Thomas Susanka, Admissions Director
Profile -- (Winter 1999-2000 Newsletter)
 Last
fall, Admissions Director Tom Susanka was recognized for his
20 years of service to the College. He marvels to look back
on how it all came about. "It was," he muses, "because
of my sloth."
Susanka's father had a job that bounced the family all over
the western states. Susanka had gone to ten schools before
the family settled in Portland, Oregon, where he found himself
a sophomore at Portland State University. He was listlessly
pursuing a pre-dental program and trying to find an easy elective
during registration one term. He picked up a piece of literature
off the gym floor describing a course on "Survey of Musical
Literature," taught by one Dr. Molly Gustin. He thought,
"That looks easy enough for me, it's at a time when I
can sleep in, and the name 'Gustin' reminds me of a St. Augustine's
school I once attended." The enrollment changed his life.
Dr. Gustin's course was riveting as she challenged him with
evidence that reason was the key to understanding life. He
then took her courses in philosophy and music theory. One
day in his junior year, she announced she wouldn't be at class
the following week. She had been invited to give a lecture
at a brand new college: Thomas Aquinas College. She returned
from her visit animated. Soon afterwards, Dr. Ron McArthur,
the College's founding President, came to town to give a talk
on the College. Susanka became animated. That fall of 1972,
Dr. Gustin came to the College to teach and Susanka came to
the College to learn.
Susanka absorbed the College program. But midway through,
and now in his mid-20s, his attraction for classmate Therese
Rioux made him reflect on how he might hurry and settle down,
complete a degree, and come back to the College to work or
teach. He married Therese, moved back to Portland State, finished
his degree, and started a master's program in biology.
But in the course of his graduate studies, College Chaplain
and Tutor Fr. Thomas McGovern, S.J., asked Susanka if he would
come interview for the position of Admissions Director. Susanka
jumped. Sporting a heavy beard, he met Fr. McGovern at the
airport. It was needed, he explained, to hide his youthful
appearance while student-teaching. "Great beard, but
it's got to go before you meet the hiring committee,"
warned Fr. McGovern, who lent him his razor as soon as they
got on campus. Susanka shaved and got the job. It was 1979;
he's been clean-shaven since.
Thanks to Susanka's work since then, hundreds of young men
and women have received the good fortune of being recruited
to the College, something he has found to be indescribably
satisfying. "Talking to students about coming to the
College always lets you see that the Holy Spirit is guiding
them towards something very important. When you talk to students
about what's on their minds and hear of their family backgrounds,
you really get to see the infinite, almost intrusive, action
of the Holy Spirit. It always amazes me to see how receptive
young people are to a College whose simple assumption is that
they have minds that are capable of seeing what is true. To
then watch them mature in their Faith and grow in the confident
use of their minds during their College years is both exhilarating
and humbling."
Very often, Susanka notes, it's the parents who encounter
the greatest joy. "I can't tell you how many times I
get a call from a parent who says something like, 'Look, I'm
not entirely clear on what it is you people do there, but
whatever you are doing, keep it up. My son just came home
for the break, and we're amazed and impressed - it's the first
time we've ever had a civil, coherent conversation with him
about anything.'"
The downside of his job is being witness to lost opportunity.
"The most frustrating thing is to talk to students who
know they should be here, who even want to come here, but
who simply can't break away from some predisposition to go
somewhere else. Once in a while they regret their diversion
and end up here, but when they don't, it's disappointing.
Even then, though, you can see that just hearing about a place
like Thomas Aquinas College has encouraged them to think more
about what liberal education might do for them."
Susanka's easiest recruits came from his own family. Daughter
Mary, and son Joseph, graduated last year; Elizabeth is now
a freshman. Four other siblings are lined up behind them,
home-schooled in nearby Ojai by wife, Therese.
Susanka sees Divine Comedy at work in it all. "I am
your classic case of someone who came, unexpectedly, to good
things for absolutely trivial reasons. I'm forever thankful
that I picked up Molly Gustin's schedule off that gym floor."
[Dr. Gustin teaches at the College to this day.]
Of course the comedy of others helps him on. Like when he
told a student recruiter at a Rocky Mountain-area college
that we read "the Great Books of the West." She
said, "Oh, we do too! We've got a whole program devoted
to Louis L'Amour's novels!"
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2000
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