Benefactors

“One of the greatest joys we experience on the Board is confidence that the Faith is lived, taught, and discussed daily by our students,” says Bernarda Neal, a member of the Thomas Aquinas College Board of Governors.

The College has learned that an old friend, Paul S. Laubacher of Oxnard, California, died on June 15 at the age of 91. A World War II veteran, Mr. Laubacher was a benefactor of Thomas Aquinas College and also the grandfather Laura (’07), Monica (Gisla ’09), Charles (’17), and Clare Gisla (’19).

By Dr. Brian T. Kelly (’88)

Note: The following remarks are adapted from Dean Brian T. Kelly’s report to the Board of Governors at its November 14, 2015, meeting. They are part of an ongoing series of talks about why the College includes certain texts in its curriculum.

Each summer, Thomas Aquinas College invites members of the President’s Council — the backbone of the College’s financial-aid fund — to one of two Great Books Summer Seminar Weekends. At these weekends participants get an inside look at the unique education that they so generously help to make possible.

This past Saturday members of the Ventura Chapter of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (CALL) came to campus for the group’s annual Thomas Aquinas College seminar. A national organization dedicated to the growth and spiritual formation of the country’s Latino leaders, CALL has deep connections in Southern California and with the College. The Most Rev. José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles, is the group’s episcopal moderator, and a graduate of the College, attorney Justin Alvarez (’97), leads its Ventura Chapter.

When he was 13 years old in Bakersfield, California, Thomas Aquinas College tutor Dr. Thomas J. Kaiser once found an injured red-tailed hawk. After bringing the bird home, he went to the library and read every book he could find about falconry.

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which is dedicated to “advancing the classical tradition in architecture, urbanism, and their allied arts,” has presented its prestigious Arthur Ross Award for Excellence in the Classical Tradition to Duncan G. Stroik, the design architect of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel.