Thomas Aquinas College makes top 10 list
Santa Paula Times
2/28/07
Young America’s Foundation (YAF), a principal outreach organization
of the conservative movement with offices at the Reagan Ranch in
Santa Barbara, California, and in Herndon, Virginia, has just published
its third annual “Top Ten Conservative Colleges.”
According to YAF, institutions that make their list “avoid
trends in academe by continuing to study Western Civilization instead
of straying toward the study of Marxism, feminism, sexuality, postmodernism,
and other modern distractions.” Not only did Thomas Aquinas
College make the list for the third year in a row, it was again
this year the only college in the Western United States to do so.
Explains YAF, “[These] colleges offer an alternative to the
liberal status quo....They avoid trends in academe by continuing
to study Western Civilization instead of straying toward the study
of Marxism, feminism, sexuality, postmodernism, and other modern
distractions.”
While many of YAF “Top 10” colleges and universities
focus on the liberal arts, Thomas Aquinas College is the only one
that offers a single, integrated curriculum comprised exclusively
of the Great Books. Works read in the college’s four-year program
include the founding documents of the United States, the original
writings of some of the American founding fathers, and works on
ethics and political life by great thinkers from ancient to modern
times.
Though the mission statements of several of the YAF “Top Ten”
include explicitly political goals, Thomas Aquinas College’s
does not. Instead, its founding document describes an essentially
Catholic institution devoted to the pursuit of wisdom-human and
divine. Graduates, nevertheless, tend to embrace conservative principles.
They go on to pursue a wide variety of careers and professions including
education, law, journalism, religious life, business, and medicine.
Moreover, many work in public policy or are actively engaged in
public or military service.
Celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, Thomas Aquinas College
has achieved an international reputation for its rigorous academic
program. It is widely recognized for helping to cultivate intellectual
and moral virtue in its students and consistently ranks among the
top colleges and universities in the nation.
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