Dear Parents,

Responding to increasing efforts of government authorities to limit the spread of COVID-19, the Board of Governors, pursuant to the unanimous recommendation of the College’s Instruction Committee, has authorized me to take the steps necessary to return students to the safety of their homes and families. Their education this academic year will not stop, however. They will be given guidance from the Dean’s Office to help them prepare for the commencement of online instruction, which will begin next week and continue until the semester’s work is complete.

Audio

“From Valley Forge to Appomattox: 
George Washington and the
Formation of the American Nation”

by The Hon. J. Leon Holmes
United States District Judge (retired)
Eastern District of Arkansas
President’s Day Lecture
California - February 21, 2020
New England - March 5, 2020
St. Vincent de Paul Lecture and Concert Series

In light of recent developments regarding the novel coronavirus, Thomas Aquinas College is taking additional steps to minimize the disease’s potential effects on our two campuses.

On Wednesday morning Thomas Aquinas College’s chaplains began leading the community in praying the following Novena to St. Joseph for protection from the novel coronavirus. The novena will be recited at every Mass offered on campus, concluding on March 19, St. Joseph’s Feast Day.

Please join us in praying for the safety of the Thomas Aquinas College community, the health of those who are most vulnerable, and for all public-health officials who are working to contain COVID-19.

Novena to St. Joseph

Over the past weekend the alumni of Thomas Aquinas College came out in force to support their alma mater for the Third Annual Alumni Days of Giving — boosting their giving by 19.1 percent from the previous year and helping to raise $111,941 in just two days.

Writing in First Things, George Weigel — biographer of Pope Saint John Paul II and a distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center — laments the current state of architecture, while praising a building which, he says, represents a hopeful countertrend. That building? Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel on the California campus of Thomas Aquinas College:

For the first time last Friday night, the students of Thomas Aquinas College, New England, participated in the Lenten practice of praying the Stations of the Cross in Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel. Their devotion was made possible thanks to the installation of 14 hand-painted stations — scenes depicting the passion and death of Christ — that now line the Chapel walls. Like their counterparts on the California campus, the New England stations have a noble history and reflect the role of Providence in the life of Thomas Aquinas College.

“Based on the witness of several TAC graduates, and a strong belief in the vision of the College’s founders, we sent our oldest son, John (’18), to Thomas Aquinas College, sight unseen,” says John J. Guinee, the newest member of the College’s Board of Governors. “Soon, three more of our 10 children — Caroline (’20), Joseph (’21), and Michael (’23) — followed.

Please pray for the repose of the soul Frances O’Connor Hardart, a longtime member of the Thomas Aquinas College Board of Governors, who died on February 19.

“Frannie Hardart served on our board for 14 years,” says President Michael F. McLean. “She loved the College’s educational program as well as its commitment to the Catholic faith, and she believed that our graduates offered great hope for the future of the Church and the country. She remained a close friend of the College and a generous benefactor even after her retirement.”