Science Tutors Help Design Building
(Spring 2000 Newsletter)
Dr. Thomas Kaiser
Dr. Ronald J. Richard
A plan for a science building existed from the beginning
of the College. But in the early 1990s, when prospects for
such a building were realized, a group of tutors formed a
committee and began to discuss how they would like that building
to be.
Dr. Thomas Kaiser, chairman of the committee, along with
Drs. Ronald Richard and Carol Day, proposed that a building
plan be designed to provide for laboratories next to seminar
rooms, adequate storage and display space, and facilities
suitable for reproducing classical experiments in chemistry,
biology, physics, electromagnetism, and optics. “And
wouldn’t it be great to include a Foucault Pendulum!”
Dr. Richard later added. For these tutors especially, Albertus
Magnus Science Hall has been a long-awaited dream.
‘A Kaiser In His Castle’
Chiefly responsible for the program of the building was Dr.
Kaiser, the College’s first graduate to obtain an advanced
degree in the sciences. As a student here, Kaiser was most
interested in philosophy and theology, especially the philosophy
of nature. “I was struck by how important the study of
nature was for doing theology,” he said. “That nature
acts for an end is most evident in living things. This teleological
framework, of course, points to God. I find now even as a
tutor that principles we face in the lab are often brought
to bear in theology.”
Kaiser was interested in nature growing up in Bakersfield,
California. When he wasn’t out playing sports, he would
be found checking out the habitats of birds and mammals along
the banks and open country of the Kern River near his home.
He got interested in falconry when he was thirteen and maintains
that interest today. “I hated biology in high school,”
he said. “We never saw a single living organism. We were
always pulling one out of formaldehyde.”
He was so enamored of his experience at the College that,
after he graduated in 1975, he thought he might like to come
back and teach. After a misspent semester studying philosophy
in the East, he began taking some undergraduate courses in
biology at Cal-State Bakersfield and worked at a cotton research
station run by UC Davis. He also spoke with College founders,
Drs. Ron McArthur and Marc Berquist, and discussed getting
a doctorate in biology and returning to the College to teach.
None of the tutors as yet had any expertise in that area.
On their encouragement, Kaiser then applied for and was accepted
into UCLA’s doctoral program in biology. He completed
his course work in 1982, and obtained his doctorate in 1986.
His dissertation on the “Behavior and Energetics of Prairie
Falcons Breeding in the Western Mojave Desert,” was a
ground-breaking study in energetic efficiency that confirmed
a hypothesis of why certain female falcons are larger than
males.
Kaiser returned to the College to teach in 1982 and began
to help overhaul the laboratory and science curriculum for
the freshmen and sophomore years. He introduced a more complete
program of biology, still starting with J. Henri Fabre and
asking “Where is the proper place to begin the study
of biology?” He recommended expanding readings in Harvey
and Galen (to discuss anatomy and physiology, the motion of
the heart and blood, and animal generation), Linneaus (to
discuss the naming and classification of organisms), Dreisch
(to discuss embryology and vitalistic theories), Goethe (to
discuss the metamorphosis of plants), and Aristotle (to discuss
the principles and methods of science). He also recommended
field trips to examine and collect insects, class dissection
of a sheep heart, and lab exercises in embryology and plant
anatomy. The faculty adopted his recommendations.
“Our students get exposed to the most important questions
raised in the study of biology,” he says. “Basically,
there are two competing views of biology today: the Materialist
approach and the Teleological approach. In your average biology
course, the philosophy of nature is never discussed, but all
of the assumptions are still there and everything will be
taught in light of those assumptions. These views come up
over and over again and our students get to see the consequences
of holding one view over another. ”
“This is why a good science program is indispensable
to a good liberal arts program. It’s sorely neglected
elsewhere. You don’t generally see liberal arts schools
erecting science buildings these days. But we really want
to emphasize the importance of good science to the intellectual
life. The connection between natural science and philosophy
must be understood before one can fully appreciate the connection
between faith and reason.”
Kaiser married his classmate, Paula Grimm, and they have
raised 11 children together. Tom and Teresa graduate from
the College this year, Sarah in two years, and Maria in three.
If you wander out back behind the Kaiser homestead in Upper
Ojai, you will also find them raising at any given time falcons,
hawks, pigeons, pheasants, quail, ducks, chukars, cockatoos,
dogs, rabbits, and various reptiles. They are reminders of
God’s presence around him.
Dr. Richard, ‘The Science Guy’
It never hurts to have an astrophysicist involved in the
development of your science building, too. Dr. Ronald Richard
has been a tutor at the College since 1976 and that was his
background until he found the philo (“love”) for
sophia (“wisdom”).
Richard was a research engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratories
in Pasadena, California, working with the space program. He
initially was involved in calculating preliminary trajectories
for launches to the moon, Venus and Mars, and was later involved
in the theoretical design of space computer programs. He found
it always interesting, but not always satisfying.
Meanwhile, he was working on his doctorate in astrophysics
at UCLA and fell in love with teaching. He wanted more of
it. Two experiences then led him to a career change.
“One day, my wife and I came out of the supermarket
and saw an ad on a bulletin board for the ‘Great Books
of the Western World.’ It looked interesting. So we filled
it out and sent it in. A salesman then came by, and before
he left he had an order for the books. When they came, I tried
to read them, but couldn’t get very far. I tried reading
Aristotle and Newton but got nowhere.”
His second experience came when he was at UCLA and went to
the library to find a book on speed-reading. He found instead
a book on slow-reading, “How To Read A Book,” by
Mortimer Adler, one of the founders of the Great Books Movement.
“There it was again,” he thought, “a reference
to the Great Books.” He thus found that he was interested
in something other than science and math and decided that
he would like to teach at a small Catholic college with a
department that combined physics and astronomy. (He holds
one doctorate in astrophysics and has completed the coursework
equivalent to a doctorate in physics.)
He sent out forty inquiry letters and got one offer from Benedictine
College in Atchison, Kansas. He took it. At the faculty picnic
before classes started, he met the chairman of the Philosophy
Department, Dr. Don Scholz, and decided to audit some of his
courses.
He became fast friends with Dr. Scholz and one day in the
early 1970s confided that he would really like to teach, if
it were to exist, at a “Catholic St. John’s College,”
(referring to the esteemed Great Books program initiated at
St. John’s). Scholz referred him to his cousin, Marc
Berquist, who in fact, was founding such a college.
Thus, in 1972, in the College’s second year, Richard
traveled to California to meet the faculty and to give a lecture
on the nature of “time.” Over the next three years,
Richard’s interest in philosophy under Scholz grew and
he decided to talk to Dr. McArthur about coming to the college.
“They saw that I could help get their junior and senior
science programs going,” says Richard. That was fine
with him since he could get involved in the philosophy and
theology courses as well.
So in 1976, Richard began teaching at the College and has
been teaching to this day. For more than a dozen years in
two sections of students, he has taught Junior Lab (Newton
and Galileo). But he also has taught nearly every other course
in the curriculum. “I’ll quit teaching when I stop
learning,” he says. “I’m happy when students
learn and I’m happy when I myself learn and both those
things take place here.” Dr. Richard and his wife, Carol,
settled in nearby Ojai and have three grown children.
One of his principal involvements in the science building
was the introduction and the placement of the Foucault Pendulum.
“It’s a very striking demonstration,” he says,
“that not all motion is relative.” It also demonstrates
the importance of having an astrophysicist as a philosopher.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Spring 2000
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