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TRIUMPH!
Bishop Paprocki, College Celebrate 47th Graduating Class at Commencement 2021
At the end of the first semester of their freshman year, members of the Thomas Aquinas College Class of 2021 encountered the first of several natural disasters that would come to characterize their time at the College: The Thomas Fire threatened the California campus, and students were evacuated, then forced to go home early for the semester.
When they returned, they would have to contend with the threat of flooding, mudslides, and another evacuation. The next year, high winds — like those that caused the Thomas Fire — led the electric company to cut power to the region, leaving the campus dark, sometimes for days at a time. Then came junior year and COVID-19. Students were sent home early once again, completing their classes via Zoom, a tolerable solution that no one wanted to repeat.
So in this, their senior year, members of the Class of 2021 bore graciously the testing, the quarantines, the ever-shifting social-distancing and masking guidelines, outdoor Masses, outdoor classes, and limited access off campus — all in order to maintain in-person classes. Their sacrifice paid off. They completed the year. They completed their studies. And they have completed the College’s program of Catholic liberal education.
On May 15, the College celebrated the 79 graduates’ accomplishments at Commencement 2021. The Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield in Illinois, served as the principal celebrant and homilist at the Baccalaureate Mass of the Holy Spirit, and as the featured speaker at the Commencement ceremony. Dillon Raum (’21) represented his class as the Senior Speaker, and the College awarded its highest honor — the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion — to Bishop Paprocki in honor of his fidelity to the Teaching Church.
► Full coverage
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Chris Macik (’21)
The Most Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki
Class Speaker Dillon Raum (’21)
Bishop Paprocki and Board Chairman Scott Turicchi |
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SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT”
Faculty, Board Work to Name Dr. McLean’s Successor
When Dr. Michael F. McLean announced that he would not seek a third term as president of Thomas Aquinas College, he set into motion a process that may be the only one of its kind in the United States.
Most American colleges and universities conduct nationwide, or even international, searches for their presidents, typically hiring the services of a headhunting firm for the task. Perhaps it should come as little surprise, though, that Thomas Aquinas College — which has a wholly unique academic program and largely eschews most popular trends in the modern academy — would conduct its presidential searches differently.
“At the time of our establishment in the late 1960s, when many Catholic colleges were wavering in their mission, we sought to ensure that our future presidents would be committed to implementing the College’s founding principles in the classroom,” says Peter L. DeLuca, one of the College’s founders and its third president, As such, the College’s bylaws require that its president be chosen from among senior members of the teaching faculty, so as to safeguard the institution’s Catholic character and its commitment to liberal education.
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Three Presidents: Dr. Michael F. McLean, Peter L. DeLuca, and Dr. Ronald P. McArthur
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SAcred SpaceS
Publications Praise TAC Chapels
• “More good news from Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), keepers of a great intellectual heritage as one of the world’s premier Catholic liberal arts colleges,” writes John Paul Sonnen in Liturgical Arts Journal. “Their recently acquired New England campus chapel has gone through a significant renovation that gives it a distinctly Catholic look … In 2021 the interior chapel sanctuary has been completely transformed from a lonely shell into a stunning masterpiece. This is a big change, considering the Chapel had been built for non-denominational services, formerly belonging to the Northfield Mt. Hermon School, founded by a 19th century evangelist named Dwight Moody. The new sanctuary shines, impressing upon all who visit a new visual focus, improving on the old academic Gothic shell while building upon a new hierarchy of visuals.”
• Writing for The Latin Mass Magazine, Roseanne T. Sullivan lauds the College’s California chapel, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. “The beauty of the Chapel,” she observes, “like a magnet … draws people, who, one hopes — in time perhaps — might come and learn and experience the other spiritual beauties of what the College — and the authentic Catholic Faith that it is designed to teach its students — have to offer.” The Chapel thus serves both as a beacon to seekers and a bulwark for the faithful. “In spite of its use of classical elements, there is no other building like it,” the author remarks. “The design is remarkably successful in achieving one of the most important goals of an aptly designed church, to be a catechism in stone.”
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FAITH IN ACTION
Reflections from the College's Alumni Blog
• The Fund for Vocations recently shared the delightful news that one of the students it has helped to enter religious life is none other than Mirjana Coccia (’14). “When I prayed Vespers with the Community of the Beatitudes for the first time in 2017, I saw immediately that it was everything God had been teaching me to long for in college,” Miss Coccia reflects. “My education has completely shaped how I relate to God and to the world. But more importantly, the hours and hours of conversation my friends and I would have about the role of community life and liturgy in our relationship with God gave me a deep and persistent desire for something I didn’t think existed.”
• Since graduating from the College five years ago, Brian Schardt (’16) has had a whirlwind career in the high-tech sector, working for several major American corporations, including Walmart Labs, PwC, and Warner Music Group. Now he has launched his own company, Iris, for which he serves as the chief executive and technical officer. Iris’ principal product is a stock-trading social-media platform, connecting investors the world over. Its app already boasts more than 50,000 active users who have posted more than $3 billion in stock transactions. “Iris is about breaking the common mentality that the retail trader cannot be as good as Wall Street,” says Mr. Schardt. “Iris is showing that we can break this illusion, and that the retail trader can outperform Wall Street.”
• A onetime Olympic ice dancer and a graduate of the College, Siobhan Heekin-Canedy (’18) spoke to students on the New England campus last month about her work in the international pro-life arena and the World Youth Alliance. After graduating from the College in 2018, Ms. Heekin-Canedy earned a master’s degree in international relations — with concentrations in Russia, Eastern Europe, and international public law — at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. During that time she interned with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations. “Seeing the common human nature and human dignity among all these various cultures,” she remarked, “and seeing the different facets of God’s goodness, attracted me to this type of diversity that we see in our world.”
► Faith in Action blog
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Mirjana Coccia (’14)
Brian Schardt (’16)
Siobhan Heekin-Canedy (’18) |
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BEST WAY TO spend two WEEKS
Full, In-Person, High School Summer Program to be Offered on Both Coasts
Rising high school seniors from around the country and the world will gather on the campuses of Thomas Aquinas College this summer as the College’s beloved High School Great Books Program returns to full form.
“We are thrilled that our High School Program will be available this summer, both in California and New England, and that it will once again feature the popular off-campus outings of past years,” says Admissions Director Jon Daly. “For students looking to spend time reading great books, deepening their faith, and making lifelong friendships, there’s no better way to spend two weeks.”
Thanks to prudent safeguards, the College was able to successfully host the program in-person last summer, albeit without the usual off-campus outings. This year, however, with the pandemic seemingly in retreat, nearly all of the venues are back in business, and so the program’s students will return to them. “It’s important that the Summer Program gives students not only a taste of the academic, spiritual, and social life of the campus, but also the natural and cultural resources of the area,” says Mr. Daly. “And by God’s grace this year’s program will do that in abundance!”
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► Meet the Prefects
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California
July 11-24
New England
July 25 - August 7
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