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BREAKING GROUND!
College Prepares for the Construction of its Next Building — St. Gladys Hall
On April 17, representatives of Thomas Aquinas College and the Fritz B. Burns Foundation broke ground on the College’s next building, St. Gladys Hall.
Set to open its doors in the fall of 2014, St. Gladys Hall will be the thirteenth building constructed since the College acquired its campus in the 1970s. Designed to facilitate the small, seminar discussions that are at the heart of the College’s unique academic program, St. Gladys Hall is made possible through a $3.2 million grant from the Fritz B. Burns Foundation of Los Angeles.
Full story and slideshow 
Video from the groundbreaking
Homily from the Votive Mass of St. Gladys
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COMMENCEMENT 2013
College to Graduate Largest Class to Date
On Saturday, May 11, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo will serve as Commencement Speaker at Thomas Aquinas College’s annual graduation exercises. The archbishop of Galveston-Houston will also receive the school’s highest award, the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion, in recognition of his lifelong fidelity and service to the Catholic Church.
Cardinal DiNardo will address the largest graduating class in the College’s history — 91 men and women who hail from across the United States and abroad. Having successfully completed a rigorous, four-year curriculum that includes mathematics, natural science, Latin, literature, philosophy, and theology, each graduate will receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal arts. These new alumni will go on to a wide variety of pursuits including law, medicine, business, military service, education, and the priesthood and religious life.
Full story and slideshow
Commencement Information for Guests
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DEFENSE OF THE FAITH
College Joins Formal Protest of HHS Mandate
“No other federal rule has so narrowly and discriminatorily defined what it means to exercise religious conscience, and no regulation has ever so directly violated plain statutory and constitutional religious freedoms.”
So declares a memorandum to the Obama Administration, signed by Thomas Aquinas College and 21 other Catholic institutions of higher education, formally protesting the HHS mandate that would compel Catholic organizations to participate in the provision of contraceptive, abortifacient, and sterilization coverage to employees and their dependents.
The joint comments, organized by the Cardinal Newman Society and prepared by the Alliance Defending Freedom, asks the Administration to exempt “all stakeholders with a religious or moral objection from being forced to provide, offer, pay for or in any way participate in a health insurance plan that covers or specifically triggers coverage of ‘contraceptives’ … sterilization, and related education and counseling.”
Full story
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COLLEGE UPDATE
News and Happenings
• The Thomas Aquinas College Board of Governors has elected to its ranks Mr. Walter J. Conn of San Marino, Calif. Mr. Conn is chairman of Charles Dunn Co. in Los Angeles, one of the largest regional property management companies in Southern California. He has a longstanding friendship with the College dating back more than 20 years, when his late brother, Rev. Thomas Conn, S.J., served as a campus chaplain.
• When alumnus Joseph Hattrup (’01) joined the Thomas Aquinas College teaching faculty in 2006, he had already completed his doctoral studies (philosophy, University of St. Thomas), but not his dissertation. He therefore spent most of his vacation and free time over the last several years completing this requirement. His diligence has at last paid off. In April, he traveled to the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of Thomas in Houston, where he successfully defended his dissertation, “Form and Predicability in Aristotle’s Categories and the Middle Books of the Metaphysics.” The College extends its congratulations to Dr. Hattrup!
• On April 2, Thomas Aquinas College President Dr. Michael F. McLean spoke at a memorial service for Mr. James L. Barret, an Emeritus Member of the Board of Governors who died in March. “Jim had faith,” said Dr. McLean, “faith in God; in God’s Son, Jesus Christ; in the Catholic Church, whatever its failings; in his family; in his friends; in his employees; in young people, including the many young people he helped at our College and elsewhere through many years — faith that they would lead lives of loving service to their Church, their country, and their communities.” Dr. McLean’s full remarks are available on the College’s website.
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Walter J. Conn
Dr. Joseph Hattrup
James L. Barrett (†) |
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ON HUMAN WORK
College to Host Free Seminar and Breakfast at Napa Institute Conference
Please join members of the Thomas Aquinas College faculty for a buffet breakfast and seminar about the meaning and implications of Laborem Exercens, Bl. John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical on human work. The seminar will take place on August 1, just prior to the official start of the Napa Institute’s 2013 conference, “Catholics in the Next America,” in Napa, Calif. The seminar and breakfast are complimentary and open to all attendees of the Napa Institute Conference, but space is limited. Register now!
More information
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