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WALK FOR LIFE 2014
Students Lead the Way through Streets of San Francisco
After the close of classes on Friday, January 24, more than 200 Thomas Aquinas College students met up in a campus parking lot to begin their pilgrimage to San Francisco and the 10th annual Walk for Life West Coast. They prayed together, received a blessing from Head Chaplain Rev. Joseph Illo, and listened to last-minute instructions before boarding three buses and numerous cars for the voyage north.
The next morning, the College’s students helped lead the way through the streets of San Francisco. Many took on volunteer positions in the Walk, directing traffic and crowds as needed. All prayed, sang, and peacefully called for an end to abortion alongside more than 50,000 fellow walkers.
That call was heard far beyond the city’s limits. Both before and after the Walk, Thomas Aquinas College students were featured extensively in media coverage of the Walk, including ABC News, EWTN, From the Median Radio, and the Cardinal Newman Society. “We’re witnessing in the streets as Christ, as John Paul II, as many of the saints have called us to do,” said senior Sarah Dufresne on a radio interview. “We are witnessing to the Culture of Life.”
Video, photos, homilies & media coverage 
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RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AT RISK
Government Appeals College’s Victory over HHS Mandate
The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury have appealed Thomas Aquinas College’s recent victory over the HHS Contraceptive Mandate. The agencies are seeking to overturn a December ruling which held that the Mandate violated the College’s religious liberties under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. As part of that ruling, the Court had issued a permanent injunction protecting the College from the federal policy requiring all employers to provide contraceptive, abortifacient, and sterilization coverage to their employees.
Although the injunction is now in jeopardy, it remains in effect pending the outcome of the appeal. For the time being, the College may continue providing comprehensive health insurance in accordance with Catholic teaching.
The Santa Barbara News-Press recently featured a front-page story about the College’s ongoing legal struggle. “They’ve won an important battle,” the article began, “but for Thomas Aquinas College, the war rages on.”
Full story
Santa Barbara News-Press article
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“BEST VALUE” AND “MOST POPULAR”
College Receives High Marks from the Princeton Review and U.S. News
Thomas Aquinas College is one of the nation’s 75 “Best Value” private schools according to The Princeton Review in its just-published book, The Best Value Colleges: 2014 Edition. The College is the only Catholic college in California to be named a “Best Value,” and one of only five Catholic institutions in the country, along with Boston College, the College of the Holy Cross, Georgetown University, and the University of Notre Dame.
“We commend Thomas Aquinas College and all of our ‘Best Value Colleges’ for their outstanding academics,” says Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s Senior VP/Publisher. “Equally impressive are their efforts to be affordable to students with need — either via comparatively low sticker prices, generous financial aid, or both.”
Meanwhile, U.S. News & World Report has pronounced the College one of the most popular liberal arts colleges in the United States. In its survey of college enrollment for the 2013-14 academic year, the newsweekly found that 63.2 percent of the applicants admitted to the College go on to enroll as freshmen in the fall — the ninth highest “yield” rate in the country. “Yield,” the editors have observed in past rankings, is “one of the best indicators of a school’s popularity among students,” testifying to a college’s desirability among its applicants.
Full story: Princeton Review
Full story: U.S. News & World Report
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ST. THOMAS DAY 2014
Celebrating the College’s Patron
On January 28, members of the Thomas Aquinas College community celebrated the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas with a fitting combination of prayer, scholarship, and fun.
The day began with members of the faculty, clad in academic regalia, processing into Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel for a Mass in honor of the College’s patron and the Church’s Universal Doctor. Head Chaplain Rev. Joseph Illo served as the principal celebrant and homilist, encouraging students to “love God as St. Thomas loved Him.” That afternoon, students and faculty members gathered in St. Joseph Commons for the St. Thomas Day Lecture. Dr. Duane Berquist of Assumption College spoke on the subject of Aquinas’ treatment of nature, reason, and will.
In the evening students met up in the Commons again for a formal dinner followed by a beloved campus tradition — Trivial and Quadrivial Pursuits. The campus-wide quiz show, famous for its extravagant costumes, featured three teams vying to demonstrate their detailed knowledge of the College’s classical curriculum. This year the “Logicians,” dressed like characters from Fiddler on the Roof, achieved a hard-fought victory, which they celebrated afterward with a party in the campus coffee shop.
Fr. Illo’s St. Thomas Day Homily
Audio of Dr. Berquist’s Lectures
Photos from Trivial & Quadrivial Pursuits
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GREAT BOOKS SUMMER SEMINARS
Experiences of Catholic Liberal Education
Each July, the president of Thomas Aquinas College hosts two Great Books Summer Seminar Weekends. These weekends take place on the College’s campus, nestled in the foothills of the Topatopa Mountains. Attendees gain an inside look at the unique education the College provides its students, while enjoying good fellowship and developing a deeper understanding of important issues facing the Church and the world.
This year’s weekends, which will take place on July 11-13 and July 18-20, will focus on the theme “Reading the Scriptures: The Wisdom of Genesis.” To register for one of the weekends, please contact Patti Harmonson at 805-421-5929. (President’s Council members will be given priority.)
Care to learn more about the Summer Seminars? See the video on the College’s website.
Video and more information
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