On Sunday, March 26, the students of Thomas Aquinas College gathered for an event of their own creation, Cor Unum (One Heart). “Its purpose was to show appreciation for the College’s support of international students, as well as to celebrate the solidarity among cultures in the Church,” said junior Siobhan Heekin-Canedy (’18), who, along with senior Nnadozie Onyekuru and junior Esteban Rocha, helped organize the event.

On Friday evening the Thomas Aquinas College Choir, under the direction of Daniel J. Grimm (’76), performed Henry Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas before a packed audience in St Joseph Commons. Photos from the performance are available in the slideshow below:

The production was part of the 2016-2017 St. Vincent de Paul Lecture and Concert Series, endowed by Barbara and Paul Henkel.

This winter’s desperately needed rains have somewhat set back construction for the College’s next building, St. Cecilia Lecture and Concert Hall, but work still continues.

The Philosophical Underpinnings of
Catholic Social Teaching:
The Role of Nature and Natural Law

by Rev. Joseph Koterski, S.J.
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Fordham University
St. Thomas Day Lecture
March 7, 2017
Lecture handout (PDF)

Inspired by their reading of Darwin’s Origins of the Species, the students in Dr. John Nieto’s two sections of Senior Natural Science organized a somewhat spontaneous trip this past weekend to the La Brea Tar Pits — a world-famous fossil-excavation site in the Hancock Park portion of in Los Angeles. There they examined the preserved remains of woolly mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, and other Ice Age creatures.

In an effort to foster friendships among the College’s students, Resident Assistant Sarah Dufresne (’14) hosted a pancake breakfast for freshmen and sophomores on Saturday morning:

The event began early in the kitcehn of St. Ignatius Hall, where several women joined Miss Dufresne to prepare several hundred pancakes. The breakfast then followed outside, with as many as 100 students coming by for a relaxing start to the weekend.

Marking the midpoint of the semester, not long after the completion of Don Rags, members of the Class of 2018 took to the Ventura beach on Saturday for an event they dubbed “Rejuniorate.” Organizers define the term, originally coined by the Class of 2014, as “a renewal of spirits that are wearied due to two weekly seminars and an overload of Newton” and “a time to relax and reminisce with one’s classmates of the last 2½ years.” The event included a sunset barbeque, sports, and seaside fellowship.

On Saturday, March 4, the St. Genesius Players treated Thomas Aquinas College students, faculty, and families to a production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Each year, starting in the fall and continuing well into the spring, the seniors of Thomas Aquinas College labor to create what will be the culmination of their four years of academic effort — the Senior Thesis. Based on a subject of each student’s own choosing, and drawing from the College’s classical curriculum, the thesis represents its author’s effort to apply his or her education to a matter of scholarly and personal importance.