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CAMPUS LIFE
MULTIMEDIA |
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Video & Photos: Construction of the JPII Athletic Center |
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Video: Alumnus Attorney Defends Mass. Churches |
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| UPCOMING EVENTS |
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Anniversary of the Death of
Rev. Thomas A. McGovern, S.J.
February 19 |
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Don Rags
March 2-4 |
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Solemnity of the Dedication of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel
March 7 |
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Easter Recess
April 1-7 |
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Holy Thursday
No classes / office holiday |
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Good Friday
April 2
No classes / office holiday |
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Holy Saturday
April 3 |
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Easter Sunday
April 4 |
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Easter Monday
April 5
No classes / office holiday |
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Anniversary of the Death of College President Thomas E. Dillon
April 15 |
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| IN MEMORIAM |
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Mary Ann St. Arnault
November 10, 2020
Mother of Nadine (’78), Nan (Barrett ’78), Natalie (Halpin ’80); grandmother of Rose (Halpin ’06) McCann and Meg (Halpin ’08) Tannoury
Margaret Hunt
December 11, 2020
Mother of tutor Richard Ferrier, grandmother of Rose (Froula ’06), Eddie (’99), Austin (’07), Joseph (’10), Roland (’20)
David Cain
December 18, 2020
Father of tutor Steven; grandfather of Margaret Mary (Richard ’13), Sophia (Ford ’16), Thomas (’18), and Peter (’23)
Dr. Henry J. Zeiter
December 20, 2020
Member of the Thomas Aquinas College Board of Governors and Order of St. Abert; father of Suzie (Andres ’87) and Camille (’91); grandfather of Joseph (’12) and Dominic Andres (’24) and Zach Zeiter (’21)
S. Prestley Blake
February 11, 2021
Benefactor
JoAnn M. Seeley
February 15, 2021
Mother of tutor Andrew (’87) and Joe (’94); grandmother of Luke (’12), Felicity (’14), Br. Edward (’16), and Elisabeth (’19)
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HOLY TRANSFORMATION
All-Night Adoration, on New Altar, in New England Chapel
Last month workers installed the crowning jewel of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College, New England. In place of a towering pipe organ which dominated the sanctuary for decades, and in place of the gaping, empty cavity which has confronted students since they first arrived at the Northfield, Massachusetts, campus, there now stands a magnificent altar, reredos, and matching tabernacle. The century-old building’s transformation to a Catholic place of worship is now one big step closer to completion.
Workers had been renovating the Chapel’s sanctuary since the start of the semester, and the fruits of their efforts became all the more evident on January 20, when the new altar arrived. Ecclesiastical painters have since begun the two-to-three-month process of painting the sanctuary, which should be complete by the end of the academic year.
The College’s students were able to worship at the altar for the first time on the night of January 21, as Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel hosted all-night adoration in honor of the victims of abortion on the eve of the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Throughout the evening, as well as the early hours of the next morning, they gazed upon Our Eucharistic Lord, in the fittingly beautiful setting of the newly renovated sanctuary, praying for His mercy and peace.
► Full story
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NEW TUTOR
College Welcomes James N. Berquist to California Faculty
“At TAC you get to teach within the context of this wonderful curriculum,” marvels James Berquist (’08), the newest tutor at Thomas Aquinas College. “You have people being given the tools to read and to seek out the truth with real guidance. There’s really nothing like it.”
As an alumnus and the latest addition to the California teaching faculty, Mr. Berquist is now immersing himself for a second time in a program crafted in part by his own father, Marcus R. Berquist, one of the College’s founders. “Something really unique and wonderful from my childhood is that my parents manifested and modeled for us, in their lives, that there is absolutely no conflict in the relationship between faith and reason,” he reminisces. “My father, in particular, enabled me to see how faith seeking understanding is the principle behind the most proper pursuit of wisdom.”
Indeed, an abiding appreciation for the value of Catholic liberal education permeated the Berquist home. Mr. Berquist’s mother, Laura (Steichen ’75), is a graduate of the College’s first class and the founder of Mother of Divine Grace School, a classical distance-learning program.
► Continue reading
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James Berquist (’08) |
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COLLEGE GUIDE NEWS
TAC, California, Named Among State’s Top Liberal Arts Colleges
The Best Value Schools guide has ranked Thomas Aquinas College’s West Coast campus as one of the “15 Best Liberal Arts Colleges in California” in 2021.
“Thomas Aquinas College delivers a curriculum that is fully integrated, ordered to wisdom, and Great Books-based,” the guide’s editors note. “Students learn through a discussion method where a small class gathers around a table with a faculty tutor who acts as their guide as they discuss and learn together. There are no lectures, no regurgitation of faculty members’ insights; instead students discuss, provide arguments, rebuttal, and defend their arguments. This innovative learning pattern produces critical thinkers that can communicate their arguments.”
The online guide, which rates schools according to various criteria of importance to prospective students, based its latest rankings on a combination of faculty-to-student ratios, tuition expenses, and graduation rates.
Schools such as TAC, “with lower faculty-to-student ratios, tend to provide more personalized instruction and mentoring,” the guide explains. Moreover, “institutions with a lower tuition might yield students with lower debt and greater satisfaction with their investment,” and higher graduation rates show that students believe that “their investment was worth completing.”
► Continue reading
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Best Value Schools |
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FAITH IN ACTION
Highlights from the College's Alumni Blog
• Just five years after graduating from Thomas Aquinas College, and two after being elected to the City Council of Dunsmuir, California, Matthew Bryan (’15) has been elected the city’s mayor. Mayor Bryan is the subject of a recent profile in the Mount Shasta News, Dunsmuir mayor Matthew Bryan looks forward to 2021. “Dunsmuir’s new mayor Matthew Bryan is committed to following through with the reinvention of his beloved historic town,” writes reporter Shareen Strauss, “to build a diverse, service-based economy and increase jobs during the pandemic.” Mr. Bryan previously served as vice mayor before his colleagues elected him to the city’s top position.
• Five women winemakers — three of them Thomas Aquinas College alumnae — have come up with a novel way to make the most of these difficult times. With stores in some regions closed, and with many customers avoiding in-store purchases, the demand for shipped products is greater than ever. Yet wine is a notoriously expensive product to mail, with full glass bottles weighing three to four pounds apiece. Enter the Distaff Wine Co. in Newberg, Oregon, owned by Angelica (Ellis ’88) O’Reilly and daughters Moira (’19), Roisin, Marie-Therese, and Brigid (’16). The company has launched the Nomen line of wines, which are sold in bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, weighing in at just 1.4 pounds each.
• In one of its early pandemic regulations last spring, the State of Massachusetts closed all locations that provided “non-essential” services, a category that included churches. That led Kris Casey, pastor of Adams Square Baptist Church in Worcester, to seek legal protection, and alumnus attorney Carl Schmitt (’90) took his case. In short order, the Assistant Attorney General contacted Mr. Schmitt to negotiate a new order that would respect churches’ religious liberty. The state accepted his suggestions and in May issued a revised COVID-19 order that allowed Bay State residents once more to safely assemble in their houses of worship.
► Faith in Action blog
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Matthew Bryan (’15)
Distaff winemakers
Carl Schmitt (’90) |
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LENT 2021
Pray the Stations of the Cross with the Students of Thomas Aquinas College!
This Lent, include the Stations of the Cross among your daily devotions. Thomas Aquinas College is making available to all its friends a five-minute video that features “The Franciscan Way of the Cross” as read by the College’s students, accompanied by the music of Chrysostomos, a student choir. The video additionally includes beautiful photography of the Via Dolorosa on the California campus’ lower drive —14 scenes that vividly depict Our Lord’s Passion and death.
Also known as the “Short Way of the Cross,” these reflections date back to the 16th century. Franciscan Friars have often used them, over the centuries, while preaching missions.
Those who sign up will receive e-mailed prayer reminders each morning, Monday through Saturday, along with a daily list of intentions prepared by Head Chaplain Rev. Paul Raftery, O.P.
Please join us in prayer throughout this Lenten Season!
► Sign up for daily prayer reminders
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