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Ana Estrada, 47, suffered from polymyositis, an incurable disease that left her confined to a wheelchair. Since 2019, she had been been petitioning Peruvian courts to recognize a right to euthanasia. / Credit: Jessica Alva Piedra CC BY-SA 4.0 DE… […]

In addition to ranking No. 1 for “most conservative” students, Thomas Aquinas College’s students ranked No. 5 for “most religious” and “happiest” in the entire country. / Credit: Courtesy of Thomas Aquinas College/YouTube

CNA Staff, Aug 30, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Thomas Aquinas College has been ranked by the Princeton Review as having the most conservative collegiate student body in the country.

The Princeton Review selects 390 top colleges each year and then ranks them according to different categories based on student responses to surveys. 

According to student responses, Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), a small Catholic liberal arts college in southern California, ranked No. 1 in “most conservative students.” Other Catholic schools that ranked in the same category included University of Dallas (UD) at No. 6 and Assumption University, an Augustinian liberal arts school in Massachusetts, which ranked No. 20. 

TAC is known for its Socratic, discussion-based approach to education where all students major in the liberal arts. TAC doesn’t have desks in classrooms, and students call faculty “tutors,” not “professors.” 

TAC also maintains a dress code, requiring women to wear skirts or dresses during the class day and at other events, while men are required to wear slacks and collared shirts.

The Princeton Review surveys more than 160,000 U.S. undergraduate students at “the Best 390 Colleges” for their various rankings, according to its website. 

For the “most conservative” ranking, the Princeton Review asked students in a survey to answer if they were politically “far-left, Democrat, nonpartisan, Republican, or far-right.” 

But students’ conservative values are closely tied to religiosity at TAC, according to Christopher Weinkopf, executive director of college relations at TAC.

“Because TAC students are serious about their faith, they care deeply about the unborn and hold countercultural views on a number of social issues that qualify as conservative in contemporary political parlance,” Weinkopf noted. “But contemporary politics are absent from our classical curriculum, which aims at eternal truths that transcend all politics.”

“Our students seek to uphold the Church’s intellectual tradition and moral teachings, which is conservative in the truest sense of the word,” Weinkopf added. 

Several Catholic colleges also ranked high in the “most religious students” category — TAC included. TAC ranked No. 5, UD ranked No. 10, and The Catholic University of America ranked No. 14 based on student surveys. 

TAC’s campus in Santa Paula, California, features a large chapel, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel, where Mass is celebrated several times a day. TAC also has a campus in Northfield, Massachusetts.

“Our founders were determined that, at Thomas Aquinas College, the Catholic faith would not be merely an adornment on an otherwise secular education but would be at the heart of all that we do,” Weinkopf noted.

Weinkopf said TAC’s curriculum “draws on all the major disciplines — especially mathematics, natural science, and philosophy — in the service of theology, the study of God.”

“Our chaplains offer Mass four times daily, with confessions before and after, plus regular nightly rosary and other devotions,” he noted. “And our campus rules of residence are designed to promote Christian virtue.”

On UD’s campus, the Church of the Incarnation hosts Mass at least twice a day and is adjacent to the Cistercian Abbey. The Catholic University of America, for its part, has five chapels throughout campus, including a 24-hour chapel, and Mass is celebrated several times a day.

Both UD and TAC also have distinctly happy students, according to the Princeton Review: UD ranked No. 4 in “happiest students,” while TAC ranked No. 5. TAC also ranked No. 13 in “friendliest students.”

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Mosul, Iraq, Jan 10, 2018 / 11:34 am (ACI Prensa).- When Iraqi residents fled their homes during the Islamic State invasion, they left behind their houses, neighbors, and day-to-day lives.

For the children who fled, leaving their home behind also meant an interruption in their education – in some cases for months or years.

While some refugee camps offer classes for children, challenges abound and students often fall behind.

Now, a group of Dominican sisters in one Iraqi town is working to help educate displaced children as their families return to their homes and work to rebuild their lives.

With the support of Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need in Spain, the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Sienna were able to restore their convent, which had been destroyed by the Islamic State in Iraq. Today, they offer classes to hundreds of children who had been displaced by the war.

“We try to help the children, giving them peace: in our convent we offer them a safe place,” Sister Ilham told ACN in late December. Despite the expulsion of ISIS, security in the area remains unstable.  

In May 2017, ACN funded the restoration of Our Lady of the Rosary Convent with a grant of $54,000. Located in Teleskuf, north of the plain of Nineveh, the convent is just over 20 miles outside of Mosul.

The sisters worked 12-hour days to prepare the convent to welcome the children, Sister Ilham said.

They provide daycare for children between three and five years old. In the mornings, they teach about 150 children between the ages of six and 12. In the evenings, they teach students 12 years of age and older.

Sister Ilham, 57, was working for a church in Mosul when the rapid advance of the Islamic State forced her and her community to flee. However, after the fall of the terrorist group, she returned to the area and today is helping those displaced from Teleskuf.

“None of us wanted to leave where we come from, but as the attacks continued, we had to flee to save our lives,” she said.

“In 2016 some 6,000 people had to leave Telskuf. When I returned to this area, all the houses were abandoned and many of them destroyed,” she continued. “In Teleskuf all that is left of many of buildings are the ruins. The school and the children’s home are destroyed, the doors of the convent were forced open and the sisters’ home was sacked.”

In addition to teaching at the convent, the sisters visit the members of the Christian community in their homes, teach catechism to the children, and prepare them for their First Communion.

Once the local school is rebuilt, the children will no longer need to attend the convent classes. In the meantime, the sisters hope they can help the children from falling too far behind in their studies.

“Before the Islamic State invasion, there were five sisters in the convent, while now there are only two of us. Fortunately, we are will soon receive reinforcements,” Sister Ilham said.

In addition to helping fund the convent reconstruction, Aid to the Church in Need is currently helping rebuild 13,000 houses and more than 300 church properties destroyed by the Islamic State in Iraq.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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