Dr. E. Wesley Ely delivered the speech at the 2013 Aquinas College Commencement on Saturday, May 11. Dr. Ely is a medical school professor with a subspecialty in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. His research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with sepsis and respiratory failure, with special emphasis on the problems facing older patients in the ICU. A devout Catholic, Dr. Ely has contributed inspirational articles to numerous publications, including the Tennessee Register, and delivered a lecture in the Fall of 2012 entitled “True Devotion to the Blessed Mother.”

Please click on the “CC” icon in the YouTube window for subtitles.

Awards

The awards given to outstanding achievement in the various programs are as follows:

St. Augustine of Hippo Award (School of Arts & Sciences)
Rebecca Marie Thompson

St. Joseph the Worker Award (School of Business)
Anthony Sherman Lena

St. Dominic, Teacher of Truth Award (School of Education)
Christina Ann Cathey

St. Catherine of Siena Award (School of Nursing—Associate of Science in Nursing)
Joshua David Parker and Jessica Rose Schultz

St. Martin de Porres Award (School of Nursing—Bachelor of Science in Nursing)
Jody Marie Boone

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More Information

Please check the Aquinas College website soon for more information and pictures about this year’s Baccalaureate Mass and Commencement.

The Aquinas College Office of Catechetics hosted training for the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology’s “Genesis to Jesus” study program on campus on Saturday, May 4. The Center’s Executive Director, internationally known Catholic author and speaker Matthew Leonard, co-led the all-day training along with Joan Watson, Coordinator of Catechetics at Aquinas. The study program serves as the foundation for the Center’s parish-based Journey Through Scripture program. Nearly 100 participants from the Diocese of Nashville and several states, including Texas and Wisconsin, packed the St. Martin de Porres lecture hall.

Matt Leonard said of his trip to Nashville: “What a pleasure it was to present Journey through Scripture to a packed house at Aquinas College. There is a particular beauty and vibrancy about the Catholic culture here that is extremely attractive. I’m really looking forward to my next visit.”

Joan Watson observed, “It’s been my personal experience that the Journey through Scripture studies make the Word of God accessible to the average Catholic while not watering down the richness and depth of its power, and it’s my hope that the Diocese of Nashville will benefit as these newly-trained leaders go out to their parishes.”

Catechetics at Aquinas College is a collaboration between Aquinas and the Diocese of Nashville. Apart from their Catechist Formation Program that the office offers in the Nashville and Knoxville dioceses, the Office of Catechetics leads workshops on Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and created the popular annual St. Thomas Aquinas Forum.

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For some end-of-year fun, the Office of Student Life created a student video contest, asking the question: What Should Every Student at Aquinas Know?

Voting has closed and the winners have been announced:

1st: Get to Class on Time, by Mary Weadon and Therese Youso
2nd: Live a Healthy, Balanced Lifestyle, by Mary Weadon and Therese Youso
3rd: A Quote, by David Maddux

If you aren’t on Facebook, please email communications@aquinascollege.edu and let us know which video you like the best.

The Tennessee Register, the newspaper of the Diocese of Nashville, recently profiled the new Aquinas College Center for the Study of Human Dignity and Ethics in Health Care. Center Advisory Council member Dr. Marie Hilliard, director of bioethics and public policy for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, and Brother Ignatius Perkins, O.P., Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., A.N.E.F., the center’s founder and Dean of the School of Nursing, were both interviewed for the story.

Read the story here:

• New Aquinas center seeks to be a ‘moral force’ guiding health care ethics

The annual Spring Fling took a turn for the medieval at the end of the banner 2012-2013 academic year that saw the introduction of graduate studies and the foundation of Residential Life.

The “Springeth Flingeth” theme roughly coincided with William Shakespeare’s 449th birthday and included turkey legs, minstrels, actors from the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, a House Life tug-o-war competition, and the inaugural AQUAnas Palooza slip-n-slide. Students took the “flingeth” part of the event title literally and constructed a medieval siege machine known as a trebuchet.

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The Write Reason Plan, a student-oriented center that includes the Writing Center and a campus-wide writing rubric, rounded out the busy 2012-2013 academic year with the Writers’ Night Symposium and the publication of the Spring 2013 edition of The Torch.

Writers’ Night

At Writers’ Night on Friday, April 19, students from a variety of courses presented papers on the topics of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the theological concept of free will, the poetry of English martyr Robert Southwell, the fashion of Marie Antoinette, and Vietnamese Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan.

Contest proceedings, including full text of the papers may be found on the Writers’ Night page.]

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The Torch

On the Monday following Writers’ Night, the Write Reason Center published the second edition of the student publication the Torch, a collection of reviews on books and essays about the humanities and culture. The Spring 2013 edition features Stephen Lanham on Edward Tick’s War and the Soul, Shannon Martin on Aquinas’ own Sister Matthew Marie and Sister Elizabeth Anne’s Behold the Heritage about Dominican education, Sister Hannah Barnes on Ralph McInerny’s Dante’s Vision of Our Lady, and Pamela Strobel on George Weigel’s Letters to a Young Catholic.

More information about the Torch and to read back issues, please visit the Torch page.

Other Events from the Academic Year

The Write Reason Center presented many other events throughout the year, including the lunch and lectures “Social Media and Your Future” by Dr. Sarah Wannemuehler, “J.R.R. Tolkien and the Christian Imagination” (video included) by Dr. Aaron Urbanczyk and Father Albert Trudel, O.P., and numerous other events and workshops.

On March 19, renowned Christian guitarist and singer/songwriter Phil Keaggy brought his music and his faith to Aquinas College for a one-night solo performance. If you’ve never heard him, you’re missing something very special. And if you have heard him, you’re probably a die-hard “Keaggy-head.” Either way, take a listen.

Here Phil plays one of his classics, “I Belong to You.”

Photos from the evening:

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The 2nd Annual Spring Art Exhibition officially opened on Monday, April 15 with the theme of “Transcendent Beauty: the Glory of God Is Man Fully Alive.” The exhibition, sponsored by the Aquinas College Center for Faith & Culture, includes works from faculty, staff, and students from a variety of media. Paintings from Sister Mary Angelica’s recent portrait painting enrichment class comprise three of the entries. Also on display were paintings from the Office of Alumni Relations’ service project working with women at Room in the Inn, “Beauty from the Inside Out.”

The art show will remain in the Carriage House until Friday, April 26.

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The exhibition includes works by these artists:

• Brandon Bell
• Alan Bradley
• Cindy Buss
• Doug Chaney
• Julianna Cheij
• Stephen Delius
• Paul Downey
• Sr. Magdalena Dudenhoeffer, O.P.
• Sr. Mary Angelica Neenan, O.P.
• Sr. Mary Leo Nordmark
• Marianna Rollins
• Julia Smith
• Sr. Anne Timmons

Joseph Pearce spoke on the topic of G.K. Chesterton: Larger than Life as a part of the Aquinas College Lecture Series in March. Mr. Pearce was born in East London and spent his formative years with a far-right anti-Catholic group, an association which landed him in prison on two occasions. He credits the reading of G.K. Chesterton with his conversion of heart and conversion to Catholicism. Along with a definitive biography of Chesterton, Mr. Pearce has also penned works on Hilaire Belloc, Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkien, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Roy Campbell, C.S. Lewis, and William Shakespeare.

You may also listen to the audio of the lecture here, or just the download link below.

Download mp3

This and all other recorded lectures can be by subscribing to the Lecture Series Podcast on iTunes.

Subscribe to My Podcast with iTunes

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Aquinas College will again host the Tennessee Right to Life State Oratory Competition on Saturday, May 4 at 1:00 p.m. The competition, which includes the winners of the various local competitions from around the State, features speeches by high school students on the controversial issues of stem cell research, abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide. Aquinas will offer $5,000 in scholarships to the winner and runners up.