Aquinas and Horses
May 11, 2011
George Weigel
Lander, Wyoming is not an easy place to get to. I got there in February by flying from Washington to Denver and then sitting around the Denver airport for hours, while the local commuter airline that flies to the airport nearest Lander tried to get its small planes refueled in 15-degrees-below-zero weather. While waiting, I was informed that the flight schedule of this particular airline, which will remain nameless, is more subjunctive than indicative.
Yet the wait, the aggravation, and the bitter cold were worth it, for they were part of getting introduced to a new venture in Catholic higher education that’s unfolding in Lander: Wyoming Catholic College, where students read Thomas Aquinas in the original Latin, take a mandatory freshman course in horsemanship, and go on a three-week, survival-skills trek through the Rockies before they crack a book. Oh yes: At Wyoming Catholic, students are not allowed to have cell phones, but the college provides a gun room for their rifles. A visitor from the Ivy League found this combination disconcerting. I found it charming.
Wyoming Catholic College will celebrate its first commencement on May 14—outdoors, of course—with one of its founding fathers, Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, in attendance. Bishop Ricken came to the diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming straight from the Roman Curia, which must have been something of a culture shock (or a relief). But he quickly caught the adventurous spirit of the place and decided that Wyoming, which has something short of 70,000 Catholics, needed a Catholic college. Starting such an enterprise these days is an act of faith. But Bishop Ricken, who is not short on faith (or hope, or charity), found partners with a similar pioneer attitude and a similar passion for classic Catholic liberal arts education (cowboy style). Thus Wyoming Catholic College was launched, before the good bishop was translated to a diocese where one of his principal catechetical challenges is explaining why the Lombardi Trophy is not a fit object of Christian worship.
Wyoming Catholic is a by-product of the most striking exercise in unintended consequences in the history of federal higher education funding. In 1970, Washington’s largesse led the University of Kansas to create a pilot project in classic liberal arts education called the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program, or IHP. The program was led by John Senior, Dennis Quinn, and Frank Nelick, three brilliant teachers who believed passionately that higher education meant immersion in the classic texts of western civilization and civilized conversation about them. Many IHP students soon discovered that wrestling with the literary and philosophical classics of western civilization meant encountering, and thinking seriously about, the Catholic Church.
Conversions, intellectual and religious, followed. Those conversions later produced numerous vocations to the priesthood and the religious life, and two bishops. Authoritarian liberals on the KU faculty killed the IHP in 1979. But for several glorious years, your federal tax dollars were building a wholly unexpected vocations factory. As the late Peter Rossi used to say, there are many ironies in the fire.
The people who designed the curriculum at Wyoming Catholic College are disciples of John Senior and the IHP approach to liberal learning. The program they offer students is, obviously, not for everyone, just as reading Aquinas in Latin on horseback (metaphorically if not literally) is not for everyone. But serious students who want to be stretched intellectually, who want to deepen their friendship with Jesus Christ, and who love the outdoors should give Wyoming Catholic College a serious look.
Nature makes me sneeze, which is one reason why I’m a confirmed urbanite. I appreciate the beauty that surrounds Lander, however, and I wish the school and its students the very best as Wyoming Catholic sends its first graduating class out into a world that can use more young men and women steeped in the western classics, serious in their Catholic faith, and ready for just about anything. The school is in the midst of a capital campaign; resources invested in Wyoming Catholic are resources invested in the kind of higher learning from which both Church and society benefit.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Comments:
5.11.2011 | 12:22pm
Dason Rejinik says:
Reading this article it almost seems too good. Surrounded by nature and wildlife, no cellphones, evolved curriculum, oh wait 14ft of snow on the ground for six months. But I am intrigued.
5.11.2011 | 1:51pm
Mike says:
Interesting and fun read (yes, Mr. Weigel can write fun stuff). My hopes and prayers are for the success of this institution, and that its students will be educated well in the faith, and blessed abundantly. Most importantly, I hope that Wyoming Catholic College graduates Christian men and women who possess the integrity and love of Christ that will influence and help revive our coarsening culture. Perhaps they will lead us back to the freedom that can only come through the charity and perfection of God’s Word.
5.11.2011 | 2:39pm
Karen says:
It's about time. So many of our young people go to college and graduate without faith in anything, even themselves. Wyoming Catholic College may be run quite differently than other colleges, but if these graduates have not only gotten an education but can begin there lives grounded in faith and steeped in the tradition of caring for one another, we should start moving higher education out of the realm of "big business" and get back to basics.
5.11.2011 | 3:04pm
Charles Lee says:
A weapons room? Charming, Mr. Weigel? Of course! We're a Christian nation. Jesus obviously approves that 280 million handguns are in the hands of this nation's citizens, as well as the $680 billion annual weapons budget of our government.
5.11.2011 | 3:14pm
Steve M says:
Wow! It is so awesome to see the fruition of WCC. I am in near envy of the graduates. Thanks for the KU background, Mr. Weigel. Being a Wyomingite, and having taken an unsponsored apologetics course from Dr. Carlson at Casper College -- where I was an unattentive and arrogant Newman Club President -- it was interesting to get an inkling of how Dr. Carlson came to the faith via KU. And I thought it might have been W.B. Yeats! May continued blessing flow to and from WCC.
5.11.2011 | 6:09pm
Carl says:
After reading Joe Carter's post about all the nefarious goings on at GITMO, I believe Charles Lee is on to something. Clearly things are not what they seem at WCC. George Weigel mentions a gun room for rifles, but clearly this is a coverup. This "weapons arsenal" is obviously to be used by WCC students to cause mayhem far and wide. I'll bet the government claims no one at WCC has ever used their "weapons" to commit a crime. Further evidence of a coverup. And don't believe that baloney about using the rifles...err, weapons...for hunting. (Rifles, hand-guns, mortars, rocket propelled granades, whatever.) We know better. Thanks for peeling the scales off our eyes, Charles.
5.11.2011 | 6:22pm
Charles Cassil says:
I graduated from KU two years before the founding of the IHP. I immediately left the midwest permanently, and became a longtime menber of the KU Alumni Association to maintain a connection with the place where I spent the most intense years of my life. My entire information, correct or otherwise, regarding the IHP came from a long-running debate in the pages of the Alumni Association newsletter concerning the essential character of the IHP.
The program was called the Pearson IHP because the students lived in Pearson residence hall. They spent most of their waking hours with each other and with Professors Senior, Nelick, and Quinn (and I assume, less-prominent professors). Apparently, the first notice of the IHP outside the University came when legal action was initiated by the parents of a Jewish student from Kansas City. Their son had been a student in the IHP about a year when he left the U.S. to enter a monastery in Europe (in France, if I recall correctly). By the time the student's family discovered he was no longer a student at KU, he was living permanently in the monastery, and all attempts by his family to contact him were unsuccessful.
Mr. Weigel swoons over the conversions that occured in the IHP, and the vocations factory that it bacame, but the picture that emerged in the pages of the alumni association newsletter was, quite simply, one of nonstop bullying. The students were completely at the mercy of the professors, and the younger students were subjected to hazing by the older students in Pearson that would have made a West Point upperclassman proud.
The newsletter published a letter from one of the three professors--I don't recall which--claiming that the fact that all three professors were practicing Catholics was of no importance whatever. Mr. Weigel writes that the IHP students "discovered" encountering, and thinking seriously about, the Catholic Church. This reminds me of the point made about the "disappeared" in Argentina during the reign of the Colonels: They didn't "disappear"; the ruling junta "disappeared them". How many of the IHP students discovered the Catholic church, and how many of them had it discovered for them, by any means, by the professors and upperclassmen?
Please, anyone out there with more direct knowledge of this, chime in! If you were in Lawrence in the 70s, tell us what you remember.
The program was called the Pearson IHP because the students lived in Pearson residence hall. They spent most of their waking hours with each other and with Professors Senior, Nelick, and Quinn (and I assume, less-prominent professors). Apparently, the first notice of the IHP outside the University came when legal action was initiated by the parents of a Jewish student from Kansas City. Their son had been a student in the IHP about a year when he left the U.S. to enter a monastery in Europe (in France, if I recall correctly). By the time the student's family discovered he was no longer a student at KU, he was living permanently in the monastery, and all attempts by his family to contact him were unsuccessful.
Mr. Weigel swoons over the conversions that occured in the IHP, and the vocations factory that it bacame, but the picture that emerged in the pages of the alumni association newsletter was, quite simply, one of nonstop bullying. The students were completely at the mercy of the professors, and the younger students were subjected to hazing by the older students in Pearson that would have made a West Point upperclassman proud.
The newsletter published a letter from one of the three professors--I don't recall which--claiming that the fact that all three professors were practicing Catholics was of no importance whatever. Mr. Weigel writes that the IHP students "discovered" encountering, and thinking seriously about, the Catholic Church. This reminds me of the point made about the "disappeared" in Argentina during the reign of the Colonels: They didn't "disappear"; the ruling junta "disappeared them". How many of the IHP students discovered the Catholic church, and how many of them had it discovered for them, by any means, by the professors and upperclassmen?
Please, anyone out there with more direct knowledge of this, chime in! If you were in Lawrence in the 70s, tell us what you remember.
5.11.2011 | 7:15pm
melissasanders says:
they don't allow students to have cellphones, but they have guns inside their rooms. way to go man! :)
5.11.2011 | 9:26pm
CarolineW says:
WOW!! cool... I just hope I could also do that but man, Why do they allow guns not cellphones?... Got to be a intriguing fads maybe. That's going to be a riot thing inside the rooms thou... :)
5.11.2011 | 9:56pm
Ted F says:
> "the Lombardi Trophy is not a fit object of Christian worship."
Look, Mommy - a Bears fan ! ;-)
All the best to the students at WCC!
Look, Mommy - a Bears fan ! ;-)
All the best to the students at WCC!
5.11.2011 | 10:41pm
Robert Wyant says:
This is interesting stuff. I just wish the institution will succeed.
5.11.2011 | 10:58pm
ndmom says:
Surely students who are mature enough to be trusted with weapons can handle the weighty responsibility of a cellphone? It troubles me when these small Catholic colleges feel the need to shelter their (adult) students from some of the realities of 21st century life. Like it or not, these young men and women live in the world. They are not preparing for monastic life. They will have to learn to deal with cellphones and laptops, and the incessant distractions and temptations these devices represent. My guess is that many of these students were homeschooled, and their parents are delighted that the college will continue to keep them in a bubble. But what happens when they graduate?
5.12.2011 | 3:53am
jpaYMCA says:
Anyone who thinks that to read the classical literature of Western Civilization is to live in a bubble ... obviously has not read much - if any - of that literature! If there are landlines all around, which one can use in an emergency; if personal, face-to-face interaction is the goal, leading to an intelligent conversation about weighty matters, why the need for a cell? Does it occur to you that it would be more of a distraction than an aid to learning, at least in this case? What did our poor ancestors do without cellphones?! How did Einstein, Shakespeare, Anselm, Boethius, Ceasar, et al., accomplish what they did without an IPad? The real question behind my poking-fun is this: what is the goal of a college education?
5.12.2011 | 3:58am
sreekanti says:
interesting! Normally colleges wont allow cellphones, but this college having weapon room, very interesting.the story is quite different
5.12.2011 | 4:06am
sreekanti says:
interesting! A college having a weapon room, this point was very interesting.i like it
5.12.2011 | 4:33am
Bret Lythgoe says:
This excellent article, by Mr. Weigel, reminds me of the sorry state of learning, in our country. Unless one chooses to specialize in history, or philosophy, or theology, one is liely not to get a comprehensive understanding, of western civilization, how it emerged, etc.
The only solution, at this juncture, short of enrolling in Wyoming Catholic College, Thomas Aquinas College, St. Johns's, etc., where Liberal learning is taken seriously, is to learn these things on one's own.
Fortunately, one can, for example, buy the full text of Aquinas's SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, from IGNATIUS PRESS, for about 165 dollars (paperback), in english translation.
I believe that, it's clearly better than nothing to educate oneself if one cannot afford, or take the time, to go to these good colleges.
The only solution, at this juncture, short of enrolling in Wyoming Catholic College, Thomas Aquinas College, St. Johns's, etc., where Liberal learning is taken seriously, is to learn these things on one's own.
Fortunately, one can, for example, buy the full text of Aquinas's SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, from IGNATIUS PRESS, for about 165 dollars (paperback), in english translation.
I believe that, it's clearly better than nothing to educate oneself if one cannot afford, or take the time, to go to these good colleges.
5.12.2011 | 7:00am
ndmom says:
Yes, obviously, cellphones can be a distraction, and can be used to avoid rather than to seek out real, interpersonal interactions. And weapons can be used to hurt others. The irony is that Wyoming trusts the students to handle the second, while treating the first as so dangerous that they need to be forbidden.
5.12.2011 | 10:56am
g&cdehnert says:
Living in Lander, we have never heard of the "gun room" over the 4 years in the schools existence. We'd like to hear from the college on this one.
5.12.2011 | 2:17pm
ndmom says:
Bret,
An alternative to limiting oneself to a handful of small colleges -- attend a secondary school with a Great Books format. Our children attend such a school. They read original texts instead of textbooks. Here's what my son read during his senior year: Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter; Luther, Commentary on Galatians (selections) ; Flannery O’Connor, Parker’s Back; Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Law; Shakespeare, Macbeth, Hamlet; Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government; Rousseau, On the Social Contract; John Stuart Mill, On Liberty; Dante, Inferno; James Agee, A Death in the Family; Raymond Carver, A Small, Good Thing; Montaigne, In Defense of Raymond Sebond; Descartes, Meditations; Wallace Stevens, "The Idea of Order at Key West” and “Sunday Morning”; Ethan Canin, The Palace Thief; Hegel, Reason in History; Marx, Alienated Labor and Private Property and Communism; Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
AND they are allowed to have cellphones (which have to be turned off during the school day)!
And, for what it's worth, you can get the entire Summa for 99 cents on a Kindle. This was one of the first things my son downloaded.
An alternative to limiting oneself to a handful of small colleges -- attend a secondary school with a Great Books format. Our children attend such a school. They read original texts instead of textbooks. Here's what my son read during his senior year: Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter; Luther, Commentary on Galatians (selections) ; Flannery O’Connor, Parker’s Back; Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Law; Shakespeare, Macbeth, Hamlet; Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government; Rousseau, On the Social Contract; John Stuart Mill, On Liberty; Dante, Inferno; James Agee, A Death in the Family; Raymond Carver, A Small, Good Thing; Montaigne, In Defense of Raymond Sebond; Descartes, Meditations; Wallace Stevens, "The Idea of Order at Key West” and “Sunday Morning”; Ethan Canin, The Palace Thief; Hegel, Reason in History; Marx, Alienated Labor and Private Property and Communism; Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
AND they are allowed to have cellphones (which have to be turned off during the school day)!
And, for what it's worth, you can get the entire Summa for 99 cents on a Kindle. This was one of the first things my son downloaded.
5.12.2011 | 3:38pm
Steve M says:
Dear ndmom,
Wow. I'm mildly jealous of your children, as well. I'll also assume that with those opportunities available and your comments concerning the gun room that you live in an urban area. To perhaps damper some of the toxic shock-like reaction to the "charming" gun room, many may find it nice to know that WCC students must live in provided housing (separate male and female quarters). Having a gun room (for rifle storage Mr. Weigel said) is more utilitarian than a mission statement. It is akin to having a stable for students at a frontier school so they can store their horses while in school. The minority of students bringing rifles certainly shouldn't store them in their vehicles!
"Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est" ("A sword is never a killer, it's a tool in the killer's hands") Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-65 BC). I doubt WCC students are being trained in anything other than clear thought and spiritual warfare. The rifles are probably used for sport/recreation (as promulgated by our 3rd President) or hunting (as promulgated most famously by Theo. Roosevelt). Perhaps the "gun room" even stores other dangerous tools, such as circular saws, cell phones, or fishing poles that may be used on weekends, etc.
As a member of the CC trap team I sure wish we'd have had a gun room. My shotgun storage wouldn't probably pass muster post Virginia Tech! I bet student don't get to reload shotshells in the basement of the campus museum anymore either! "The times they are a changin'", that is what is so refreshing about WCC, St. John's, etc. Hope I can send my kids.
Wow. I'm mildly jealous of your children, as well. I'll also assume that with those opportunities available and your comments concerning the gun room that you live in an urban area. To perhaps damper some of the toxic shock-like reaction to the "charming" gun room, many may find it nice to know that WCC students must live in provided housing (separate male and female quarters). Having a gun room (for rifle storage Mr. Weigel said) is more utilitarian than a mission statement. It is akin to having a stable for students at a frontier school so they can store their horses while in school. The minority of students bringing rifles certainly shouldn't store them in their vehicles!
"Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est" ("A sword is never a killer, it's a tool in the killer's hands") Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-65 BC). I doubt WCC students are being trained in anything other than clear thought and spiritual warfare. The rifles are probably used for sport/recreation (as promulgated by our 3rd President) or hunting (as promulgated most famously by Theo. Roosevelt). Perhaps the "gun room" even stores other dangerous tools, such as circular saws, cell phones, or fishing poles that may be used on weekends, etc.
As a member of the CC trap team I sure wish we'd have had a gun room. My shotgun storage wouldn't probably pass muster post Virginia Tech! I bet student don't get to reload shotshells in the basement of the campus museum anymore either! "The times they are a changin'", that is what is so refreshing about WCC, St. John's, etc. Hope I can send my kids.
5.12.2011 | 4:13pm
Bret Lythgoe says:
ndmom: Thanks for the important information! What a wonderful list of authors, and works, your son is reading! If only this list, and I would add, Aristotle's politics, poetics, metaphysics, on the parts of animals; Plato's complete works.
Thanks for the Kindle info. I love IGNATIUS PRESS, though, and hope more people will buy books from them. They have a wonderful selection.
Keep those cellphones off! :-)
That's wonderful to hear your son is getting such a rich education!
Thanks for the Kindle info. I love IGNATIUS PRESS, though, and hope more people will buy books from them. They have a wonderful selection.
Keep those cellphones off! :-)
That's wonderful to hear your son is getting such a rich education!
5.13.2011 | 12:16pm
Donald Brayer says:
Dear ND Mom,
Thank you for speaking your mind on the new Catholic college in Wyoming. Although many people are not in favor of individuals owning guns (let alone on college campuses), they see little harm in cell phones. I have a different view. I believe cell phones were designed with a good purpose - emergency communication. Occasionally, they are still used for that purpose. But mostly they are used by people who want to be "connected." My question is: Connected to what? 500 of your closest friends? Pornograpy? Sports scores? Faster access to tragedy in the world? Where to get a date without much effort? In short, cell phones have stolen one of the most important things we had - time. I often debate whether they are worse than television.
You are blessed indeed with children who take such great interest in the great books of the ages. And your children are blessed with a great mom (and dad?).
Sadly, I fear most kids are slaves to their cell phones and only grudgingly read a book because it is a course requirement.
God bless you and WCC.
Thank you for speaking your mind on the new Catholic college in Wyoming. Although many people are not in favor of individuals owning guns (let alone on college campuses), they see little harm in cell phones. I have a different view. I believe cell phones were designed with a good purpose - emergency communication. Occasionally, they are still used for that purpose. But mostly they are used by people who want to be "connected." My question is: Connected to what? 500 of your closest friends? Pornograpy? Sports scores? Faster access to tragedy in the world? Where to get a date without much effort? In short, cell phones have stolen one of the most important things we had - time. I often debate whether they are worse than television.
You are blessed indeed with children who take such great interest in the great books of the ages. And your children are blessed with a great mom (and dad?).
Sadly, I fear most kids are slaves to their cell phones and only grudgingly read a book because it is a course requirement.
God bless you and WCC.
5.13.2011 | 5:33pm
ndmom says:
Donald,
I wholeheartedly agree that cellphones -- and laptops, and iPads-- can be enslaving and addicting. But the technology is here to stay. In a few years, smartphones will be nearly as universal as cellphones are now, and our children will need to learn how to utilize these tools in a responsible manner. Keeping cellphones off campus merely postpones that learning process.
I wholeheartedly agree that cellphones -- and laptops, and iPads-- can be enslaving and addicting. But the technology is here to stay. In a few years, smartphones will be nearly as universal as cellphones are now, and our children will need to learn how to utilize these tools in a responsible manner. Keeping cellphones off campus merely postpones that learning process.
5.13.2011 | 6:56pm
JohnE says:
Perhaps not using cell phones IS using cell phones in a responsible manner. I'm in IT and do not own a cell phone, but I think I can figure out how to operate one in an emergency.
These tools can easily become crutches and distractions. I imagine WCC and the parents who are footing much of the bill would rather the students focus on learning and having real face-to-face interactions with other students and professors, which I think is far more advantageous. Learning smart phones is really not that tough and in a pinch could be done in an intense week-long community bootcamp during the summer if necessary.
I think this interest in smart phones is a facade for some deeper gripe. I suspect the earlier nick against home-schoolers has something to do with it.
These tools can easily become crutches and distractions. I imagine WCC and the parents who are footing much of the bill would rather the students focus on learning and having real face-to-face interactions with other students and professors, which I think is far more advantageous. Learning smart phones is really not that tough and in a pinch could be done in an intense week-long community bootcamp during the summer if necessary.
I think this interest in smart phones is a facade for some deeper gripe. I suspect the earlier nick against home-schoolers has something to do with it.
5.13.2011 | 11:09pm
ndmom says:
Toddlers can learn how to operate a smartphone. But it takes discipline to learn how to put the phone away when you need to focus on something or someone else. An outright ban on the devices does not help students to develop that discipline. Indeed, it suggests that texting or posting on Facebook is obviously so much more attractive than reading great works of literature that the only way that students can be expected to read the books is if they have no access to their electronic toys. That approach makes perfect sense for children and adolescents, but it's harder to justify for adults, especially those who have made the counter-cultural decision to attend WCC in the first place. Presumably, they WANT to read great books and discuss them. It would be far more impressive if there were no restrictions on cellphones, but that students freely chose to leave them in the drawer most of the time.
Just like the guns.
Just like the guns.
5.16.2011 | 12:57am
UK says:
An interesting reading indeed. The course certainly looks adventurous and appealing to someone like me who enjoys adventure and great literature.
I cannot help but express my opinion regarding the fascinating choice to keep guns but no cellphones. I do understand the benefit of having no cellphone to offer a destruction from the great works of words. However, what have guns got to do in a place of teaching the word of God?
Originally I come from a rather ancient place in comparison to Wyoming where hundreds of years old monasteries are a plenty and not a single gun to be found! Instead, anyone can go and read vast quantities of even handwritten gems of wisdom and if one wishes so can have a discussion on his cellphone with a remote person should something one read moved him to do so.
A question that is often going around in my mind: Why is it that in America an excuse to have guns at a hand-reach is always available to such a degree that even a place that teaches the word of God, such as the Wyoming Catholic Collage, must have guns but cellphones?
I cannot help but express my opinion regarding the fascinating choice to keep guns but no cellphones. I do understand the benefit of having no cellphone to offer a destruction from the great works of words. However, what have guns got to do in a place of teaching the word of God?
Originally I come from a rather ancient place in comparison to Wyoming where hundreds of years old monasteries are a plenty and not a single gun to be found! Instead, anyone can go and read vast quantities of even handwritten gems of wisdom and if one wishes so can have a discussion on his cellphone with a remote person should something one read moved him to do so.
A question that is often going around in my mind: Why is it that in America an excuse to have guns at a hand-reach is always available to such a degree that even a place that teaches the word of God, such as the Wyoming Catholic Collage, must have guns but cellphones?
5.21.2011 | 1:45am
Ben says:
I apologize for jumping on to this conversation so late, but having recently graduated from Wyoming Catholic College, I have, needless to say, been a little busy. First, I'd like to clarify a few points on what the college's actual policies are, and then I'd like to offer a few brief reflections.
First, please know that there are NO guns allowed in the students' rooms. We have a gun safe in the garage at the college's offices, from which we may check out our guns for hunting, shooting practice, etc. It should also be noted that cell phones are kept with prefects and may ALSO be checked out for making trips off-campus, emergencies, or any other sufficiently good reason.
Next, please understand that the question of having cell phones on campus is clearly NOT one of "trust" or a questioning of the students' responsibility. Obviously, if one is in college, one should have developed the virtues and social skills necessary to use technology responsibly. However, there IS a question of whether cell phones have a proper place in the classroom at all and whether they can detract from the learning environment. I would argue that, given the fact that we spend most of our time studying, praying, learning in the classroom (and hiking!), most of the time the cell phone would have no proper place with us--there is no need for it, and therefore no reason why they should be permitted on campus. Again, please note, if we DO need to make a phone call, we can easily walk to our dorms, the library, the student lounge, etc., etc. The absence of cell phones contributes greatly to a healthy learning environment and solid Catholic community.
Finally, I'd like to close by remarking that this whole business over cell phones/weapons is really quite trivial. Perhaps the rules could be improved or perhaps they really are the best the way they are: there's obviously some truth to the arguments on both sides. However, both sides are missing something, and it is this: the real question about WCC is not about guns and cell phones but is this, Does this college do its utmost to promote the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and to produce students who will do their utmost to serve and love God, to the best of their capabilities? I believe it does. If you think the lack of/presence of cell phones determines the success or fall of the college, perhaps you should think again... God bless you all, and please pray for the college, its students, its mission, and now, for its graduates!
First, please know that there are NO guns allowed in the students' rooms. We have a gun safe in the garage at the college's offices, from which we may check out our guns for hunting, shooting practice, etc. It should also be noted that cell phones are kept with prefects and may ALSO be checked out for making trips off-campus, emergencies, or any other sufficiently good reason.
Next, please understand that the question of having cell phones on campus is clearly NOT one of "trust" or a questioning of the students' responsibility. Obviously, if one is in college, one should have developed the virtues and social skills necessary to use technology responsibly. However, there IS a question of whether cell phones have a proper place in the classroom at all and whether they can detract from the learning environment. I would argue that, given the fact that we spend most of our time studying, praying, learning in the classroom (and hiking!), most of the time the cell phone would have no proper place with us--there is no need for it, and therefore no reason why they should be permitted on campus. Again, please note, if we DO need to make a phone call, we can easily walk to our dorms, the library, the student lounge, etc., etc. The absence of cell phones contributes greatly to a healthy learning environment and solid Catholic community.
Finally, I'd like to close by remarking that this whole business over cell phones/weapons is really quite trivial. Perhaps the rules could be improved or perhaps they really are the best the way they are: there's obviously some truth to the arguments on both sides. However, both sides are missing something, and it is this: the real question about WCC is not about guns and cell phones but is this, Does this college do its utmost to promote the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and to produce students who will do their utmost to serve and love God, to the best of their capabilities? I believe it does. If you think the lack of/presence of cell phones determines the success or fall of the college, perhaps you should think again... God bless you all, and please pray for the college, its students, its mission, and now, for its graduates!
5.22.2011 | 9:46pm
UK says:
Hello Ben,
It is great to hear a reflection of someone who has been through and graduated from WCC. I do see your point and do think that WCC has a great mission and does good for the community and the world.
However, even though you see the Guns subject as "trivial" I still have the question of what has guns (i.e weapons), shooting practice, etc. have to do at a place of teaching the word of God. You said it yourself "God bless you all"... If God blesses all why should be a need for weapons and shooting practice?
I am sure you have sense that I am not a religious person but I do believe in God as well as in "We Always Get What We Give"
I wish all the best to WCC and all who take part in the teachings.
It is great to hear a reflection of someone who has been through and graduated from WCC. I do see your point and do think that WCC has a great mission and does good for the community and the world.
However, even though you see the Guns subject as "trivial" I still have the question of what has guns (i.e weapons), shooting practice, etc. have to do at a place of teaching the word of God. You said it yourself "God bless you all"... If God blesses all why should be a need for weapons and shooting practice?
I am sure you have sense that I am not a religious person but I do believe in God as well as in "We Always Get What We Give"
I wish all the best to WCC and all who take part in the teachings.
5.22.2011 | 11:36pm
Ben says:
UK, thank you for your kind words and good wishes. To answer your question very briefly: Wyoming Catholic College seeks to educate the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. As part of its support of the physical dimension of the human person, the college allows students to bring their own guns to the college and to use them responsibly. Each individual might have their own purpose for having a gun, e.g. self-defense or hunting, and either of these skills would be worthy developments of a person's physical skills, it seems to me. As regards self-defense, God blesses those who defend the innocent. As regards hunting, God blesses the animals by allowing them to participate in the nourishment of man, who as a rational creature is ordered to giving glory to God. In these ways and many others, even guns can be a part of an education that seeks the greater glory of God. (And no, WCC is not training a militia to secretly take over the world--at least not in that sense. ;) ...) I hope this is a helpful, albeit concise and partial, answer to your question.
5.29.2011 | 5:40am
Joe Clark says:
Mr. Block (Ben) once again has reduced the whole conversation to the tip of a theologian's sword. Vive Christi my fellow graduate!
6.3.2011 | 12:22am
UK says:
Ben,
I appreciate your reply. I do see your point but I cannot agree with it even if it is taken from a religious point of view. After all countless are the killings in the name of God and the church. To me guns have no place in our life... sadly they do exist in vast quantities.
All the Best to everyone
I appreciate your reply. I do see your point but I cannot agree with it even if it is taken from a religious point of view. After all countless are the killings in the name of God and the church. To me guns have no place in our life... sadly they do exist in vast quantities.
All the Best to everyone
6.3.2011 | 7:33pm
Rochel Hasse says:
Perhaps not using cell phones IS using cell phones in a responsible manner. I'm in IT and do not own a cell phone, but I think I can figure out how to operate one in an emergency. It's about time. So many of our young people go to college and graduate without faith in anything, even themselves. Wyoming Catholic College may be run quite differently than other colleges, but if these graduates have not only gotten an education but can begin there lives grounded in faith and steeped in the tradition of caring for one another, we should start moving higher education out of the realm of "big business" and get back to basics.
10.15.2011 | 12:14pm
WCCmom says:
Has anyone considered the fact that there may come a time, in the not too distant future, when knowing how to hunt for one's next meal may be a distinct advantage? Although our daughter, a student at WCC, does not own a gun, nor does she know how to use one, I am especially grateful that there are other students at her school who do. Given the instability of our national security, I find comfort in knowing that not only does our daughter know how to survive in the wilderness, but she also has friends who would be able to provide sustenance in the event of a national emergency (when cell phones would be of no use whatsoever). And on top of that, I believe that at WCC she is receiving the absolutely best Catholic education available.
8.2.2012 | 11:38pm
Rich.T says:
I want to address the guns issue. First, I am not a member of the NRA (nor, frankly, am I sympathetic to its political agenda), and I have never personally owned any sort of gun, but did receive brief marksmanship training while in the Navy.
It seems to me that it is exceptionally important to note that the guns are being handled responsibly; being locked up when not in use. The concern about guns in America has always centered around crime -- or so we are told. Almost to a person, those who favor gun control say that it is about crime. They claim that it is not about the guns themselves, but who has access to them. Yet, it seems clear to me that this is not what worries people who think WCC should not allow rifles (it is only rifles, correct) on it campus. Somehow the very thought of guns seems to bother them; that guns are a symbol of violence and inherently indecent. I disagree with any such stance. For hunting (a healthy pastime, fully compatible with all forms of Christianity including Quakers) hunting rifles should not be the least controversial. Thus, I think any worry about them being at WCC is overblown; especially given that this is Wyoming, where hunting is one of the most common forms of recreation. Lander is not Los Angeles.
It seems to me that it is exceptionally important to note that the guns are being handled responsibly; being locked up when not in use. The concern about guns in America has always centered around crime -- or so we are told. Almost to a person, those who favor gun control say that it is about crime. They claim that it is not about the guns themselves, but who has access to them. Yet, it seems clear to me that this is not what worries people who think WCC should not allow rifles (it is only rifles, correct) on it campus. Somehow the very thought of guns seems to bother them; that guns are a symbol of violence and inherently indecent. I disagree with any such stance. For hunting (a healthy pastime, fully compatible with all forms of Christianity including Quakers) hunting rifles should not be the least controversial. Thus, I think any worry about them being at WCC is overblown; especially given that this is Wyoming, where hunting is one of the most common forms of recreation. Lander is not Los Angeles.
9.29.2012 | 9:19pm
Bob Shenk says:
To Mr. Charles Cassill:
In response to your query, I was a grad. student in English in the 70s when the IHP was begun. i taught some of the writing in the IHP program, while I completed my PhD in English.
The students in the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program at Kansas in the 70s did not live all in one building, but throughout the campus. (The building the program had offices in was one of the Pearson halls.) The program had I think 5 hours of coursework for 4 semesters in the program -- all their other courses (and majors) were taken from different professors (and different majors--it was only a freshman-sophomore program) throughout the university. (Well, maybe some of them also took Latin; those who majored in English might end up taking a course or two from Nelick and Quinn, but the majority of their coursework had to be taken from Profs like Wedge, Casagrande, Sutton, and many others.) Hence the portrait of some kind of inimical boot camp that you portray is very far off the mark. Anybody could drop the program anytime they liked. Students who were influenced could and did talk to anybody they liked about the program--and were exposed for the great majority of their studies and time to professors and students and ideas throughout the university.
Senior was a classics prof at Kansas originally from Wyoming and from somewhere in the East before that; Nelick and Quinn were English profs, and they were all simply exceptional teachers who each won one of the university's teaching awards--Nelick and Quinn before they started the IHP. (The latter teachers were influencing students like myself and others to take up careers they had never thought of taking on long before they began the IHP--I joined the Navy, in partial imitation of Nelick, who was a naval reservist who had flown during WWII). The source of their power was in the brilliance of their teaching, which stemmed from their convictions about the long and great tradition stemming from Homer, Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare and the like--the Great Books, if you will.
Very little of what they said in their classes had to do with Catholicism. The whole
first semester was based on the Greeks (beginning with Homer), for example; the second semester on the Romans, and I think the Middles Ages was the third and the Renaissance the fourth--to the best of my recollection. Students who were impressed and influenced (like students everywhere) might inquire further about the professors, or talk to them, and many did. There is no question that these profs influenced people powerfully. But their influence came from their teaching -- its coherence and cogency -- and, more deeply, from the works and authors the students read. The professors' examples and beliefs worked on students like professors' examples and beliefs everywhere.
A great deal of hysteria was promulgated everywhere by the program's opponents. Naturally enough, some parents were upset with their children being influence by their courses, or by their professors, in ways they had not anticipated. But that will happen, when you send your kids off to college, as I later learned...
In response to your query, I was a grad. student in English in the 70s when the IHP was begun. i taught some of the writing in the IHP program, while I completed my PhD in English.
The students in the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program at Kansas in the 70s did not live all in one building, but throughout the campus. (The building the program had offices in was one of the Pearson halls.) The program had I think 5 hours of coursework for 4 semesters in the program -- all their other courses (and majors) were taken from different professors (and different majors--it was only a freshman-sophomore program) throughout the university. (Well, maybe some of them also took Latin; those who majored in English might end up taking a course or two from Nelick and Quinn, but the majority of their coursework had to be taken from Profs like Wedge, Casagrande, Sutton, and many others.) Hence the portrait of some kind of inimical boot camp that you portray is very far off the mark. Anybody could drop the program anytime they liked. Students who were influenced could and did talk to anybody they liked about the program--and were exposed for the great majority of their studies and time to professors and students and ideas throughout the university.
Senior was a classics prof at Kansas originally from Wyoming and from somewhere in the East before that; Nelick and Quinn were English profs, and they were all simply exceptional teachers who each won one of the university's teaching awards--Nelick and Quinn before they started the IHP. (The latter teachers were influencing students like myself and others to take up careers they had never thought of taking on long before they began the IHP--I joined the Navy, in partial imitation of Nelick, who was a naval reservist who had flown during WWII). The source of their power was in the brilliance of their teaching, which stemmed from their convictions about the long and great tradition stemming from Homer, Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare and the like--the Great Books, if you will.
Very little of what they said in their classes had to do with Catholicism. The whole
first semester was based on the Greeks (beginning with Homer), for example; the second semester on the Romans, and I think the Middles Ages was the third and the Renaissance the fourth--to the best of my recollection. Students who were impressed and influenced (like students everywhere) might inquire further about the professors, or talk to them, and many did. There is no question that these profs influenced people powerfully. But their influence came from their teaching -- its coherence and cogency -- and, more deeply, from the works and authors the students read. The professors' examples and beliefs worked on students like professors' examples and beliefs everywhere.
A great deal of hysteria was promulgated everywhere by the program's opponents. Naturally enough, some parents were upset with their children being influence by their courses, or by their professors, in ways they had not anticipated. But that will happen, when you send your kids off to college, as I later learned...
