to car problems. Steve was amazed to see students start
the class without him. He was even more impressed when the
tutor showed up halfway through class and inconspicuously,
but naturally, entered the conversation. Campus curfew, single-sex
dorms, and night prayers were other curiosities. He saw they
were good and regretted not attending the College himself.
But God had other plans in store. Talking with Tony made
Steve interested in Aristotle and St. Thomas. The philosophy
offerings at Connecticut were constraining, so he switched
to classics and double-majored in physics, graduating with
honors in classics and distinction in both majors.
At Tony’s recommendation, he moved to Boston to teach
physics and philosophy at a Catholic high school and to audit
a philosophy course at Assumption College taught by Professor
Duane Berquist, (brother of Thomas Aquinas co-founder Marcus
Berquist). Steve was smitten by Berquist’s erudition
and began to participate in what was to become ten years of
study groups under the famed Thomistic professor. Joining
the group was Mary O’Hara, freshly graduated from Thomas
Aquinas, pursuing graduate studies at Boston College. The
two fell in love with more than just St. Thomas’ commentary
on Aristotle’s physics. They married two years later.
Steve taught for a year at Trivium Academy, a classics high
school in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and then attended Catholic
University for graduate studies in Greek and Latin. After
completing course work for a master’s degree in classics,
he relocated back to Boston College and obtained a master’s
degree in philosophy. He is now a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy,
having passed his exams with distinction, and having acquired
numerous honors and awards. While pursuing graduate studies
and private home tutorials from Duane Berquist, he served
as Professor of Humanities at the Legionaries of Christ college
seminary and its Center for Higher Studies.
In 1998, a tutor position opened at Thomas Aquinas and Steve
jumped at the chance. For him, it was a chance to make up
for lost time; for his alumna wife, Mary, a homecoming. They
have four children together.
Steve says teaching at the College is humbling. “Generally
a teacher is expected to have a command over the material.
But under this teaching format, students are always asking
questions that you may not have the answer to. Its goal is
to be able to say, ‘I don’t know,’ and then
work together to find the answer. You bring out a sense of
the common enterprise that way. And you really see that tutors
are fellow students here.”
Steve loves the interaction with students. “Conversations
inside class often spill outside class. You have meals with
students, social activities with students, you develop a friendship
with students – which is how the intellectual life should
be, a common endeavor. When I taught as a lecturer, I’d
come out of classes drained. But here, I come out invigorated.”
Tony Andres, the graduate, is now a Professor of Philosophy
at Christendom College. Steve Cain, the wishful graduate,
now teaches here. They still talk.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2000
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