In Memoriam: Dr. John W. Neumayr, 1930 – 2022

On Monday night Thomas Aquinas College lost one of its beloved founders, a longtime member of the teaching faculty who also served as its first dean and was, for more than 50 years, a member of its Board of Governors: Dr. John W. Neumayr. “Fitting for the 4th of July,” wrote his daughter, Jane Nemcova (’98). “No one understood more our American history, culture, and Constitution.”

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Neumayr lived in and around San Francisco from the age of 10. The second oldest of four children, he excelled at sports from an early age. He was selected to the all-city basketball team in his senior year and, as a sophomore, set the San Francisco city record in the high jump. In 1948 the University of Notre Dame recruited him for both track and basketball, and as a 6’ 4” small forward, he joined a Fighting Irish team that remained in the nation’s Top 20 throughout his four years.

While in high school he also fell in love with philosophy, thanks to conversations with one of his basketball teammates. “We had spent a lot of time talking literature and philosophy before we even knew what philosophy was,” he once recalled. He cultivated this interest as a college student and, upon graduating from Notre Dame in 1952, went on to earn a master’s degree there as well.

Dr. Neumayr then returned to San Francisco, uncertain of his interests. He pursued coursework toward a teaching credential, considered practicing law, and even tested a religious vocation with the Dominican Order. During this two-year quest, his sister Mary introduced him to one of her favorite teachers at the San Francisco College for Women, Dr. Ronald P. McArthur, who would go on to become Thomas Aquinas College’s founding president. At his new friend’s urging, Dr. Neumayr then traveled to Quebec to pursue a doctorate in philosophy at Dr. McArthur’s alma mater, the Université Laval, under the renowned Thomist Charles DeKoninck.

After completing his doctorate, Dr. Neumayr came back to the Bay Area once more and taught at the University of Santa Clara, where he met Bridget Cameron, an Oxford University graduate from England who was working on a master’s in American literature at the University of California, Berkeley. The two wed in 1963 and would go on to welcome seven children, three of whom are Thomas Aquinas College graduates.

At Santa Clara, Dr. Neumayr befriended a young philosophy instructor named Marcus R. Berquist, and in 1966 both joined Dr. McArthur on the faculty at St. Mary’s College of California. Yet concerned by trends in academia and the broader culture, the three scholars soon began to think about establishing a college of their own.

In the fall of 1969, two years before Thomas Aquinas College opened its doors, Dr. Neumayr became its first dean, a position he held until 1981. He also assisted Dr. McArthur and Mr. Berquist in writing the College’s founding document, A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education. “When you consider the modest talents and efforts we brought to bear in founding the College,” he once said, “you have to conclude that this was God’s project, not ours.”

In 2012 the College awarded Dr. Neumayr its highest honor, the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion, “for the wisdom and care that he brought to our founding, and for his service as a tutor, our first dean, and a member of our Board of Governors,” explained then-President Michael F. McLean. Dr. Neumayr continued to serve on the teaching faculty until his retirement in 2016, and he remained a member of the College’s Board of Governors for the rest of his days.

“Jack Neumayr was a man who dedicated his life to education under the light of the Catholic faith,” says Thomas Aquinas College President Paul J. O’Reilly. “Along with the other founders, he had the bold vision to establish the College as a beacon of light during the confusion about education in the 1960s. He loved the Church, and he loved his students. He was a giant who will be sorely missed. All of us at the College pray for the repose of his soul and the consolation of his family.”