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COLLEGE WELCOMES NEW FACULTY
Three New Tutors, Vice President, and Facilities Manager
• When he learned that the College was hiring new tutors, alumnus Dr. Josef Froula (’92) was eager to apply: “Because my experience here as a student was so positive,” he says, “I knew it would be a good fit for me.” Dr. Froula has earned master’s degrees in dogmatic theology (Holy Apostles College and Seminary) and humanities (California State University, Dominguez Hills), as well as a doctorate in educational leadership (Southern Connecticut State University). He also spent 5 years teaching high school and 21 instructing seminarians at Holy Apostles and the Legion of Christ College of Humanities.
• A native of Connecticut, Dr. Margaret Hughes is a graduate of the University of Chicago. She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy at Fordham University, where she taught undergraduate philosophy, and then served for six years at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York. “I have always wanted to teach at a place that has a clear understanding of what education is, one that encourages a shared intellectual life amongst the faculty and with the students,” she says. “I am very grateful to be here.”
• A childhood zeal for mathematics led Dr. Michel Rubin to fall in love with philosophy. “I enjoyed proving things, reasoning, figuring things out,” he says. So as an undergraduate at Providence College, he majored in both. Yet when he had to choose between the two, he opted for philosophy, going on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees at the Catholic University of America. He is delighted, however, that, as a member of the Thomas Aquinas College teaching faculty, he no longer has to choose, and gets to teach across the curriculum. “The program encourages tutors and students alike to always be learning,” he says.
• A Harvard Business School graduate and a Thomas Aquinas College parent, Dennis McCarthy worked for 40 years in investment banking, most recently at Boustead Securities, where he served as managing director. About a year ago, he had been praying regularly about whether God was calling him to a new career, when he got a call from College President Michael F. McLean, asking if he would consider succeeding the retiring Peter L. DeLuca. “I get it,” he remembers thinking. “I hear the message, and I am interested. It’s a school I love, and this is the opportunity for me to apply my talents in these next 40 years.”
• It would not be accurate to say that, in becoming the College’s new facilities manager, Clark Tulberg (’85) is “returning” to his alma mater. In some ways, he never left. Upon graduating in 1985, Mr. Tulberg founded his own company, Tulberg Construction, which operated locally for more than three decades. “There was always at least one alum on the payroll,” he says, and the company was the top choice among tutors for home renovations. “This place holds a special place in my heart. It definitely does,” he adds. “I feel like the College can use my skills” — and he is glad to put them at its service.
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Dr. Josef Froula (’92)
Dr. Margaret Hughes
Dr. Michael Rubin
Dennis McCarthy
Clark Tulberg (’85)
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STudent PERSPECTIVE
“What Living in a Single-Sex Dorm Has Taught me About Men and Women”
By Abigail Herbst (’19)
Published in Intellectual Takeout
“The college I attend is admittedly not your average college. We have no majors and no minors. We have no professors and no lectures, and I’ve not cracked open a textbook in the entire time I’ve been here. We don’t have many tests at all. (Don’t worry, we still learn — just not in the conventional way).
“Most of my friends from home are bewildered when I describe my school to them — and they are particularly bewildered when I describe living arrangements on campus. All unmarried students live in single-sex dorms on campus. Men are never allowed in the women’s dorm and vice-versa.
“This living arrangement has had an incredible impact on me. In fact, it has played a greater role in shaping my idea of what it means to be a man or a woman in the modern age than any other experience. Many of my classmates admit it’s had the same effect on them.…”
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Abigail Herbst (’19) |
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COLLEGE GUIDEs 2018-2019
Thomas Aquinas Receives Top Marks for Catholic Fidelity and Academic Excellence
• The American Council of College Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has released its annual report on the curricular strength of American institutions of higher learning and, once again, Thomas Aquinas College is at the very top of the list. For the tenth time in as many years, ACTA has given Thomas Aquinas College a grade of “A,” placing it among the top 2 percent of American colleges and universities. Moreover, the College is one of only four schools, or the top 0.4 percent nationwide, to earn a perfect score for the strength of its curriculum.
• The National Catholic Register has selected Thomas Aquinas College as one of only 38 faithfully Catholic colleges and universities included in its “Catholic Identity College Guide 2018.” The guide is based on the schools’ responses to 10 questions which, the Register explains, are designed such that “a ‘YES’ answer reflects essential elements of the renewal of Catholic identity called for by Pope St. John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution on higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (Out of the Heart of the Church), its 2000 ‘Application to the United States,’ canon law, and other relevant Church documents.”
• College Factual, a statistics-based guide that aims to “help students find and get great deals on the best fit colleges for them,” has ranked Thomas Aquinas College as No. 8 in the United States on its list of the 1,510 “Best Colleges for the Money.” For academics, the guide describes the College as “one of the best in the country when it comes to freshman retention.” As for affordability, the guide describes the College as “an excellent value,” and places it within the top 1 percent on its “Best for the Money” (overall) and “Best for the Money Without Aid” lists, as well as the top 5 percent for “Best for the Money with Aid.”
• A new college guide, Faith on View’s Top Christian Colleges 2018, considers institutions, both Catholic and Protestant, that have “Christianity as their core and are distinctively Christian.” Nearing the top of the list is Thomas Aquinas College, at No. 2. The College also ranks No. 1 for student success and satisfaction, No. 1 in the West, and No. 1 among schools with 750 or fewer students.
Rankings in other college guides
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FAITH IN ACTION
Highlights from the College’s Alumni Blog
• A recent feature story in the New York Times chronicles the work of Beau Braden, D.O. (’00) to establish a 25-bed hospital in the impoverished rural community of Immokalee, Florida. Yet his efforts to get state approval have been obstructed by a large hospital, some 35 miles away, which fears that his startup could undercut its patient base and revenues. “I refuse to stop,” he tells the Times. “They’ve been trying to get a hospital in their community for 50 years. I’ll bring all of what I can to make sure this injustice stops.”
• On their Facebook page, the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles report the wonderful news that, on September 14, they welcomed Maggie Conklin (’17) as a new postulant. Miss Conklin entered the community as a candidate in August of 2017 and, having completed her first year, she is taking the next step in her vocational discernment. She now may wear the Sister’s blue-and-white uniform, but not (yet!) the habit. “We are so happy to have Maggie with us in Carmel,” the Sisters write. “Thanks be to God!”
• Early this year David Trull (’13) took three months from his career as a financial-services professional to serve as a volunteer for Hilo Rojo, a Peruvian nonprofit that aids communities afflicted with extreme poverty. “Though trying at times, the experience illustrated to me the importance of human connection, and of attempting to make this connection whenever and wherever we are able,” he says “There are many people in the world who feel that they have been forgotten. Those of us privileged with a formation from Thomas Aquinas College are in a perfect position to spread the message that that is not the case.”.
Faith in Action blog
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Beau Braden, D.O. (’00)
Maggie Conklin (’17)
David Trull (’13) |
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COLUMBUS DAY 2018
Gift of Explorer’s Statue Finds Home on Academic Quadrangle
On Columbus Day, a 25-year old statue of the holiday’s namesake found a new home on the campus of Thomas Aquinas College.
The history of the statue dates back to 1992, the quincentennial of the explorer’s first voyage to the New World. At the time, College Governor Robert Barbera and other Italian-Americans formed a group called the Columbus 500 Congress, which presented the statue as a gift to Pepperdine University, where it stood for the next 25 years. By 2017, however, Columbus had fallen into political disfavor and, in response to student opposition, the university removed the statue and placed it in storage — a decision that disappointed Mr. Barbera.
“Mr. Barbera’s statue needed a worthy home, and we are happy to provide one,” says Dr. McLean. “Columbus was both a great explorer and devoted to the Catholic faith. So we placed his statue next to the Albertus Magnus Science Building (that’s the explorer part), and it points toward the Chapel (that’s the Catholic faith part).” Notably, the statue shares the campus with two other key figures in the evangelization of the New World: St. Junipero Serra, whose statue stands before the residential hall bearing his name, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose image appears on the fountain at the foot of the quadrangle, opposite the Chapel.
Full story
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Columbus statue
Governor Robert Barbera
College officials with members of the Barbera family
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