California
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July 12, 2021
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Students Arrive for High School Summer Program

Students from across the country descended upon the California campus Sunday for Thomas Aquinas College’s 2021 High School Summer Program. Buses filled with eager participants arrived from Los Angeles International Airport throughout the afternoon, while families from California and elsewhere along the West Coast came by car.

Students Arrive on Campus
  • Admissions staff greets the summer programmers as they emerge from a black van
  • Handshakes across the table as the students complete their registration and receive their nametags
  • HSSP students receive their info folders
  • Summer programmers, accompanied by their families, completing registration
  • A recent graduate shakes hands with a summer programmer and her mother
  • Greeting another summer programmer
  • A summer programmer and his parents chat with two members of admissions
  • The HSSP students take in the campus as they are shown to their dorms
  • Some of the HSSP students, against the backdrop of the Chapel
  • Ten HSSP students pose afront their residence hall

While they waited for their classmates to arrive, students settled into their residence halls — St. Monica Hall for the ladies and Sts. Peter and Paul for the men — or played Frisbee and volleyball on the campus athletic fields. At 4:00 p.m. members of the Admissions team led parents and other family members on a campus door, followed by a parent orientation in St. Cecilia Hall.

Parent Orientation in St. Cecilia Hall

At the end of the parent meeting, students and families alike gathered for a barbeque of chicken and tri-trip steak outside St. Bernardine of Siena Library:

Recreation Time and BBQ
  • The students enjoy a game of volleyball
  • Crowds of summer programmers and families gather behind long trestle tables for the BBQ
  • The students say grace
  • Looking down a table full of students
  • Another tableful of students
  • Students and parents pack the tables and eat the BBQ meal
  • Long shot of people eating at the tables
  • Some students prepare for a game of soccer
  • Students fill the seats at St. Cecilia Hall, awaiting the orientation lecture
  • Jon Daly delivers the orientation speech, flanked by prefects
  • View of the same, from behind Jon Daly

As the barbeque drew to a close, Summer Program chaplain Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem (’94), offered a travelers’ Mass in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. Parents and siblings then bid the students farewell and made the drive home.

Mass

While the sun began to sink behind the hills surrounding campus, students gathered in St. Cecilia Hall for a short talk by Admissions Director Jon Daly and the Summer Program chaplains. Finally, prefect Dan Selmeczy, the program’s legendary dance instructor, introduced this year’s prefects, and the energetic crowd of students welcomed them warmly.

Both men and women then returned to their respective residence halls, where prefects briefly spoke about various other aspects of the program. The evening closed with ice cream served in the dorm courtyards, where students continued to mingle and play games. Afterward, exhausted from a long day of travel and excitement, everyone wisely decided to get some rest for a full Monday and what promises to be an unforgettable upcoming two weeks.

Benediction in boys dorm

Return to the SummerBlog for more updates this afternoon!