Thomas More College of Liberal Arts: An Overview of Catholic Liberal Education
The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, a private Catholic institution situated in Merrimack, New Hampshire, offers a distinctive approach to higher education rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition. Founded in 1978, the college provides a rigorous liberal arts education with a strong emphasis on faith, reason, and the pursuit of truth. Named after Saint Thomas More, the college aims to cultivate wisdom and virtue in its students, preparing them to contribute to the evangelization of culture and to live lives of purpose and meaning.
Historical Context and Founding Principles
The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts was established in 1978 by Catholic scholars seeking to provide an alternative to mainstream higher education. Political science professor Peter Sampo served as its first president. Sampo had been a co-founder and president of both Cardinal Newman College in St. Louis and Thomas Aquinas College in California. The college was founded to provide a solid education in the liberal arts, a Catholic education for students of all faiths, united in the quest for what is true, good, and beautiful.
Academic Program: A Rigorous Pursuit of Wisdom
The Program of Studies at Thomas More College is a rigorous training in the liberal arts, humane letters, and the disciplines of philosophy and theology. The college offers one degree program: a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts. Natural science, philosophy, scripture, and theology are all required courses.
The curriculum is designed to foster critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, and a deep appreciation for the Western intellectual tradition. Wisdom, as Cardinal Newman put it, is that “clear, calm, accurate vision, and comprehension of the whole course, the whole work of God.” It is, in other words, the habit of right thinking and judgment that comes from the reasoned-out knowledge of God as first cause and final end of all that exists. Human, or philosophical wisdom is attained after an arduous ascent that begins with the beauty and intelligibility that the senses discover in the world around us and proceeds to what our mind can apprehend of spiritual goods, the soul, and God. The liberal arts, and especially the art of logic, are the necessary equipment for such a course of study, which must be “rigorous,” “coherent,” and “systematic” if it is to result in authentic knowledge (Fides et Ratio 4).
Core Curriculum
The college's integrated, four-year core curriculum is a defining feature of its academic program. This curriculum includes seven Catholic theology courses and five philosophy courses, providing students with a comprehensive understanding of Catholic thought and its relationship to other disciplines.
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Unique Course Offerings
In addition to the standard liberal arts fare, Thomas More College offers distinctive courses that set it apart from other institutions. These include:
- Latin and Greek: Courses in both Latin and Greek provide students with access to the original texts of Western civilization, allowing them to engage directly with the ideas and arguments of the great thinkers of the past.
- Natural History and Modern Scientific Thinking: These courses emphasize the scientific elements of liberal education, encouraging students to explore the natural world and to understand the principles of scientific inquiry.
- Catholic Guilds: The College’s “Catholic guilds,” in which students study sacred art, sacred music, folk music, woodworking, and gardening with the guidance of master craftsmen.
Emphasis on Truth and Evangelization
The search for Truth naturally leads to the desire to rejoice in and testify to the Truth one has attained. Thomas More College embraces the Church’s teaching that a Catholic education should lead its possessors to “try to communicate to society those ethical and religious principles which give full meaning to human life” (Ex corde Ecclesiae 33). By giving her students a true and integral humanistic formation, Thomas More College enables them to contribute to the evangelization of culture. In an age of cultural dislocation, such a formation must include not only reflection upon the principles of the good life, but also a course of study-almost an immersion-in the great works of Classical and Christian culture and in the lives and writings of the saints, so that the student’s imagination and desires may be shaped in accord with what is truly good and beautiful. This humanistic formation is guided by philosophical and theological ethics and employs the tools of the traditional arts of grammar (through the study of one of the great Classical languages), rhetoric, and poetics. Such a formation, culminating in the Tutorials, Junior Project, and Senior Thesis, leads to a kind of eloquence in its possessors, who become ambassadors of the gaudium de veritate, the joy in the truth, that is a Catholic education’s characteristic fruit. Like the great Christian humanists throughout the ages-from St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine to St.
Junior Project and Senior Thesis
As part of their academic program, students at Thomas More College complete a Junior Project and a Senior Thesis. These projects provide students with the opportunity to conduct in-depth research on a topic of their choice and to present their findings in a scholarly manner.
Catholic Identity and Campus Life
Thomas More College is committed to providing a thoroughly Catholic education, with all professors taking the Oath of Fidelity and making the Catholic Profession of Faith. Theology professors also have a mandatum from the local bishop. Nearly all students are Catholic.
Classes are scheduled around daily Masses, including Extraordinary Form once a week. All student residence halls are single-sex with no opposite-sex visitation to private rooms, and there is a nighttime curfew.
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The College holds that every human life, from the moment of inception until natural death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God. The human and his endeavors are worthy of our regard, interest, and study. Humanity and the capacity of the human person is seen most clearly when viewed under the eye of eternity and under the light of Revelation. As St. Ireneaus wrote so many centuries ago, “The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God. Thus, the College affirms and enriches the age-old tradition, inherited from Greco-Roman civilization, of studying the humanities through the masterworks of Classical and Christian civilization. It holds with equal conviction that the path to Wisdom is best found with the good companions of the Catholic intellectual tradition-the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, whose lives were dedicated to understanding and living according to the Word of God. In pursuing its mission, the College does not neglect the desires and insights of those from other cultures and other ages, which strive to answer the greatest questions of Man’s existence. All mankind has been created to know the highest truths and discover happiness in its final end. The search, marked strongly by the desire for God and knowledge of metaphysical truth, is only sustained when men and women live according to both the classical and theological virtues. Thus, the Board of Trustees is committed to supporting the moral as well as the intellectual life of the College community, and so, in the words of its patron, St. For this reason, the College affirms that Catholic education is integral to the mission of the Church in Her proclamation of the Good News. The College must be, therefore, a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth. This relationship should elicit in all members of the College community a desire to grow in knowledge and understanding of Christ and His teachings. Far from separating reason, the study of culture, or science from faith, this Catholic humanism allows faith to illuminate reason, enliven culture, and give meaning to all learning. Equally, it allows reason to give voice to humanity’s orientation towards the truth. Such a dynamic between faith, reason, and culture demands a response in contemplation, prayer, charity, and action, and it necessitates that the College support each of its members in their discernment of discovering God’s particular vocation and living it.
Campus and Resources
Located in Hillsborough County, the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is seated on 14 acres. At least one staffed computer lab is available to students. Number of computers available are 4. The following special programs are offered: No degree programs are available as an online learning option, External Degree Program, Independent study. The college bought a 1908 mansion in the Nashville Historic District of Nashua in late 2013.
Accreditation and Recognition
In the same year regional accrediting body the New England Association of Schools and Colleges placed the college on probation for two years on the ground that it was not meeting NEASC's standards for financial resources.
Financial Information
The school's tuition and fees are $30,400. The average net price for federal loan recipients is $15,273. The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts has one of the lowest net prices among colleges recognized in The Newman Guide.
Outcomes and Student Body
The four-year graduation rate is 62%. Six years after graduation, the median salary for graduates is $40,173. The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts has a total undergraduate enrollment of 95 (fall 2023). Thomas More College of Liberal Arts has a test-optional admissions policy.
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Publishing Initiatives
In April 2011, Thomas More College, together with Holy Spirit College in Atlanta, reached an agreement with the non-profit publisher Sophia Institute Press, which became the publishing division of the two colleges. In 2016, the college began its own publishing initiative, called the Thomas More College Press.
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