William Cash on why small is beautiful for the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.
When your educational headquarters is what the Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College calls more of a “colonial farmhouse” than a sprawling campus, it’s difficult to compare the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts with, say, Boston College.
But under President William Fahey, Thomas More College (known as TMC) has carved out a small and influential renegade niche in the US Catholic college landscape. With so many more famous “legacy” universities like Fordham, Georgetown or Notre Dame (which boasts an endowment of many billions) being dragged into the cultural and political wars of education, there is a growing demand for smaller and less culturally toxic colleges, where fidelity to Catholic culture and education is the priority, of which TMC is a prime example. Its mission is to “quest for what is true, good, and beautiful”.
St Thomas More was prepared to stand up for his faith – which he paid for with his life, execution by Henry VIII and sainthood – and TMC’s Dean of Students, Dr Michael Taylor, sees comparisons today with the need for a “Catholic island” liberal arts college such as TMC – located in a leafy pocket of southern New Hampshire – to fight against the “passing fancies of the spirit of the age”. He adds that these were the “chosen weapons of the enemy to which More would not submit”.
It comes as little surprise that TMC recently welcomed Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society, back to campus this semester. A co-founder of the Chesterton Academy, Ahlquist gave the Commencement address at Thomas More College in 2017, where he received an honorary doctorate. Chesterton was a regular Herald writer and – despite efforts to cancel him – is exactly the sort of anti-establishment Catholic literary hero that TMC venerates, regarding him as possibly Britain’s most important convert since John Henry Newman.
“More knew that nothing true, good or beautiful could be a threat to the One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Faith,” says Taylor. His “Great Books College” is certainly not going to be a place where the likes of TS Eliot are also censored. Students may not have a vast NFL-style football stadium, but they can explore the beaches of Maine, visit Boston or Robert Frost’s farm, or hike in the White Mountains. Common life is enriched daily by the “wisdom of the ages, illuminated by the light of Christ, refracted through history in myriad and inexhaustible manifestations”.
There seems to be more time to read at TMC than at other colleges. Whether that is due to the lack of Olympic-style sports facilities is uncertain. But reading is taken very seriously. “We take the time to wonder at the beauty of creation, to find leisure in discussing great matters, to take seriously the truths discovered therein, and to rejoice in our shared love for life lived in the Truth,” says Taylor, which is something of the ethos of Thomas More College.
There is also more time for Catholic faith to be incorporated into college life than many other soi-disant Catholic colleges. The Catholic faith is not something that can be incorporated extrinsically or post hoc into a generic college experience, Taylor notes. “For an education to be genuinely Catholic, the Catholic faith must be ‘the way, truth and life’ of the community.” The Chapel is the centre of student life, with the Holy Mass celebrated every day. Notably, he chooses a quote from Pope Benedict XVI – rather than Francis – to stress his point: “Every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth.”
However, only the “authentic desire” of the faculty and students, working together spiritually and intellectually, can “preserve” Catholic culture. “What this means goes beyond what can be gleaned from the booklist for our integrated humanities curriculum. We understand that the intellectual life is incomplete if it is not lived in conversation and friendship with others who seek not only to understand but also to live out the truths therein,” says Taylor.
For students at TMC, the real question is how they engage with a refreshingly authentic Catholic intellectual charism at the college. Students are not “cultural Catholics” but living out their faith every day. What they do for leisure is as important as what they study in the classroom. They might go into Boston for a concert, visit a museum or make music (both folk and sacred), go on pilgrimages or pray outside abortion clinics. Or they might write a poem, or help host one of the campus-wide “medieval-style banquets” the college hosts on special feast days. Swing dancing is also popular.
The intellectual life of the college also overflows into Traditio days, when the entire college reads and discusses one text together, usually from St Thomas More. There is also the chance to attend the Milk Street Society, a student-run intellectual club (named for the street Thomas More was born on) that brings in leading speakers (such as Dale Ahlquist), drawing more than half of the student body to its events. A talk attendance rate that high is certainly a boast that big league universities like Notre Dame or Georgetown can never hope to match.
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