Each fall the sophomores, juniors, and seniors take turns hosting welcome events for the new freshman class. This past weekend the sophomores got the ball rolling, throwing a “Back to the Future” dance on the campus tennis court, complete with an “Enchantment Under the Sea” banner and Doc Brown’s silver DeLorean. In keeping with the theme, the freshmen dressed in 1950s style, while the sophomores wore their 1980s best.

On Saturday members of the College community gathered on the athletic fields for the annual All-College Picnic. The afternoon began with an inter-class tug-of-war, followed by a refreshing dive on a make-shift slip-n-slide. Finally was the picnic itself — a chance for upperclassmen to reconnect after the summer and to get to know members of the freshman class:

“We Must Be Happy Warriors”

by the Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted
Bishop of Phoenix
August 24, 2015

Slideshows:

• Thursday BBQ
• Ice Cream Social
• Friday
• Saturday

Members of the Class of 2019 began arriving on campus on Thursday morning for the start of the 2015-16 academic year. That evening the College hosted a barbeque for freshmen and their families:

Following the barbeque, new students and their siblings enjoyed an ice-cream social:

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On Friday nights throughout the 2015-16 academic year, the students of Thomas Aquinas College will have the privilege of attending lectures from some of the nation’s most distinguished scholars — covering a wide range of topics from friendship to literature to Thomistic theology — through the St. Vincent de Paul Lecture and Concert Series.

On August 24 some 102 freshmen from across the United States and abroad — the Class of 2019 — will mark the beginning of their four years of study at Thomas Aquinas College. To welcome the students at the formal start of the 2015-16 academic year, the Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, will offer the Convocation Mass of the Holy Spirit and preside over the matriculation ceremony.

With joy, members of the Thomas Aquinas College community celebrate the appointment of a friend of the College, Rev. Robert Barron, as a new bishop in its archdiocese.

This morning, His Holiness Pope Francis appointed Fr. Barron as one of three new auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The president and rector of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary and founder of the Word on Fire media ministry, Fr. Barron delivered a lecture on campus in 2013.

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