Says college president Dr. Michael F. McLean, “To maintain an intimate community of learners at the college, we have thought it important to keep the student body on our California campus at 400 or fewer.” Since reaching full enrollment some years ago, though, the college has had to turn away more and more applicants each year. “We have been considering, therefore, the possibility of a second campus,” continues Dr. McLean. “Given the tremendous challenges and costs involved, the question would have remained no more than academic — but for this extraordinary opportunity that the National Christian Foundation has offered us. Never did we imagine we could acquire a campus so fully developed and so beautiful.”
Located in a lovely rural setting in the Connecticut River valley approximately 90 miles northwest of Boston, the 217-acre Northfield property has 500,000 square feet consisting in part of dormitory and classroom space sufficient for an eventual enrollment of 400 students, a library, a science hall, a large auditorium, a music building, a gymnasium with related athletic facilities, and a beautiful chapel that can be adapted easily to Catholic worship.
The property has a colorful history. First established in the 19th century as the original home of Northfield Mount Hermon School by evangelist and biblical scholar Dwight L. Moody, it later was purchased by Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. with the intention of donating it to an institution committed to maintaining and continuing Moody’s legacy of Christian education. After purchase, Hobby Lobby entrusted the property to the NCF to find a suitable recipient.
“From the beginning, we have been impressed with Thomas Aquinas College for its commitment to academic excellence,” says Emmitt Mitchell, founder of the NCF Heartland’s Board of Directors. ” We selected (the college) because of this reputation, its strong leadership and its financial strength.”
Plans for the branch campus are “to start small and build slowly, just as our founders did in California,” says Dr. McLean. Thirty-six freshmen will be accepted in each of the first four years, allowing the student body to increase slowly to a maximum of 350-400 students. Seasoned tutors from the California campus have volunteered to move east as part of this new venture and will be a strong source of congruence between the California and New England campuses in all aspects: the academic program, the residential life, and the spiritual life of the new community.
“Both campuses will be fully committed to, and governed by, our founding document, A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education,” Dr. McLean explains. “Both will initially be part of one college, with a single faculty, a single board of governors, a single curriculum, and a single accreditation, but we will explore the path to the possible independence of the two campuses in the years to come.”
On learning from Dr. McLean the desire to operate a branch campus of Thomas Aquinas College at Northfield, the Most Reverend Mitchell T. Rozanski, bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, wrote to Dr. McLean expressing his support of the new venture as follows, “I wish to inform you of my full support for this endeavor, and will do whatever I can to help you in establishing the school here to form faithful witnesses to Christ in our Catholic faith.”
For more information, go to www.ThomasAquinas.edu