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Published: December 28, 2009
“Lead gift to the college’s new capital campaign”
Thomas Aquinas College receives $2 Million grant from Dan Murphy Foundation
News release from Thomas Aquinas College
Dec. 23, 2009
SANTA PAULA -- President-elect Dr. Michael F. McLean has announced that the Dan Murphy Foundation of Los Angeles had approved at its December 1st meeting a grant of $2 million to Thomas Aquinas College in honor of the school’s late president, Dr. Thomas E. Dillon, who was killed in an automobile accident last spring.
 Said Richard A. Grant, President of the Dan Murphy Foundation, “The Trustees of the Dan Murphy Foundation are pleased to make this contribution in memory of Dr. Dillon, in recognition of his great achievements on behalf of Thomas Aquinas College.”
Dr. McLean explained further, “This magnificent grant is being made as a lead gift to the college’s new capital campaign, the goal of which is to complete all of the funding for Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. That was a project dear to Tom’s heart, and we are so grateful the Dan Murphy Foundation has chosen to honor him in this way.”
According to Vice President for Development John Quincy Masteller, the $7 million capital campaign will be 18 months in duration, concluding on June 30, 2011. “During that time, officials of the college plan to approach old friends and new,” he explained, “seeking major gifts for the chapel project.”
When finished, the entire chapel project, including related infrastructure and road, will have been completed.
Said Richard Grant, “It is hoped the Foundation’s grant will be an impetus to complete the College's capital campaign as a tribute to Dr. Dillon's tireless efforts in building the Thomas Aquinas campus. This beautiful chapel exemplifies Tom Dillon's devotion to the Roman Catholic Church and Thomas Aquinas College.”
Noting that Dr. Dillon’s successor has now been chosen, Mr. Grant added, “The Foundation's trustees make the contribution in the confidence that Thomas Aquinas College, under the leadership of Dr. Michael McLean, will attain new levels of academic excellence as an institution devoted to Catholic liberal education.”
Posted Monday, December 28, 2009 8:24 AM By Maryanne Leonard
It is thrilling to read of the gift of $2 million to Thomas Aquinas College in Ventura County, one of the last truly Catholic colleges standing in our state, and in every way a worthy recipient of this significant gift from the Dan Murphy Foundation. A friend of ours chose this college despite the fact, or perhaps in part because of the fact, that his father is a Protestant minister and he himself, a married man, is now attending a Protestant seminary to become a Protestant minister himself. He wanted the best possible education to prepare him for this role, and he found no college equal to Thomas Aquinas, which is open to people of all faiths even though it offers a wonderfully Catholic environment. This college wears a proud name, offers a broad education based on the classics, but is little known even here in Ventura County. It deserves every accolade, every student, every dollar of support, and the college is superbly served by this wonderful gift to help pay off the cost of constructing the beautiful chapel on the grounds that was only part of the lasting contribution of Dr. Thomas Dillon. Thank you, Dan Murphy Foundation!
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Posted Monday, December 28, 2009 12:00 PM By John F. Maguire
Paraphrasing St. Paul, the French Thomist Jacques Maritain once proffered his well-known self-assessment:
"Woe to me if I don't Thomisticize." The Founding President of Thomas Aquinas College, Dr. Ronald P. McArthur (now a tutor with the College) is to be commended for committing himself to a cognate program. Today as yesterday, Dr. McArthur's fundamental purpose is to Thomisticize the American collegiate liberal arts tradition. In the practical order, Thomas Aquinas College (Santa Paula) is the exemplar of this signal effort. Indeed, TAC has now won a special place in both the history of Catholic education in America and in the history of the American liberal arts college movement. ~ A few words on the latter: In 1930 -- well-nigh eighty years ago -- "representatives of seventy-eight colleges met to institute the Liberal Arts College Movement." See Benjamin McArthur, "Reestablishing Authority in the Humanities in the 'Chicago Way'," _Southern Humanities Review_, Vol 21, No. 3 (Summer 1987), p. 246; also see Archie Palmer, ed., _The Liberal Arts College Movement_ (New York: J. J. Little and Ives, 1930). From within the perspective of this context, Thomas Aquinas College, notably, is not a liberal arts/Great Books school in the general (more or less atheological) sense associated with the liberal arts college movement. TAC Founder Ronald McArthur explains: "We do read original texts, and we take those texts seriously. But the school was not founded to read important texts by important thinkers in order to see what people say. It was founded in order to help our students understand reality as best they can. To do this we use and are guided by the doctrine and method of St. Thomas Aquinas." R. McArthur, "The Nature of Catholic Higher Education," _Thomas Aquinas College Newsletter_ (Winter 2006). In this connection, Dr. McArthur also founded _The Aquinas Review_ so to develop and maintain the TAC tradition of higher learning beyond the undergraduate years.
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Posted Monday, December 28, 2009 4:07 PM By Elizabeth
AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
AND TRULY CATHOLIC, WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted Monday, December 28, 2009 4:09 PM By Marie
Thomas Aquinas may graduate a few well-educated Catholics each year (and at an extremely high price), but in my experience I have found that few are willing to fight the battle for the Church as a whole. They are too comfortable being the elite, and interested only in their Latin Mass counterparts. If they are supposed to have learned how to "understand reality", they why do they want to live only for their comfort and self-importance and care little about the reality of the destruction of the Catholic Church in the US?
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Posted Tuesday, December 29, 2009 11:56 AM By TAC Alumnus
Marie,
I object to your portrayal of us TAC alums as elitists seeking to further our own comfort. My wife and I are alumni, and we live a fully Catholic live of faith -- prayer, sacraments, parish involvement, and full commitment to a non-contraceptive lifestyle. The overwhelming majority of the alums I know live the same way. The reality among TAC alumni is big families (I have 8 children) fully committed to the church and its teachings and traditions.
On top of that, something like 10% of us alumni enter the religious life after graduation. How is that living "only for their comfort," Marie?
As for the "extremely high price", yes it's higher than state colleges, but about average for private colleges. And what's more, from the beginning TAC has had a policy of turning away nobody on the basis of ability to pay. My parents sent 13 children to TAC without being able to pay more than a few hundred per year per child.
Please, Marie, don't bear false witness against my alma mater.
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Posted Tuesday, December 29, 2009 12:06 PM By Ben
Marie: perhaps the students can be a little insular. When so many educational institutions have abandoned the principles of Catholic education, the traditions, language, and tastes of the TAC community are especially striking. On the other hand, TAC is producing religious vocations at an amazing rate, and their alumni are active in starting and supporting new Catholic schools, religious education, serious Catholic philosophy, pro-life activities, social justice initiatives, etc. They love their faith, and are active in the Church in the US and abroad. As a former student, I attribute my conversion to the influence of the faculty and my classmates. For all this, I think we can grant them their "quia's" and "propter quids." Oh - and as regards to price. I wouldn't treat the "sticker price" as indicative of an elitist community. The benefactors of the College have enabled it to offer substantial financial aid packages. Many of the students come from large families with modest means, and it is only through the generosity and continued support of the College's benefactors that this education has been made available to so many. For this, and many other reasons, I hope the alumni continue to respond to the call to service with a spirit of gratitude and zeal.
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Posted Tuesday, December 29, 2009 3:33 PM By 1abqdad
In my "academic" travels as a guest lecturer, I noted that the students at TAC did NOT exhibit the elitism that was prevalent at the pseudo-Catholic institutions! Because they are teaching orthodox values, the students at TAC reflect Christ's love and compassion, NOT the arrogance of the humanists at the pseudo-Catholic schools! My only concern is the extreme need for Catholic "Technical" schools; Engineering, Science, and Math. We expect people to be able to make accurate decisions about technical issues, like global warming, without ANY "real" science background. As a research engineer with three engineering degrees, I took many humanities classes, but the humanities majors are NOT required to take any "real" science or engineering classes. (They now offer extremely "watered-down" science classes for humanities majors.) I realize that my comments are not "PC", but they are honest!
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