From the Desk of the President
President Thomas E. Dillon
(Fall 2001 Newsletter--Campaign Issue)
[Index
of Past Articles by President Dillon]
In 1993, Thomas Aquinas College
launched the most ambitious campaign undertaken in the school's
history - a campaign to raise $25 million in five years to
mark the 25th anniversary of the College. Thanks to our friends
and supporters, the campaign succeeded beyond all expectations,
raising more than $27 million for buildings, scholarship,
and endowment. Those efforts put the College on its most secure
financial footing ever.
Because of that campaign, we were able to complete construction
of St. Bernardine Library, Blessed Serra Residence Hall for
Men, and St. Therese of Lisieux Residence Hall for Women.
In addition, we were able to fund important financial aid
programs for needy students, and to establish an Endowment
to fund our scholarship program well into the future.
As a result of that campaign, our campus has now passed the
half-way mark in constructing all of the buildings we first
set out to build under our Campus
Master Plan. When I behold the grandeur and beauty of
our campus, even with the remaining temporary buildings in
place, I can hardly contain my joy. To see this campus rise
in 20 years from the mud flats of a sparse field to what it
is today is to behold something truly miraculous - the Divine
Work of God.
And yet, our project is not complete. Seven buildings remain
to be built under our Master Plan: a chapel,
a classroom
building, a gymnasium,
an auditorium,
an administration
building, and residence halls for men
and women.
In addition, our Endowment needs to be fully funded to meet
all of our financial aid goals.
I hope you can appreciate my excitement, then, and that of
our Board of Governors, to see this campus fully built and
fully endowed. We are so close and we want to see it through
all the way.
But never would I have imagined, just a few years ago, that
we would be able to launch
a campaign to see the campus fully built and fully endowed.
A campaign of this magnitude - $75 million - is three times
what our last campaign sought, and that was a campaign which
had itself tripled the rate of past gifts until then.
But this is a campaign we are confident we will achieve,
thanks to the extraordinary generosity and sacrifices of our
many good friends. Indeed, it is only our friends who have
made this comprehensive campaign possible.
I can't begin to express the gratitude we owe to Sir Daniel
Donohue and The Dan Murphy Foundation. The Foundation's lead
gift of $10 million is the kind of gift that is critically
necessary to launch a campaign of this magnitude. In other
words, but for the Foundation's gift, this campaign would
not likely have begun. And if this campaign were not to begin,
this campus would remain an unfinished project.
As we launch this campaign, I am overwhelmed with profound
gratitude. Gratitude to the founders of Thomas Aquinas College
for their courage and resolve in establishing, despite tremendous
obstacles, an institution of higher learning that would be
uncompromising in its dedication to life of the mind, unbending
in its determination to pass on the great intellectual patrimony
of our civilization, and unwavering in its reverence for the
guiding wisdom of the teaching Church.
Gratitude to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in which Cardinal
McIntyre so graciously invited us into the diocese thirty
years ago, and in which Cardinal Manning, and now Cardinal
Mahony, have so kindly encouraged our work ever since. Gratitude
to our faculty and staff, who in their commitment to Christian
wisdom, have, for three decades now, made great sacrifices
to implement our high educational ideals. And gratitude to
our students, who have entrusted their minds to us through
the years and have devoted themselves wholehearted to the
pursuit of truth.
I am especially grateful to our many benefactors, whose prayers
and support have been extraordinary, without whom this College
simply would not exist. And finally, I'm very thankful, of
course, deeply thankful, to God Himself for His many blessings;
blessings well beyond anything we might have hoped for thirty
years ago, and blessings that are wholly disproportionate
to our meager human efforts.
One thing has become clear to me through the years, that
is that, in bestowing His care to the College, God has built
up a community of diverse parts, each of whose members He
allows to share in His Providence. You, our generous benefactors,
through your magnificent support, truly participate in God's
Providential acts. Without you, as instruments of God's Providence,
this College would simply not be, and would not, therefore,
have worked such good in so many lives. So let me thank you
again, for your partnership in this noble educational endeavor,
which has had such positive effects in society and in the
Church.
What makes this College especially successful, I think, is
that we are dedicated to what ennobles the soul. We aspire,
in all that we do, to uphold the true, the good, and the beautiful.
We certainly understand that the high rankings we've achieved
in the various college guides, while gratifying, are finally
of very little value. What's really important is that we lead
the students that God sends our way, one by one, toward intellectual
and moral virtue, and that we do that with charity and with
humility.
Naturally, it's our desire now to stay the course and to
deepen and extend the course, which through God's grace, has
been so well begun. So we invite you, to join with us in helping
to form future generations of young people who care deeply
about our Church, about our country, and about doing great
things with their lives.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2001
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