SCHOOLWATCH

Thomas Aquinas to open Massachusetts campus

Jean Cowden Moore
jean.moore@vcstar.com, 805-437-0236

Thomas Aquinas College is opening a second campus this fall in a bucolic town in Massachusetts.

Sage Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College's new Massachusetts campus will be converted to a Catholic church.

The private Catholic college near Santa Paula received the Massachusetts campus as a gift from the National Christian Foundation. The college will officially take ownership May 2.

The Massachusetts campus will allow Thomas Aquinas to accept more students while keeping its Santa Paula enrollment capped at 400, President Michael McLean said. The new campus, which has been sitting empty for about a dozen years, can also accommodate 400 students.

"This gives us a tremendous opportunity to expand our reach and offer our education to twice as many students as we can now," McLean said.

The campus is in Northfield, Massachusetts, about 90 miles northwest of Boston. It already has several dormitories, a library, science hall and music building, and classrooms suited to college students. The chapel on campus will be converted to a Catholic church with the addition of an altar, confessionals and kneelers, McLean said.

The foundation chose to donate the campus to Thomas Aquinas College after looking into the school's management, mission and reputation, said Emmitt Mitchell, a founding member of the board of directors. Foundation members also visited the Santa Paula campus to see how it was maintained, Mitchell said.

"We were looking for someone who had the right mission, and Thomas Aquinas College is perfect," he said.

The college plans to build up its new campus slowly, admitting 36 freshmen each year for the next four years. Plans call for it to grow to a maximum of 350 to 400 students.

About four tutors, which is what Thomas Aquinas calls professors, will move from the Santa Paula campus to Northfield to provide continuity on the new campus. At the beginning, the two campuses will share one faculty, the same curriculum and a single board of governors. Down the road, however, they could operate as two independent campuses.

The foundation also has created a $5 million matching grant that Thomas Aquinas College will use to provide stable funding for salaries, financial aid and renovations over the next five years, McLean said. Thomas Aquinas has raised $3.6 million in matching funds so far and plans to raise an additional $1.5 million in the next few months, he said.

Eventually, the college will need to invest $20 million to $30 million more in renovating the campus' aging buildings, McLean said.

The Northfield campus started as the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in 1879 and the Mount Hermon School for Boys in 1881. Founded by evangelist Dwight L. Moody, the campus eventually was bought by Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. in 2009. The company then turned it over to the National Christian Foundation.