Meet the Summer Program Prefects: Jonahs Chavez (’22)

“I decided to go to TAC because my older siblings went here,” says Jonahs Chavez (’22), who graduated from the New England campus last month. But that doesn’t mean he followed his siblings’ lead blindly.

“When my oldest brother first came to the College, the idea of a classical, Great Books school made no sense to me. Education for its own sake was completely contrary to all the notions of school that I had developed at my public high school,” he says. But as his brother, and then his sister, went through TAC’s program of Catholic liberal education, Jonahs saw them changing into more thoughtful and insightful people. “I recognized the gravity and importance of an education like this. That alone was enough to make me only consider TAC after high school.”

The 2017 High School Summer Program helped Jonahs arrive at that more appreciative stance. “It was important for me to get a taste of the College, because everything was so foreign initially,” he reflects. Since returning as a student, Jonahs has been a regular among the Summer Program prefects. “I’ve worked the program three times — twice in New England and once in California.”

He is excited to work his fourth program. “It’s especially fun, because the people I will be meeting this year are the next generation of students for Thomas Aquinas College, which is a school I care so deeply about,” he says. As a prefect, Jonahs will be an amiable companion on the soccer field — and on the visit to art museums in Boston. “A hobby of mine this past year was running an art group at TAC,” he adds. “On Saturdays, I pick out a painting and distribute prints of the painting to people, and then after lunch about 10 to 15 of us go to a classroom and discuss the painting.”

Broad of mind, Jonahs will be a valuable asset among this summer’s prefects.