News

Last year College Governor Berni Neal and her husband, Rob, offered to match all alumni donations made to the College on its first annual Alumni Day of Giving, up to $10,000. The alumni responded by giving nearly triple that sum.

“Clearly we need to set our sights even higher,” says Vice President for Development Paul J. O’Reilly, a member of the Class of 1984.

Thomas Aquinas College has always enjoyed a close relationship with Mother of Divine Grace School, an online classical learning academy whose founder and president, Laura Berquist (’75), is an alumna. Each year several of the school’s graduates come to the College as freshmen, and 2019 promises to be no exception, with students from across the country applying to both the California and New England campuses.

The rules of Thomas Aquinas College’s Cookie Bake-Off are simple: Teams get one evening to bake their confections, working entirely from scratch. Recipes and ingredients are left to students’ own devices and imaginations. The next day, a select panel of tutors, students, and staff evaluate the cookies on the basis of several criteria, including taste and presentation. Below are photos from both the preparation and judging at this year’s competition:

Last weekend some 25 Thomas Aquinas College seniors and tutors enjoyed an educational tour of one of Los Angeles’s finest art museums led by an expert docent — College Governor Maria O. Grant.

Saturday’s visit to Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum was arranged, sponsored, and directed by Mrs. Grant, who is a Museum Educator at the Norton Simon and previously served as an Overseer at the Huntington Library in San Marino. In past years Mrs. Grant has also led groups of students on tours of the Getty Center and the Getty Villa.

Sohrab Ahmari was a teenager living under the Iranian ayatollahs when he decided that there is no God. Nearly two decades later, he was received into the Catholic Church.

“The afternoon of March 3 will mark a truly glorious moment in the early history of Thomas Aquinas College, New England,” says President Michael F. McLean. “The Blessed Sacrament will be reserved for the first time in the campus chapel.”

One Friday evening each semester, groups of about 20 Thomas Aquinas College students from all classes — seniors and freshmen, sophomores and juniors — gather in classrooms across the campus for the All-College Seminar. Although separate, these groups engage in a single, common activity, namely, reading, analyzing, and discussing the same text, one that is not part of the College’s ordinary curriculum. Two members of the teaching faculty lead each of the discussions.

On Friday the students of Thomas Aquinas College hosted an early St. Valentine’s Day Dance in St. Cecilia Hall. The theme: “Arabian Nights.”

Prominent software entrepreneur and philanthropist Michael Ortner visited with students of Thomas Aquinas College on Monday, presenting a talk entitled, “How to Connect Your Liberal Arts Education with IT Software & Business.”