From the Desk of the President
President Thomas E. Dillon
A Campaign Update
(Spring 2007 Newsletter)
[Index
of Past Articles by President Dillon]
 In
2001, Thomas Aquinas College introduced its $75 million Comprehensive
Campaign with the intention of building out our campus, increasing
our endowment, and covering financial aid and operating expenses
during the life of the Campaign. Under the leadership of our dear
friends and Campaign Co-Chairs, The Honorable William P. Clark and
Mrs. Maria Grant, we have to date raised just over $70 million in
the Campaign. This is a remarkable amount, and I shall always be
deeply grateful to all those who have committed so generously to
the College, whether for financial aid, our endowment, or our capital
projects.
In these past six years, as anyone connected with the construction
business knows all too well, prices for building materials have
sky-rocketed. As a consequence, the total costs of our two primary
capital projects—a faculty center and a permanent chapel—have
likewise risen markedly. Thus, as we approach completion of the
faculty center this coming June, there is still $2 million in funding
needed. Similarly, for Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel,
an additional $6 million is needed. Moreover, $2 million must be
funded for the new entry road, parking lot, and other related infrastructure.
The total amount needed in the near future for these capital projects
alone is daunting. Still, the picture is not yet complete: this
year, we have an additional unprecedented need for $3.7 million
in funding for financial aid and operations.
Given our circumstances, I humbly ask you to consider making a
sacrificial gift now to Thomas Aquinas College. Please bear in mind
that our needs are genuinely urgent. Many of our well-qualified
students come from large families and simply cannot attend the College
without financial assistance. For 35 years, through the generosity
of our benefactors, we have kept our commitment that no deserving
student be turned away for financial reasons. Your generous gift
now will help to ensure that these young people will continue to
be formed in the truth—and that they will go out into the world
as witnesses to the truth.
The buildings currently under construction are also true necessities:
Our modular buildings, which have served as office space for faculty
and staff for nearly 30 years, have long outlasted their life expectancy.
It was simply no longer economically feasible to repair and retrofit
them as local ordinances now require. Thus, the need for our faculty
center. In addition, since the College has achieved an international
reputation for excellence, we have reached our maximum enrollment.
We have, therefore, utterly outgrown our present dining hall arrangements,
whereby one-third of the dining facility is being used as a temporary
chapel. Even with three Masses a day, we have now outgrown that
space, too, and our need for a permanent chapel is urgent.
Thomas Aquinas College looks forward to the day when we will have
a truly beautiful House of God in which to worship together as a
community. While we could have chosen to build a frame and stucco
chapel, it seemed fitting that we give our best to God by constructing
a truly magnificent Domus Dei, one of beauty, grandeur, permanence,
and tradition that will speak to all who enter that Christ is the
source and summit of all we do.
I ask you, then, to join with us in helping to more firmly establish
Thomas Aquinas College so that our current students and future generations
of young people may benefit from our program of genuine Catholic
liberal education which, after all, has as its final end union with
Christ. Please be as generous as you can. And be assured that you
and your intentions are remembered in our prayers each day at Mass.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2007
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