A Liberating Education Pages

On the southern end of Thomas Aquinas College, New England, overlooking one of the

The Liberal Arts

The liberal arts are often said to be essential to the cultivation of critical judgment and independence of mind. They are widely considered to be indispensable in a “well-rounded” education. But just what are they? Are they the humanities? The classics?

At the heart of the Thomas Aquinas College curriculum are the great books, the original works of the greatest minds in our tradition, both ancient and modern. The College’s syllabus is composed exclusively of the seminal texts that have, for good or for ill, animated Western civilization. Each one speaks to the reality at the core of human experience, a reality that transcends time or place.

Conversation is the lifeblood of the Thomas Aquinas College education. In the classroom, no more than 20 students sit around a table with their peers and with a faculty tutor as a guide, and together they grapple with the greatest works of Western civilization. There are no lectures, no didactic discourses, no simple regurgitation of others’ conclusions.

Thomas Aquinas College is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Graduates are awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts, having completed 146 semester hours. The following chart is set out to show the number of hours each course meets per week. Each semester contains 16 weeks of classwork and one week of final examinations.

St. Thomas Aquinas was born near Naples, Italy, in 1225. He was educated in the Dominican Order in Paris and Cologne, and devoted his life to the knowledge of God.

Learning at Thomas Aquinas College is geared toward the education of the whole person, and as such it is not limited to the confines of the classroom. The Socratic discussions that begin in class spill into the dining commons, the arcades, and pathways, and the residence halls.

The two campuses of Thomas Aquinas College give form to the notion of being “in the world, but not of it.” Close enough that students can avail themselves of the attractions of Los Angeles and Boston, but far enough removed that they will not become distracted by them, these are places of respite, not isolation.

Writer, poet, playwright, translator and essayist Dorothy Sayers (1893-1967) delivered the following address at Oxford University in 1947:

The following is a list of works read in whole or in part in the curriculum of Thomas Aquinas College. They are not all of equal weight. Some are regarded as masterworks, while others serve as source of opinions that either lead students to the truth or make the truth more evident by opposition to it. In 2010 College then-Dean Brian T. Kelly began a series of presentations to the Board of Governors about why the curriculum includes particular authors and subjects.

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