Faculty and Staff
Program FacultyChaplainsStaff
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Dr. William Edmund Fahey President and Fellow Dr. William Edmund Fahey is the third president of Thomas More College and brings to the office a record of institutional building and broad scholarly accomplishments. Dr. Fahey earned an Honors A.B. from Xavier University (Cincinnati, Ohio) in Classics and History. Afterwards, Fahey pursued postgraduate studies in Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland), where he completed the M.Phil. (mode A) in Ancient History. At the Catholic University of America he studied in the Department of Classics, and earned both the M.A. and Ph.D. (with highest distinction) through the Early Christian Studies program.He has held a number of distinguished fellowships, including the Thomas Savage, SJ Fellowship for excellence in Humanities; the Russell Trust Award of the University of St. Andrews; The McGuire-Peebles Fellowship at the Catholic University of America; the Richard M. Weaver Fellowship; the Marguerite Eyer Wilbur Fellowship; an Earhart Dissertation Fellow; and a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Washington, DC). His archeological work has led him to Wales, the south-east coast of England, eastern Turkey, and the Alpine valleys in Italy. He was a Research Fellow through the Center for the Study of Early Christianity for his study of early Christian evangelization in Italy. In 2007, Dr. Fahey was the Earhart Research Fellow working at New College Library in Edinburgh, Scotland and Stoneyhurst College in England, where he examined Renaissance and Reformation era political treatise.Dr. Fahey came to Thomas More College after nearly a decade of undergraduate and graduate level teaching at Christendom College (Front Royal, Virginia), where he established the Department of Classical and Early Christian Studies, of which he was Chairman. In addition to numerous administrative posts and committee work there, Dr. Fahey was the President of the College Faculty Senate. Dr. Fahey also taught at The Catholic University of America, as well as at Brookfield Academy (Wisconsin), and the American Academy (St. Davids, Pennsylvania). He has taught abroad in Germany and, for many years, in the Western Civilization Honors Program held at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, England.Dr. Fahey’s scholarly interests extend from the Classical World through the Fathers of the Church to the importance of Agrarian thought on past and contemporary culture. In addition to Cicero, Virgil, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, and St. Gregory the Great, he has an especial interest in the writings of G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Fr. Vincent McNabb. He has been published in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, The St. Austin Review, Faith & Reason, The University Bookman, Classical World, and The Classical Bulletin. Dr. Fahey has recently finished co-editing (with Joseph Pearce) a volume of Hilaire Belloc’s political thought, as well as an anthology on the principle of subsidiarity. He is currently translating St. Robert Bellarmine’s political writings. Dr. Fahey is a Benedictine Oblate (novice) with the Monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation (Clear Creek, Oklahoma).He and his wife, Amy—a doctor in English literature from Washington University, St. Louis, and an M.Phil. from St. Andrews, Scotland—have five children: Helena, Mary, Catriona, William, and Benedict. Dr. Fahey’s family has lived in Massachusetts and Maine since the Eighteenth Century and he has a keen interest in the history of New England. |
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Dr. Christopher Olaf Blum Fellow and Dean A native of Virginia, Mr. Blum studied Biology at the University of Virginia and received his doctorate in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Notre Dame. A devoted student of Blessed John Henry Newman, he has found joy in teaching some of the liberal arts marked out by Newman as particularly suited for the inculcation of discipline of mind: geometry, rhetoric, and logic. At Thomas More, he has also been blessed by the opportunity to teach the course in Natural History, which has helped him to appreciate the understated loveliness of the New England landscape.Dr. Blum’s writings have grown from his reflection upon the tasks of teaching such subjects as Western Civilization, various themes in modern European intellectual history—notably the Reformation and the Enlightenment, and a number of topics in philosophy. He has published two volumes of translations from the French: Critics of the Enlightenment: Readings in the French Counterrevolutionary Tradition and The True and Only Wealth of Nations: Essays on the Family, Economy, and Society, the latter being a selection of the writings of Louis de Bonald. His essays include studies of Newman’s ideal of collegiate education, the abbey church at Vézelay, Book V of Euclid’s Elements, and the place of historical studies within a liberal education.To read the works of Aristotle and Aquinas is his idea of leisure; the plays of Racine, the novels of Austen, the sermons of Bossuet, and the essays of Belloc are sheer delight.Dr. Blum and his family live in a humble town in northern Massachusetts where they enjoy the modest pleasures of an old house, a small garden, a large dog, a warm woodstove, visits from family and friends, and the occasional bottle of Burgundy wine. |
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Mr. David Clayton Artist in Residence and Fellow David Clayton moved to the US to take up his current position from his native England in January 2009. He is the designer of the Way of Beauty program which focuses on the link between Catholic culture, in the broadest sense of word, and the liturgy. He also wrote, co-produced and presented the 13-part TV series The Way of Beauty, shown by Catholic TV in 2010 and 2011. Before moving to the US he taught at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, England where he designed, along with the staff at the Institute, their art-theory course: Art, Beauty and Inspiration from a Catholic Perspective.His artistic training is in both the Byzantine iconographic style, and in Western classical naturalism, which he studied in Florence, Italy. Aside from the work he is currently doing for the Thomas More College chapel, major commissions include: St Luigi Scrosoppi, for the London Oratory; the crucifixion at Pluscarden Monastery in Elgin, Scotland; and the Sacred Heart at Maryvale Institute.He has illustrated books for children including God’s Covenant With You, written by Scott Hahn. David and is currently working on one on the Sacred Heart which will be co-written by President of Thomas More College, Dr William Fahey, and Archbishop Cardinal Burke. He writes for his weekly blog www.thewayofbeauty.org, which also has an archive of longer articles, streaming of his TV work, and a gallery of his art. He is the sacred-art writer for the New Liturgical Movement website, www.newliturgicalmovement.org. David was received into the Church in London in 1993.Clayton is a Benedictine Oblate and he coordinates the music for the liturgy at the College and teaches the students to chant the psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours as part of his Way of Beauty course.He is also interested in hiking, gardening and plays the Appalachian clawhammer banjo at college banquets…if pushed. |
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Dr. Paul Connell Fellow and Academic Director of Rome Program Paul Connell was born on the North Shore of New Brunswick, Canada; on his father’s side he is descended from the earliest French settlers of North America, counting his ancestors among the companions of Samuel de Champlain at the Port Royal settlement in Acadia in 1605.Considering himself first and foremost a teacher, both inside and outside the classroom, Dr. Connell takes as his patron St. Philip Neri, who was known as the Roman Socrates. Neri shunned the traditional methods of bringing the youth of Rome into the fold, and instead took to the streets, engaging in conversation with all and sundry. Dr. Connell follows his example as the Director of Studies of the College’s Rome Program, where he currently welcomes students from Thomas More, Ave Maria University, in Naples, Florida, and Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.Dr. Connell takes seriously the words of A.G Sertillanges, the Dominican theologian of the last century: “Learn to listen, and listen, first, to anyone. If it is in the marketplace, as Malherbe asserted, that one learns one’s language, it is also in the marketplace, that is, in everyday life, that we can learn the language of the mind. A multitude of truths arises out of the simplest conversations. The least word listened to with attention may be an oracle. A peasant at certain moments is much wiser than a philosopher.”Dr. Connell has had over twenty-five years teaching experience on both the high-school and college level. His current focus in Rome is on Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare.Dr. Connell has had many fine teachers and mentors over the years, but they can be reduced to three: Sister Elizabeth Paterson, his first grade teacher at St. Joseph’s School in Newcastle, New Brunswick, who taught him how to read and write; Dr. Louise Cowan, his major professor at the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, who taught him that poetry is true; and finally, Dr. Bainard Cowan, his dissertation director at Lousiana State University, who retaught him to read and write, finishing the process that Sister Elizabeth began when he was five.Dr. Connell’s intellectual pedigree is varied, but one thinker outside his major field of study deserves particular mention: the twentieth-century German-Italian theologian Romano Guardini. Guardini could see, at the first half of the twentieth century, the seeds that were to germinate into our current religious challenge and cultural crisis. |
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Dr. Amy Fahey Visiting Fellow Amy Fahey holds a doctorate in English and American Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was the recipient of the prestigious four-year Olin Fellowship. A Rhodes Scholar semi-finalist, Dr. Fahey received a B.A. in English from Hillsdale College and an M.Phil. in Mediaeval Literature from the University of St. Andrews. She was awarded a Richard M. Weaver Fellowship for graduate studies and an Earhart Fellowship for work on her dissertation, Heralds and Heraldry in English Literature, c. 1350 – 1600. Dr. Fahey has also studied Renaissance Literature and Paleography at the Folger Shakespeare Institute in Washington, D.C.In addition to editing several book manuscripts, Dr. Fahey has served as Managing Editor of the journal Faith & Reasonand has directed numerous conferences for the non-profit foundation, Liberty Fund, Inc. Before coming to Thomas More College, she taught courses at Washington University and Christendom College; her teaching interests include the literature of the Middle Ages (particularly Anglo-Saxon and medieval spiritual literature), writing and rhetoric, and modern poetry. Dr. Fahey served as Director of Academic Development for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an educational foundation.The homeschooling mother of five children, Mrs. Fahey is the wife of Thomas More College President Dr. William Fahey. She is an enthusiastic flautist and pianist, and in addition to her academic pursuits, enjoys gardening, knitting, and sewing, when time permits. |
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Mr. Fred Fraser Fellow Fred Fraser graduated from the Classical and Early Christian Studies Department at Christendom College in 2003. His BA thesis is a study in Roman religion focusing on how the Romans understood Augustan Rome to be a holy place and how religion, especially ritual, maintained Rome’s sanctity. Mr. Fraser subsequently attended the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts at the University of Dallas, where he obtained a Master of Arts in 2006. His thesis is an investigation of Pindar’s concept of kairos in his epinikians, arguing that the concept of kairos as “right moment” is a hellenistic development, and that kairos in Pindar most often signifies “proper measure.” During his last year at Dallas, Mr. Fraser obtained a Texas teaching certificate for high school Latin and taught in Aledo High School for one year, and later as a Visiting Lecturer in Classics for two years at Christendom College. Mr. Fraser is currently working towards a PhD in the Greek and Latin Department at the Catholic University of America. |
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Dr. Mitchell Kalpakgian Visiting FellowMitchell Kalpakgian, a native of New England, is the son of Armenian immigrants whose father escaped the Armenian genocide of 1915. He is fluent in the language and attends the Holy Cross Armenian (Eastern rite) Catholic Church in Massachusetts. A student of the whole field of literature rather than a specialist, he has been offering classes in English and Literature for the past forty-five years, teaching a variety of courses on major authors like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton and period courses in areas like Great Books, Renaissance literature, eighteenth century literature, and the English novel. Semi-retired, he currently teaches both on the college and secondary level. He is the father of five children and ten grandchildren.A former marathon runner who competed in ten races, he continues to enjoy swimming and jogging as favorite exercises and coached recreational soccer for many years. In addition to a love of athletics his favorite pastimes include cooking and writing. A recent interest that has inspired both his teaching and writing is children’s literature. After going to graduate school in the Midwest and teaching in Iowa for thirty-one years, he returned to New England in 2000.He compares the teaching of literature to a host preparing a banquet and offering what Matthew Arnold called “the best that has been thought and said.” He views literature as a treasury of the accumulated wisdom of the entire human race, and he is most fond of Dr. Johnson’s statement on the timeless value of great literature: “The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” His favorite poets are George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Frost; his favorite novels are Anna Karenina, Tom Jones, and Pride and Prejudice; and his favorite plays are A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and The Tempest. |
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Mr. Denis Kitzinger FellowMr. Denis Kitzinger is a native of Flörsheim, Germany, a town near to the approximate birth place of Einhard, the early 8th century Frankish scholar who was the noble servant to Charlemagne as well as his biographer. Having grown up in a town with rich Catholic traditions, Mr. Kitzinger shares joyful memories of St. Martin’s Day parades to the Church courtyard where St Martin arrived on horseback, cut his military-cloak in two, and shared it with a beggar – a tradition alive to this day.In his youth and early adulthood Mr. Kitzinger spent much time on the soccer field, an occupation which earned him a full athletic scholarship to a university in the South. Since he first arrived in 2002 he has lived in all four corners of the United States, from Tennessee to California, from Michigan to West Virginia to New Hampshire.From 2006 to 2007, after completing his master’s degree on the West Coast, he spent an invaluable year at the Russell Kirk Center in Michigan. From 2008 to 2010 he and his wife Sara lived in lovely Scotland where he began pursuing his doctorate with the University of St Andrews on the intellectual life of Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977). Formally invested in the history of ideas, he especially enjoys teaching subjects pertaining to history, political philosophy, ethics, and literature. In his view, the ideal of a college community as a community of learners and seekers of wisdom is beautifully realized at Thomas More College.His favorite authors include Josef Pieper, J.R.R. Tolkien, and his holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Happy and blessed to be in the United States, he is and remains an advocate of things German such as Christmas markets and, especially, German beer. |
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Dr. Thomas Larson Choirmaster Thomas Larson offers instruction to all students at any level of knowledge and experience. Plainchant is difficult to sing well and through his guidance the students learn the melodies of the Ordinaries and Propers, as well as the techniques of singing.Dr. Larson received his Ph.D. from the University of Dallas in 2001. He is an Associate Professor at Saint Anselm College where he teaches Philosophy, Humanities, and the Great Books. Dr. Larson is also the Director of the Schuler Singers, an adult choir in southern New Hampshire committed to preserving and promoting Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony within the Sacred Liturgy. Some of his influences are: William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and Orlando di Lasso. Dr. Larson lives in Goffstown, and helps in the homeschooling of his four children. |
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Dr. Patrick Powers Visiting Fellow Patrick Powers was educated at Assumption College and the Université de Fribourg (Switzerland), and received the Ph.D. in Government and Political Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. As the Director of the Fides et Ratio Seminarsat the Faith and Reason Institute, he oversees a series of summer seminars for Catholic college, university, and seminary faculty from around the United States. During his distinguished teaching and administrative career at Assumption College, the University of Notre Dame, and Magdalen College, Dr. Powers received awards and fellowships from the Bradley and Earhart Foundations as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities.An experienced professor of philosophy, political thought, literature, and the Great Books generally, his academic interests are truly Catholic, ranging from the twentieth century novels of Mauriac, Greene, Percy, Faulkner and Endo to the philosophical dialogues of St.Augustine and Plato, and from Greek epic and tragedy to Shakespeare’s dramas and the modern Russian novels of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn and others. |
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Mr. Walter J. Thompson Fellow and Dean of StudentsWalter J. Thompson studied politics and philosophy at Georgetown University and the University of Notre Dame. Before coming to Thomas More College, he was Associate Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, where he also served as Vice President (1996–2001) and Academic Dean (2001–2006). He has taught a wide range of courses in the humanities, philosophy and theology. His research interests include ethics, politics, natural philosophy and theology in the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition. He is a past winner of the Matchette Prize for Young Scholars of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Mr. Thompson, his wife Ruth, and their seven children live in Amherst, NH.View Mr. Thompson’s CV (PDF) |
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Dr. John Zmirak Fellow and Writer in Residence John Zmirak received his B.A. from Yale University in 1986, then his M.F.A. in screenwriting and fiction and his Ph.D. in English in 1996 from Louisiana State University. His focus was the English Renaissance, and the novels of Walker Percy. He taught composition at LSU and screenwriting at Tulane University, and has written screenplays for and with director Ronald Maxwell (Gods & Generals and Gettysburg). He was elected alternate delegate to the 1996 Republican Convention, representing Pat Buchanan. He has been Press Secretary to pro-life Louisiana Governor Mike Foster, and a reporter and editor at Success magazine and Investor’s Business Daily, among other publications.His essays, poems, and other works have appeared in First Things, The Weekly Standard, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today, FrontPage Magazine, The American Conservative, The South Carolina Review, The Atlantic, Modern Age, The Intercollegiate Review, The New Republic, Commonweal, and the National Catholic Register, among other venues. He has contributed to American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought. From 2000-2004 he served as Senior Editor of Faith & Family Magazine and as a reporter at the National Catholic Register. Dr. Zmirak remains the editor-in-chief of the series of college guides published by Intercollegiate Studies Institute, including Choosing the Right College and All American Colleges.His published works include Wilhelm Röpke (2001); The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living (2005); The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey and Song; and The Grand Inquisitor (2008), a blank-verse graphic novel, and The Bad Catholic’s Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins(2010). |
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Léonie Caldecott, MA (Oxon.) Tutor in Humanities, Oxford ProgramAssociate Editor, Second Spring JournalLéonie Caldecott was educated at the French Lycée in London and Oxford University, where she read French and Philosophy. The winner of the Catherine Pakenham Award for Young Women Journalists, she has since written for secular newspapers and magazines as well as religious ones on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Sunday Times, Village Voice, New York Times Book Review, Il Sabato, Communio, Catholic World Report, Inside the Vatican, National Catholic Register, Touchstone and The Chesterton Review, and a regular column for the Catholic Herald. Two of her articles have been reprinted in The Best Spiritual Writing series. She contributed to the BBC TV series Women of Our Century, and wrote the book that accompanied it. She also contributed to several collections, such as Makers of Modern Culture (RKP) and British Catholic Heroines (Gracewing). She has written on Blessed John Henry Newman and St Therese of Lisieux for CTS. Her most recent book is What Do Catholics Believe? (Granta 2008) and she is the author of Divine Comedy: a Theresian Mystery Play, performed at the Oxford Oratory in the fall of 2009. The mother of three children, she lives in Oxford with her husband Stratford, with whom she co-founded the Centre for Faith & Culture and co-edits the journal of the Centre, Second Spring. As a catechist and mother she has engaged in many initiatives for young people, including the book series “Second Spring Catechesis.” |
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Stratford Caldecott, MA (Oxon.), FRSA Editor, Second Spring Journal Director, Center for Faith and Culture in Oxford Stratford Caldecott is the editor of international journal Second Spring for the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, and directs the College’s Centre for Faith and Culture in Oxford. Formerly a Senior Editor at Routledge, HarperCollins and T&T Clark, he is currently an Editor for Sophia Institute Press in New Hampshire, and serves on the editorial boards of Communio, The Chesterton Review, Oasis, and the Catholic Truth Society in London. He has written and edited books on J.R.R. Tolkien, the Seven Sacraments, the historian Christopher Dawson, and liturgical reform in the Catholic Church. His most recent book Beauty for Truth’s Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education was published by Brazos Press in 2009. He has also organized and spoken frequently at conferences, taught at a number of colleges, and written and published widely on Christian apologetics, theology, and cultural themes in magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Touchstone, This Rock, Parabola and the National Catholic Register, as well as the journals mentioned above. Stratford lives in Oxford, where he studied Philosophy as an undergraduate, and is currently a Research Fellow at St Benet’s Hall. |
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Rev. Richard Kelley
In addition to being a chaplain at Thomas More College, Fr. Richard Kelley is the pastor of St. Christopher Church in Nashua, which is the parish where Thomas More College is located. Fr. Kelley was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 10, 1943. He was raised in both West Roxbury and Needham, Massachusetts and was a 1961 graduate of Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, Mass. His seminary studies took place in Boston, at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, and at Catholic University in Washington, DC. For a period of time during the mid 1960s, he performed inner city Social Work, living in Kansas City, Missouri. He was ordained a diocesan priest for service in the Diocese of Manchester on May 20, 1972. For the following 13 years he served as an Associate Pastor at Our Lady of Miraculous Medal Parish in Hampton (1972-1977), St. Joseph Cathedral Parish in Manchester (1977-1984), and at St. Michael Parish in Exeter (1984-1985). On October 7, 1985 he was appointed to his first pastorate at St. Catherine Parish in Charlestown, New Hampshire where he served for the following two years. Subsequent pastorates followed at St. Patrick Parish in Jaffrey (1987-2000) and at St. Christopher Parish in Nashua (2000- present). In addition to his parish responsibilities, Fr. Kelley has served on several committees for the Diocese of Manchester over the years. He was formerly the Dean of the Keene Deanery and at the present time he also serves as Chaplain to the Nashua Police Department. Fr. Kelley is very interested in history (especially Church History and American History) and in Genealogy. He has done some travelling over the years. Some of his favorite places include Ireland, Rome, and the Holy Land. |
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Rev. John Healey
Fr. Healey is a native of New Hampshire and a priest of the Diocese of Manchester. Fr. Healey has been a chaplain at Thomas More College for much of the past 25 years. He is a graduate of St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, NH, and attended Saint Francis Seminary in Loretto, Pennsylvania. He was ordained as a priest in May 1970 at St. Joseph’s Cathedral. He has held various pastoral assignments throughout New Hampshire during his more than 30 years as a diocesan priest. |
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Gwen Adams Dean of Woman and Visiting FellowGwen Adams holds an M.A. in Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas. She was awarded a full fellowship for this program and finished her coursework through the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome in cooperation with the Catholic Studies Department. After this she mentored the Catholic Studies Undergraduate Women’s Household for its first two years. She has taught for Trinity Schools at both the Minnesota and Indiana campuses and worked four years prior to that as Director of Youth Formation at St. Boniface Parish in Lafayette, Indiana. She holds a B. A. in History from Christendom College, has interned at a small organic farm, published in St. Austin Review, presented at Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture Annual Conference, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Catholic Studies through the Maryvale Institute in Birmingham, UK. |
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Andrea Assaf Assistant Director, Vatican Studies CenterAndrea Assaf has worked as a freelance journalist in Rome since 2002, writing for Inside the Vatican magazine, Our Sunday Visitor, the Wall Street Journal Europe, NewsMax, Chronicles Magazine, and blogging. She has given commentary on Vatican-related news stories for BBC World, DeutscheWelle, and Global Journalist radio. Andrea now writes for the English edition of Zenit International News Agency, is a voice talent for H2onews, and assists her husband Tony with the Vatican Studies Center and the Rome Program of The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. In 2003 she began the Vatican Forum lectures series as a way to bring Church experts together with members of the media, students, and scholars in Rome. Today she coordinates and hosts the Vatican Forum each semester for the Rome Program students to introduce them to the work and world of the Holy See. Andrea is a graduate of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, the International Institute for Political and Economic Studies in Greece, and the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C. |
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Tony Assaf Director, Vatican Studies Center General Administrator, Rome ProgramTony Assaf studied philosophy, theology, and oriental studies in Rome, receiving his B.A. from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2000. He also received an International Masters Certificate in Management and Communication for Cultural Politics from the Libera Universita di Santa Maria Assunta in 2004. During his nine years in Rome, Tony has worked for the United Nation’s World Food Programme, the Italian news agency AdnKronos, the Italian television company RAI, as an on-call translator for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as a co-founder and researcher for the Italian think-tank Middle Eastern Geopolitical Observer. He also worked as a personal assistant to Cardinal Opelio Rossi at the Casa Internazionale del Clero and as a volunteer for Caritas Internationalis. In the field of communications, he has written for Inside the Vatican magazine, and interned in the Arabic section of Vatican Radio. He is the founder of the Arabic version of Zenit News Agency, for which he serves as editor, translator, journalist and fund-raiser.Tony is a native speaker of Arabic and is also fluent in Italian, French, and English with an academic knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Siro-Aramaic, the language spoken by Our Lord. He has taught Arabic to Italian and English speakers as a private tutor. On a personal note, he was asked to be a lector in Arabic and Aramaic and to serve at several Masses celebrated by Pope John Paul II. On one occasion, Tony read for the Pope at the Good Friday service; on another he read at the Pope’s Christmas midnight Mass. |
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Pamela A. Bernstein Business Manager/Assistant RegistrarPamela Bernstein joined Thomas More College in 1983 as a secretary to the President, and later became bookkeeper and assistant to the Admissions Director. In 1990, she was promoted to Business Manager and in 1996 was given the title of Business Manager/Assistant Registrar. Her responsibilities include all aspects of the Business Office, assisting the Registrar, and other various duties of the College. Ms. Bernstein grew up in the Nashua, New Hampshire area and attended the New Hampshire Vocational Technical College for Accounting and Business Management. |
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Valerie Burgess Executive Assistant, President’s OfficeValerie Burgess has been with Thomas More College since the Spring of 2007, bringing with her more than a decade of Executive Assistant experience. She has worked for such well-known companies as Brookstone, Gardeners Eden, and Lindt & Sprungli, USA. With Brookstone, she assisted the Operational Vice President of Seasonal & Outlet Business; and then the Vice President of Store Operations. When Brookstone acquired Gardeners Eden, she was promoted to Executive Assistant to support the President and Vice President of that acquisition. Most recently, Valerie worked for Lindt & Sprungli, USA, reporting to the Director of Store Operations as well as the Vice President of Retail. |
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Aja Cowhig Development AssistantAja Cowhig received her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in 2011. For her junior project, an intensive semester long study of a great work, she chose The Consolation of Philosophy by Saint Boethius. Her senior thesis was on the attainment of happiness through friendship as seen in the novels of Jane Austen and supported by the works of Aristotle. In the summer of 2011 she was honoured with a scholarship for the Edmund Campion Fellowship Programme. The programme entailed one week in NH and two weeks at Oxford University studying the Catholic Literary Revival in England. Aja is from British Columbia, Canada. In addition to studying, she enjoys traveling, outdoor activities, and spending time with family and friends. |
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Lucy Domina Assistant Director of AdmissionsLucy Domina received her BA in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Literature from Thomas More College in 2010. During the summers since 2005, Lucy has taught theater to children and teens with disabilities at the New England Youth Theater in her hometown, Brattleboro, VT. While at Thomas More, she continued to participate in theater, helping to co-direct as well as acting in excerpts from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet. In addition to her great interest in theater, Lucy enjoys gardening, reading poetry, and looks forward to becoming involved in mission work in the coming years. |
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Clint Hanson Vice President for AdministrationClint Hanson has over 30 years of experience in higher education, serving as director of Financial Aid for several educational institutions including Franklin Pierce Law Center, New Hampshire College, and Nathaniel Hawthorne College. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Assumption College, his M.Ed. in History from Worcester State College, and completed advanced graduate study at Vanderbilt University. Mr. Hanson has been recognized for his leadership by the New Hampshire School Boards Association with the New Hampshire Excellence in Education Award (1996) and by the Eastern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (EASFAA) with the Outstanding State Representative Award (2006). In addition to his work at the College, Mr. Hanson was the president of the New Hampshire Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NHASFAA), a member of the EASFAA Training Committee, a trustee for the NHHEAF Network Educational Foundation, and a trustee for the New Hampshire Higher Education Loan Corporation. He also continues to serve the community as chairperson and chief contract negotiator of the Pembroke School Board (NH), president of the New Hampshire School Boards Association Board of Directors, and member of the Local Government Center Board of Directors |
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Carolyn McKinney Designer and WebmasterCarolyn McKinney received a B.A. in political science from Calvin College. While at Calvin, she participated in the highly regarded Witherspoon Fellowship at the Family Research Council. After graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked as an events coordinator and graphic designer for the Bill of Rights Institute. She then moved on to the Heritage Foundation, where she served as community activism coordinator and advertising assistant for Townhall.com. In 2004, she launched her own design and marketing firm which provides services primarily for small to medium sized non-profit organizations. She began working with Thomas More College in 2006, and resides in Amherst, New Hampshire with her husband and four children. |
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Charlie McKinney Vice President for Institutional AdvancementCharlie McKinney began his career at the Bill of Rights Institute in 2000, which was, at the time, a newly-created non-profit organization in Washington, DC with less than a million annual budget. After four years as lead development officer, he left the Bill of Rights Institute having helped increase fundraising revenue to nearly $3 million. Charlie later became Director of Development at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Wilmington, Delaware, a national non-profit dedicating to reviving an appreciation for Western civilization and the liberal arts at colleges and universities across the country. In 2006, Charlie joined Thomas More College to establish and run the College’s development department. Thomas More College has witnessed a four-fold increase in fundraising revenue since his arrival. In 2009, Charlie was promoted to his current position, where he also oversees the College’s marketing, media, and admissions efforts. Charlie also serves as Chief Operating Officer for Sophia Institute, which encompasses the College’s publishing division, Crisis Magazine, and Catholic Exchange. Charlie, his wife, and four children live in Amherst, New Hampshire. |
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Mark Schwerdt Director of AdmissionsMark Schwerdt graduated from Christendom College in 2002 with a B.A. in Philosophy. In 2004, he received a Master’s Degree in the Humanities from the University of Dallas. While studying for his graduate degree, he completed coursework at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, which included taking an intensive course on the epic tradition offered by the Teacher’s Academy. He went on to post-graduate work in Clinical Psychology at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences where he studied under Father Benedict Groeschel. Mark has counseled autistic children and at-risk youth, offered guidance and college counseling services to high school students, acted as a House Father and teacher at St. Gregory’s Academy in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and taught classes in juggling, study skills, and rhetoric. He also assisted in the compilation of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic Collegewhile working at the Cardinal Newman Society. Prior to his arrival at Thomas More College, Mark handled event planning, intake operations and marketing for a law firm in Virginia. Mark grew up on Cape Cod and is very happy to be back in New England. He loves playing music for his wife, Emily, and their son, Finnian. |
