Thomas Aquinas College Makes YAF'S "Top 10" List
(February 23, 2007)
SANTA PAULA, Calif.—Young America's Foundation (YAF), a principal
outreach organization of the conservative movement with offices
at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, and in Herndon,
Virginia, has just published its third annual "Top Ten Conservative
Colleges."
According to YAF, institutions that make their list "avoid
trends in academe by continuing to study Western Civilization instead
of straying toward the study of Marxism, feminism, sexuality, postmodernism,
and other modern distractions." Not only did Thomas Aquinas
College make the list for the third year in a row, it was again
this year the only college in the Western United States to do so.
Explains YAF, "[These] colleges offer an alternative to the
liberal status quo….They avoid trends in academe by
continuing to study Western Civilization instead of straying toward
the study of Marxism, feminism, sexuality, postmodernism, and other
modern distractions."
While many of YAF "Top 10" colleges and universities
focus on the liberal arts, Thomas Aquinas College is the only one
that offers a single, integrated curriculum comprised exclusively
of the Great Books. Works read in the college's four-year program
include the founding documents of the United States, the original
writings of some of the American founding fathers, and works on
ethics and political life by great thinkers from ancient to modern
times.
Though the mission statements of several of the YAF "Top Ten"
include explicitly political goals, Thomas Aquinas College's does
not. Instead, its founding document describes an essentially Catholic
institution devoted to the pursuit of wisdom-human and divine. Graduates,
nevertheless, tend to embrace conservative principles. They go on
to pursue a wide variety of careers and professions including education,
law, journalism, religious life, business, and medicine. Moreover,
many work in public policy or are actively engaged in public or
military service.
Celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, Thomas Aquinas College
has achieved an international reputation for its rigorous academic
program. It is widely recognized for helping to cultivate intellectual
and moral virtue in its students and consistently ranks among the
top colleges and universities in the nation.
About Thomas Aquinas College:
Nestled in the foothills of the Los Padres National Forest, 60 miles
northwest of Los Angeles, Thomas Aquinas College offers a unique,
four-year program of Catholic liberal education that begins in wonder
and aims at wisdom. The curriculum consists exclusively of the Great
Books, and the college uses only the Socratic method of dialogue
in all of its classes. There are no textbooks, no lectures and no
electives. Instead the college offers an entirely integrated curriculum,
using only the original texts of the greatest thinkers who have
helped shape Western Civilization. Some are regarded as masterworks,
while others serve as sources of opinions that either lead students
to the truth, or make the truth more evident by opposition to it.
Included in the program are works by St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine,
Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Euclid, Dante, our American Founding
Fathers, Adam Smith, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton
and Einstein, to name a few.
Thomas Aquinas College graduates consistently excel in the many
world-class institutions where they pursue graduate degrees such
as law, medicine, business, theology and education. They distinguish
themselves in these professions, serving as headmasters, business
owners, lawyers, priests, doctors, military service men and women,
professors and college presidents.
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