Curriculum Vitae
B.A., Thomas Aquinas College, 2018; M.A., philosophy, Center for Thomistic Studies, 2020; Ph.D. candidate (ABD), philosophy, Center for Thomistic Studies; Teacher, Trinity International College, Nepal, 2012-2013; Assistant Editor, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 2018-2021; Assistant to the National Secretary, American Catholic Philosophical Association, 2018-2021; Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, University of St. Thomas, 2021-2024; Tutor, Thomas Aquinas College, 2024-.
Profile
“I have always wanted to come back to TAC, even while I was a student,” says Sanjay Adhikari (’18), who joined the faculty of Thomas Aquinas College, New England, in 2024. After graduating from the California campus six years earlier, he achieved his dream of returning to the community of truth-seekers he loves so dearly.
Mr. Adhikari was born and raised in Lamjung, Nepal. He discovered the College’s website while looking for classical liberal arts schools and immediately knew where he wanted to go for his undergraduate degree. “The first thing that caught my eye about Thomas Aquinas College was how beautiful it looked,” he recalls. “TAC was so different from all the other liberal arts schools I had seen, so I knew it was the place I would go.”
As a student, Mr. Adhikari was enamored with the College’s classical curriculum and its use of the Discussion Method. He was especially struck by the role of the tutor in the classroom. “One of the primary challenges with the Discussion Method is the number of contingencies in conversations,” he says. “The tutor has to maintain a very fine balance between the freedom of the discussion and the guidance he must give to ensure the truth is found by the end of class.”
He graduated from the College in 2018, then went on to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy at the University of St. Thomas’s Center for Thomistic Studies in Houston, Texas. While studying there, he taught undergraduate philosophy courses for three years. He is currently finishing his doctoral dissertation, which is on the relation between immateriality and understanding according to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.
As Mr. Adhikari completed his graduate studies, he began to think once more about joining the teaching faculty at his alma mater. “During my four years at the College, I knew I wanted to come back someday,” he says. “It was always a little overwhelming to think of myself as a tutor, though, since I would always remember how amazing and capable many of my own tutors were when I was a student.”
Nevertheless, he applied. “TAC was the only place I applied to teach,” he admits. “I was nervous beforehand, but I worked very hard on my application seminar and lecture and thought they turned out well.” Much to his delight, his hard work paid off, and he was offered a teaching position on the New England campus. “Several of my colleagues here were my tutors back in California, and, of course, we studied the exact same classical curriculum,” Mr. Adhikari observes. “It is both beautiful and surreal to be in such a familiar community, doing the very same kind of work, but in a wholly different place. I consider myself blessed to be part of this next chapter in the life of the College.”
Awards
- Hank Fellowships in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (2023) The Hank Center, Loyola University Chicago Summer fellowship award for dissertation research on a subject in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
Conferences
- Thomistic Summer Conference
Thomas Aquinas College, California, 2023
“In Defense of St. Thomas’s Arguments for the Immateriality of the Human Intellect” - American Catholic Philosophical Association National Meetings
San Diego, 2018: “Philosophy, Catholicism, and Public Life”
Minneapolis, 2019: “A Perennial Philosophy of Nature”
Remote, 2020: “The Good, the True, the Beautiful”
Houston, 2023: “The Human Person”