March 21, 2017
10,000 Ojai Road
Santa Paula CA 93060
Contact: Anne Forsyth, Director of College Relations
(805) 525-4417
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Thomas Aquinas College Announces 
First Members of New England Campus Team

SANTA PAULA, CA—March 9—The president of Thomas Aquinas College, Dr. Michael F. McLean, has announced that four seasoned members of Thomas Aquinas College’s teaching faculty, an Admissions counselor, and their families have agreed to be among the “pioneers” who will settle the school’s forthcoming branch campus at Northfield, Massachusetts.

“I am pleased to announce that Dr. Thomas Kaiser will head our initial New England team and, per our governance plan, will have the title of associate dean,” says President McLean. “In addition, the team will include tutors Dr. Michael Augros, Dr. Patrick Gardner, and Dr. Phillip Wodzinski, as well as Mr. Patrick Cross from our Admissions Office. All have demonstrated an admirable willingness to take on the challenge of opening and managing a new campus in New England, and I am very confident that with a team of this quality we will be successful.”

In February, Thomas Aquinas College and the National Christian Foundation (NCF) announced that they had entered into a preliminary agreement, under which the NCF will give the College the former campus of a preparatory school in Northfield, Massachusetts, on May 2, 2017. By God’s grace, and contingent upon the approval of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, the branch campus will open its doors to students in the fall of 2018.

For information about each of the Northfield team members, please visit the college’s website. 

“We will be one college with two campuses, with a single faculty, a single Board of Governors, a single curriculum, and a single accreditation,” adds Dr. McLean, “and our Founding Document, the Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education, will be the governing document for the New England campus, just as it is for our California campus.”

On learning from Dr. McLean of Thomas Aquinas College’s desire to operate a branch campus at Northfield, the bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, the Most Reverend Mitchell T. Rozanski, wrote to the college’s president saying, “I wish to inform you of my full support for this endeavor, and will do whatever I can to help you in establishing the school here to form faithful witnesses to Christ in our Catholic faith.”

Says Dr. McLean, “We are greatly encouraged by Bishop Rozanski’s warm welcome and pledge of assistance. We look forward to working with His Excellency, with the town of Northfield, and with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to expand our mission of Catholic liberal education at this new branch campus. With God’s help, we will provide even more young people the intellectual, moral, and spiritual formation they need to serve the Church and our country well.”

Thomas Aquinas College will share a portion of the Northfield property with the Moody Center, whose mission is to preserve the legacy of Dwight L. Moody. The Center will restore historic parts of the campus, operate a small museum, and establish and maintain an archive of materials related to the evangelist’s life and work.

For further information, please visit: www.thomasaquinas.edu/newenglandpr.

About Thomas Aquinas College

A four-year, co-educational institution, Thomas Aquinas College has developed over the past 46 years a solid reputation for academic excellence in the United States and abroad and is highly ranked by organizations such as The Princeton Review, U. S. News, and Kiplinger. At Thomas Aquinas College all students acquire a broad and fully integrated liberal education. The College offers one, four-year, classical curriculum that spans the major arts and sciences. Instead of reading textbooks, students read the original works of the greatest thinkers in Western civilization — the Great Books — in all the major disciplines: mathematics, natural science, literature, philosophy, and theology. The academic life of the college is conducted under the light of the Catholic faith and flourishes within a close-knit community, supported by a vibrant spiritual life. Graduates consistently excel in the many world-class institutions at which they pursue graduate degrees in fields such as law, medicine, business, theology and education. They have distinguished themselves serving as lawyers, doctors, business owners, priests, military service men and women, educators, journalists and college presidents.