College Honors Dr. Sean Collins (’79) for Teaching Every Course in Curriculum

At the close of this academic year, Dr. Sean Collins (’79) joined the small but growing group of TAC faculty members who have taught all 23 courses in the College’s curriculum.

Because Thomas Aquinas College offers a fully integrated curriculum, it is unique among American colleges and universities in requiring its faculty members to teach not only in their areas of expertise, but in a wide variety of disciplines — language, logic, mathematics, music, natural science, literature, economics, history, philosophy, and theology. “Our founders recognized that tutors who teach across the disciplines are better equipped to answer students’ questions and help them see how the disciplines build upon one another,” says Dr. John J. Goyette, the outgoing dean on the California campus.

“The requirement demands much from our faculty, but they rise to the occasion, and our students are the ultimate beneficiaries,” Dr. Goyette adds. Given both the range and the relative difficulty of certain tutorials, however, teaching the curriculum in its entirety is a rare and impressive feat. Only five other tutors have accomplished it thus far: Dr. Thomas J. Kaiser, Dr. Glen Coughlin, Mr. David J. Quackenbush, Dr. John. F. Nieto, and Dr. Andrew Seeley.

The mutual coherence of the curriculum made an early and lasting impression on Dr. Collins when he was a TAC student in the 1970s, and it has shaped his teaching since joining the faculty in 1994. But while his sense of that coherence has been fairly constant, “there were some moments when it advanced substantially,” he says.

One such moment, recalls Dr. Collins, was his first go at teaching the Music Tutorial in 2010. “Music is a liberal art, and teaching it was an opportunity to see how the liberal arts, philosophy, and theology mesh with each other,” he says. “Music is a microcosm of the whole thing in some ways, so it was a lot of fun.”

In recognition of his accomplishment, Dr. Collins has become the latest custodian of the statuette which the faculty has dubbed Lady Philosophy, “given to tutors who finish teaching the entire program,” Dr. Goyette explains. “Sean will get to keep Lady Philosophy safe until the next tutor finishes.”