2012 Summer Programs and Adventures

The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is offering an array of Summer Programs during the Summer of 2012.  To learn more about the programs available, please click on one of the links below

Great Books Program

The Great Books Program serves as an introduction to the liberal arts and to the Catholic intellectual tradition.  Students will take three classes: The Catholic Imagination, The Search for Truth in Politics and Religion, The Craft of Writing, and Nature–A Trust Worthy Guide.  Formal instruction will be complemented by lectures and presentations from the College’s faculty, and the reading of authors such as Tolkien, Plato, G. K. Chesterton, and Robert Frost.  As in years past, students will climb Mt. Monadnock, visit historic Boston, and spend a day on the coast of Maine.

Catholic Leadership Institute

The Catholic Leadership Institute offers qualified students the chance to earn three college credits for a course on the Catholic Social and Political Tradition.  The Institute will prepare students for a life of leadership by introducing them to characteristics of great leaders from Catholic civilization.  The course combines academic studies with practical seminars and training.  Authors and figures studied will include the Emperor Charlemagne, the Crusader King St. Louis IX, Popes Leo XIII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Dorothy Day, St. John Bosco, and Bl. Mother Teresa.

Iconography

In this one week course, you will learn skills of drawing and painting in the iconographic tradition, commonly associated with the Eastern Church (although it is also deeply engrained in the Western Church tradition as well). This course will link the stylistic elements of the iconographic tradition with the theology and philosophy of the Church that forms them.You will be instructed in the drawing of icons, how to transfer the drawing to a panel, and will learn the entire iconographic painting process, including the making of the paint with pigment and egg yolk. You will also learn how icons promote prayer.

Way of Beauty Summer Retreat

A residential course in prayer and culture that transforms the spirit and directs you to the via pulchritudinis, the “way of beauty” – the divine path to creativity, love and joy.Learn about traditional culture– art, architecture, music – and how it reflects the rhythms and patterns of the cosmos; and how the cycles and rhythms of the liturgy – the formal and public worship of the Church – participate in the same heavenly standard.Learn to chant the Liturgy of the Hours –no musical experience necessary. It’s simple and beautiful. So simple you could take it back to your family or your choir so they can chant it too; so beautiful that they will want to! Apart from the Mass, the Chatechism tells us, the Liturgy of the Hours is the most powerful and effective prayer.