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THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE E-LETTER
JULY 2014
 
 
 
 
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CAMPUS LIFE
MULTIMEDIA
   
Video: New Board Chairman R. Scott Turicchi Video: New
Board Chairman
R. Scott Turicchi
   
New: 360° Interactive Campus Tour New: 360° Interactive Campus Tour
   
Slideshow: West Coast Alumni Dinner Slideshow:
West Coast Alumni Dinner
   
Text & Audio: Tom Susanka’s Reminiscences Text & Audio:
Tom Susanka’s Reminiscences
   
Slideshow: College & Church Leaders in Rome Slideshow: College & Church Leaders in Rome
   
Slideshow: St. Gladys Hall Progress Update Slideshow:
St. Gladys Hall Progress Update
   
Photos: Class of 2014 Portraits and Photos Photos: Class of 2014 Portraits
& Commencement
   
Join the President's Council
   
  UPCOMING EVENTS
 
Summer Seminar Weekend #2
July 18-20
 
Summer Great Books Program for High School Students
July 20 - August 2
 
Napa Institute Seminar:
“Reason & Faith”

July 24
 
Feast of the Assumption
Office holiday
August 15
 
Retreat for Faculty & Staff
August 18
 
Retreat for Faculty/Staff Spouses
August 19
 
Residence Halls Open for Freshmen
August 21
 
Freshman Orientation
August 22-23
 
Residence Halls Open for Returning Students
August 23
 
Convocation
The Most Rev. Samuel J. Aquila, Archbishop of Denver, presiding
August 25
 
Feast of Bl. Mother Teresa
September 5
 
All-College Seminar
October 3
 
Columbus Day
No classes / office holiday
October 13
 
Anniversary of the Death of Founding President Ronald P. McArthur
October 17
 
Don Rags
No evening classes
October 21-23
 
Board of Governors Retreat
October 24-26
 
Feast of All Saints
November 1
 
Fourth Anniversary of the Death of College Founder Marcus R. Berquist
November 2
 
Thanksgiving Recess
November 27-30
 
Thanksgiving
No classes / office holiday
November 27
 
IN MEMORIAM
 
Lillian E. Del Chicca
November 19, 2006
Legacy Society member

Onnalee Olson Doheny
October 10, 2013
Benefactor

John L. Shrake
April 7, 2014
Benefactor

Edward F. Waterbury
May 25, 2014
Father of Damian (’93),
grandfather of Peter (’17),
and Legacy Society
member

John T. “Terry” Spillane
June 27, 2014
Benefactor
 
The Legacy Society
 
HHS MANDATE  UPDate
President Michael F. McLean’s Analysis of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby Rulings

The decision in the Hobby Lobby case, while providing immediate relief to Hobby Lobby and the other plaintiffs, contains language which leaves the implications of this decision for Thomas Aquinas College unclear.

While part of the ruling suggests the Court’s approval of the HHS accommodation being challenged by the College, the Court also said that plaintiffs’ beliefs in the Hobby Lobby case “implicate a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but that has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another.” This question, of course, goes right to the heart of the College’s, and others’, religious objection to the HHS accommodation.
 
Full analysis
 
 

Michael F. McLean

HHS logo
 
VOCATIONS BOOM
60th Alumni Priest, Plus New Alumni Deacons, Sisters & Seminarian

This summer brings more news of graduates answering God’s call to the priesthood and the religious life:
 
Rev. Matthew Busch (’04) is the College’s 60th alumnus priest, having received the Sacrament of Holy Orders at the hands of the Most Rev. Gregory Parkes, Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee, on May 10.

Two alumni have recently been ordained to the transitional diaconate. On May 24 the Most Rev. James Wall, Bishop of Gallup (N.M.), ordained the Rev. Mr. Joshua Mayer (’03), a seminarian at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado. And on June 21 the Most Rev. Kevin William Vann, Bishop of Orange, ordained Frater Jacob (Joseph Hsieh ’06), O.Praem., a seminarian with the Norbertine Canons in Silverado, California.
 
Two alumnae religious, Sr. Mary Thomas, O.Praem. (Alison Bright ’09), and Sr. Mary Andre, O.Praem. (Annie Huguelet ’11), recently made their first profession of vows as cloistered Norbertine Canonesses, receiving their black veils. The Rite of First Profession took place during Mass on the morning of June 6 in Tehachapi, California.
 
This month Justin Lefevre (’00) is entering the Sacred Heart of Jesus Monastery in Portland, Oregon — the first Maronite monastery in the Western United States. He will be a postulant with the Monks of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and he will soon begin preparing for the priesthood. “The College and its intentions will be in the monastery’s prayers continually,” he promises.
 
Please pray for these faithful young men and women!
 
 

Rev. Matthew Busch (’04)
Rev. Matthew Busch (’04)

Rev. Mr. Joshua Mayer (’03)
Rev. Mr. Joshua Mayer (’03)

Frater Jacob (Joseph Hsieh ’06)
Frater Jacob (Joseph Hsieh ’06)

Summer Seminars
Sr. Mary Thomas, O.Praem. (’09) and Sr. Mary Andre, O.Praem. (’11)

Summer Seminars
Justin Lefevre (’00)
 
STUDENT SUMMERS
MIT Chemistry Internship, Walking for Life

Senior David Langley is one of three visiting undergraduate scientists working this summer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Jamison Group on the Neglected Tropical Diseases Project. He is helping to organize an undergraduate laboratory for MIT’s organic chemistry course, while at the same time assisting with a project to develop biofuel technology via a relatively new technique known as flow chemistry.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the area of Bozeman, Montana, Senior Heather Waldorf  continues her 12-week walk across the United States in support of the unborn. She is participating in the Crossroads Walk Across America — four separate, simultaneous journeys of college students traversing the U.S. and Canada to promote the pro-life cause. Miss Waldorf is part of the Northern Walk, which began in Seattle on May 24 and will conclude with a rally in Washington, D.C., on August 16.
 
 

David Langley (’15)
David Langley (’15)

Heather Waldorf (’15)
Heather Waldorf (’15)
 
RECALLING OUR PRINCIPLES
Faculty Participates in Seminars on College’s Mission

Twice this summer members of the Thomas Aquinas College faculty — tutors and senior administrators alike — have participated in seminars about a topic of utmost importance to their work: the mission of the College.

“Many strong Catholic institutions of higher learning have collapsed, or lost their way, in part because they were not explicit enough about what they stood for,” says Dean Brian T. Kelly. Careful to avoid this fate, the Thomas Aquinas College faculty meets each summer to discuss texts that deepen members’ understanding of and commitment to the College’s mission and its unique program of Catholic liberal education.
 
The first of this summer’s seminars focused on a report that Dr. Glen Coughlin, a senior tutor, presented in 2001, when he was serving as the College’s dean. For the second seminar, the faculty read Pope St. John Paul’s 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio.

Full story

 

Society for Aristotelian-Thomistic Studies
 
LOVE FOR WISDOM ...
Alumni to Host Catholic Classical Education Conference

Next week educators will gather in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for “Love for Wisdom, Passion for Truth,” the 2014 conference of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. Among the speakers will be four graduates of the College: Laura (Steichen ’75) Berquist, the founder and director of Mother of Divine Grace School; Dr. Andrew Seeley (’87), a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College and the executive director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education; Jessie (Ellis ’86) Van Hecke, a kindergarten and first grade teacher at St. Augustine Academy in Ventura, California; and Michael Van Hecke (’86), Headmaster of St. Augustine Academy and the president of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education.

Full story
 
 
Patrick Cross (’14)
Dr. Andrew Seeley (’87)
 
 
 
 
 
  Thomas Aquinas College