Anchored by the Classic Learning Test

How Seminar-Style Classes Produce Thoughtful, Adaptive Students | Paul O’Reilly

December 14, 2023 Classic Learning Test
Anchored by the Classic Learning Test
How Seminar-Style Classes Produce Thoughtful, Adaptive Students | Paul O’Reilly
Show Notes Transcript

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy is joined by Paul O’Reilly, president of Thomas Aquinas College (TAC). The two discuss Paul’s background growing up in Ireland during a time of high tensions between Protestants and Catholics. They explore how the campus has changed since Paul attended in the 1980s, including a recent expansion into New England. And finally, they talk about the merits of seminar-style classes to produce thoughtful, adaptive graduates. 


Today’s episode of Anchored is brought to you with support from America’s Christian Credit Union. Find out how ACCU can be the banking partner to your school or family by visiting americaschristiancu.com/CLT.




Jeremy (00:03.17)
Folks, welcome back to the Anchor podcast. I am so, so excited for our guests today. For years and years, I talked about Thomas Aquinas College as my favorite college I had never actually been to. And then I finally visited in January of last year and I met President Paul O'Reilly when I was on campus. We have Paul O'Reilly here today as our guest. In 1984, Thomas Aquinas College graduate grew up in Ireland.

came on as vice president of TAC in 2011 and has been the president for the past couple of years. President Paul O'Reilly, thank you so much for being with us today.

Paul O'Reilly (00:43.086)
Thank you very much, Jeremy. Looking forward to chatting with you.

Jeremy (00:46.37)
So I don't hear it now at all, but I understand that when you first arrived at Thomas Aquinas College in 1984, your Irish accent was so thick that students and faculty had a hard time understanding you. Tell us about growing up in Ireland, what it was like in terms of Catholicism, and then how did you discover TAC in 1984?

Paul O'Reilly (01:00.788)
Yeah.

Paul O'Reilly (01:04.782)
Cheers.

Paul O'Reilly (01:09.966)
So do you have a couple hours? It's a long story in some respect. I grew up in Belfast. I was born in Belfast, one of eight children. And during that time, it was the Troubles, the time of the Troubles, Catholics and Protestants, maybe not principally because of their religious differences, but their religion was entwined with their politics. So the Catholics were generally Irish, the Protestants more British. And so...

Jeremy (01:11.78)
Ha ha ha.

Paul O'Reilly (01:39.474)
they couldn't get along. They lived separate lives in many, many ways. Went to different schools, lived in different neighborhoods, shopped in different stores, and spoke different languages, even though they both spoke English. So it was a very interesting experience. My mother and father wanted to give us the best that they could, and my mother had two brothers who were successful

Paul O'Reilly (02:08.138)
Now, a nice house for Catholics in Belfast was in a Protestant neighborhood. And so there were some tensions right away when the troubles broke out in 1969. So eventually we were forced out of that house and my two uncles were actually murdered. They were shot in their restaurant and the restaurant was blown up.

Jeremy (02:30.461)
Oh my goodness.

Paul O'Reilly (02:34.398)
So my mother and father unfortunately separated soon thereafter, and she on her own took all eight kids to Canada to get away from the violence. I told my mom a story once, my birth mother, I told her a story. I went back to school after my uncles were killed, and I told her that one of my classmates said, he knows who pulled the trigger.

He know he could identify the killers of my uncle and he would allow me to inflict retribution. And that was the IRA's way of getting young men involved in their efforts. So that concerned my mother a great deal. She reached out to her brother in Canada and brought the family from Ireland to Canada. We moved to New Brunswick on the east coast of Canada.

And then unfortunately, six months after she was killed in the car accident. So we were left, you know, orphans, six of us, eight of us, excuse me. And that's when a really different story unfolded. We had uncles and aunts who wanted to help. They wanted to adopt one of us or even two of us. But my uncle and aunt, Edward and Dorothy O'Reilly, who

who had sponsored us into Canada, they didn't wanna see the family divided. So they adopted all eight of us, and they had four of their own. So we became a family of 12, with all sorts of very intriguing circumstances. So for example, I have a brother who's three days younger than me, and that has led to all sorts of interesting questions. But of course we're adopted. That's how we came.

Jeremy (04:27.038)
Yeah, and then Paul, the initial eight, where do you fall in that group of the?

Paul O'Reilly (04:35.534)
Yeah, now that's a sensitive question, Jeremy, because I was second in command until this adoption thing went through and then I was third in command. So I was, you know, fell down the ladder of leadership. But yeah, I was second on the Belfast Eight and then third when we became a family of 12. Now, in order to support the family, my adopted father, Ed, then brought us to the west coast of Canada, to British Columbia.

Jeremy (04:55.424)
Okay.

Paul O'Reilly (05:04.254)
where we started initially with a business, donut business, actually making donuts. And then eventually became loggers. We had a logging industry in Northern British Columbia in Belacula. And that's where I worked, took a year off high school and became a feller. I can knock down trees and bake donuts. So I have a career even if TAC doesn't work out for me.

Jeremy (05:30.435)
This is an amazing, amazing background. And so then talk to us about the kind of the Catholic identity in growing up in this now family of 12 or and an uncle 14. Was the faith integral to your life as a family?

Paul O'Reilly (05:47.786)
Yeah, it was very much so. And it's such a great question, Jeremy, because I think, as I mentioned earlier, when I grew up in Ireland, my faith was very much entwined with politics. And to be Irish was to be Catholic, to be Catholic was to be Irish. But you identify the political differences with your faith, which is probably, which is unwise. Moving to Canada, you could kind of distill what's really fundamental to the faith, and that's...

what my uncle and aunt also brought to our attention. We were all practicing Catholics. We were active in our parish, and we had a number of good priests who were friends of the family who influenced us. And I think, certainly in my case, improved my life tremendously, making me think about things that were more important than initially I was inclined to. When I...

Jeremy (06:37.047)
Hmm.

Paul O'Reilly (06:45.314)
When I left Ireland and came, I was 16 years old, and I could not believe two things struck me, even in Canada, is the amount of liberty that you have in North America, and the wealth that is present. So we grew up reasonably poor, and restricted where we could go, what shops we could go to, what schools we went to. But when we came to Canada, I could not believe just the opportunity and the wealth.

And quite frankly, New Brunswick, where we first lived, isn't a particularly wealthy Canadian province. British Columbia more so. I had the opportunity to visit Boston, Massachusetts, and also Seattle, Washington, and I could not believe the wealth that I saw in America. And it had an effect on me. That's what I wanted. I wanted to be a wealthy man. That was my goal, is to pursue the almighty dollar.

and I was accepted into a very good business school and that was my plan until the Lord and my mother intervened.

Jeremy (07:53.679)
Okay, so 1984, tell us about this intervention. I don't know.

Aquinas College in 1984 as a young man in Canada. I mean how did this come about? Or I guess 1980, you graduated in 84.

Paul O'Reilly (08:04.734)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question too. That's right, that's right. It was 1980 and it was a parish priest of ours, Father Don Nielsen, who since passed away, who was familiar with the college. There were a few Canadians, especially from British Columbia, who attended, so he got to know them or those kids got to know the college through him.

So he conspired with my mother, because my mom had heard about my plan to become a very wealthy man and to pursue a degree in business. And I was gonna fund everybody. And she wasn't sure that was a good idea for me, probably because she knew me better than I did. And she encouraged this priest, Father Nielsen, to...

encouraged me to just to take a week off. The way he put it was so sneaky. The way he put it was, you know, Paul, you've been working so hard. You should take a break. Have you ever been to California? And I said, No, I've never been to California. Oh, you should go to California. You can go there. I know a place. They'll put you up. You can go for free. Your mom's already said she'll fly you down there. You've been working too hard. You should take a break. And I fell for that trap. So so I went down and I visited Thomas Aquinas College early 1980.

Jeremy (09:15.83)
Ugh.

Paul O'Reilly (09:21.91)
And I have to tell you, my first experience was these people are very strange. I was driven. I was I had already taken a year off high school. I had made money. I just bought my first car. I was very confident that I had a plan for my life. And these people didn't fit quite into that plan. They were very good people. Don't get me wrong, but they seem so strange.

Jeremy (09:48.179)
Ha ha

Paul O'Reilly (09:49.014)
very dedicated to their studies. They were very nice, almost too nice. But I went, I arrived on a Saturday, and the following day I went to the church service there at the mass, and then I saw something that I had never seen before, piety, real piety, real sincerity on the behalf of those students. And that struck me. I still thought it was kind of weird, but I took them, at least more seriously.

They were extraordinarily kind to me when I visited. And that was also strange. I was thinking, what's in it for them? But they were just being kind. And then I sat in on class and I met some of the faculty. And then I realized over four or five days that they weren't strange at all. I was worldly. And that's what I discovered about myself. I was worldly, I was living for the world. And here was a place that was offering me something much more important, something perennial.

some effort to come to understand the truth and do so under the light of the faith. And so I.

Jeremy (10:54.436)
Wow, okay, so you came home and you knew you were going?

Paul O'Reilly (10:57.918)
Yeah, I did. I told my mom and she pretended not to know any better, but I told her that I was going. They were very supportive. I went down there as a freshman. Loved that experience for four years.

Jeremy (11:13.114)
Sure. Okay, and take us to Thomas Aquinas College in 1980. I went in January of 2023, the chapel, every aspect is just beautiful. But I don't think it looked like that in 1980. What was it like?

Paul O'Reilly (11:23.466)
Yeah. No, it did not. So we started the college was founded in 1971 in a rented facility in Calabasas, north of Los Angeles. But about six or seven years later, they were forced to move out of there and they found this property, a beautiful property. You've been to the property, but it had no buildings on it whatsoever. So they rapidly built one dining commons slash chapel.

and then put in these temporary, so-called temporary trailers that lasted for 30 years. And that was our dormitories and those were our classrooms and the laboratories and offices for the faculty. So they were all temporary buildings and it was very modest, a beautiful site, physically stunning. But the buildings were not nothing to recommend them. But there still there was this pioneering spirit.

that everyone had and what was more important was what we were learning and the community that was forming us than the buildings we were in. So we were pleased. We were pleased there and you know we look back with kind of nostalgic view but it was very formative for us. Now of course we're spoiled. We've got these beautiful buildings now but

I think it was good for us as pioneers to struggle a little bit.

Jeremy (12:54.27)
Okay, and in 1980, are you doing a pretty similar great books program as it stands today?

Paul O'Reilly (13:00.85)
Yeah, essentially the program, Jeremy, hasn't changed at all. So we, sometimes it's put negatively. We do not have electives, we do not have majors or minors, but really the positive is we have one program, four years of mathematics, four years of natural science, four years of philosophy and theology, and then other classes such as two years of language, which is Latin, one year of music.

seminar which is a mixture of literature and history and some modern philosophy. That program is essentially the same. We've made a couple of tweaks around the edges, but essentially it's the same.

Jeremy (13:40.59)
So I know a bit about this story and I'm wondering if you could kind of walk us through it. I know folks like John.

Jeremy (13:50.07)
Of course, dear friends with Laura Berquist, she's been on our board at CLT, really kind of from the very beginning. Laura, of course, founded Mother of Divine Grace, but her late husband, Mark, was one of the four men who founded Thomas Aquinas College. As I understand it, and Paul, please do walk us through, this was kind of conceived of as an academic paper for faculty members at St. Mary's of what would a faithfully

Catholic college, this is around 1970, what would it look like even conceptually? And they kind of did that hard work and then they thought, well, why don't we actually make this thing? Is that kind of how it went?

Paul O'Reilly (14:30.935)
Yeah, it is. And you're right, there were a number of founders, but four principal ones. There was Dr. MacArthur, who was the first president. There was Jack Neumeyer, who was the first dean. Mark Berkwist, who was really the mind behind the program in so many ways. Interesting person, very, very shy. And then Peter DeLuca, who was the outward-going entrepreneurial spirit who figured out the practical things.

It's remarkable in the providential order that all these four people could come together and do it. You needed all four of them. Dr. MacArthur, he was just a natural leader. He was 6'6", 6'7". He could, I joke around, he could tell you what he went to the grocery store to buy and you'd be so inspired to do the same thing. He was just a natural leader. Jack Neumar was an extraordinary mind also.

Jeremy (15:19.172)
Ah, oh.

Paul O'Reilly (15:26.55)
But he was a walk-on at Notre Dame, on the basketball team, he was an athletic guy, man's man, and again, really helped form the program. Mark Berquist, as I again said, really figured out how the parts of the program should fit together. And Peter DeLuca, again, put together a plan so that we could somehow do something that's very hard to do, which is layman, not a diocese, not a religious order.

but layman getting together and starting a Catholic school. It was a remarkable venture of faith. And I think, listen, here we are a little over 50 years afterwards, and now we have a second campus on the East Coast. We're expanding. The numbers look very good on the East Coast. So thanks be to God for those men, because without them, I don't think we would have had the Renaissance that we're having now in Catholic education.

Jeremy (16:23.166)
And this concept at the time was so, it was the exact opposite direction every other institution was going, where they're rolling.

Jeremy (16:34.126)
cutting back on any kind of a serious core curriculum. In TAC, he says that we're gonna have one major and we're gonna deep dive into the greatest texts that have been most influential in driving and changing and developing the Western tradition in driving history. And I gotta tell you, we employed John Paul Thoreau here at CLT, he is a...

Paul O'Reilly (16:58.235)
Oh yeah, he's a good guy.

Jeremy (16:59.894)
I wonder what year John Paul graduated. I don't know, I'm guessing probably 2016, probably around there, maybe a little earlier actually, maybe 2012 or so. But I've met a number of TAC undergrads and they're incredible. And that's why I would say for years before ever going to campus, it's my favorite college that I've never been to. I knew the curriculum and I knew graduates. And it was across the board every time.

like, oh, wow, you're basically one of the most thoughtful people I've ever had a conversation with. It's incredible what has developed. Talk about the kind of the seminar class style. I went and I sat in on classes. All of the men are wearing ties or blazers. They're dressed very nice. It's very kind of dignified, the whole experience is. But this idea, you're not doing lectures. How did that develop? And you've maintained that as well.

Paul O'Reilly (17:56.854)
We do. Now, we also have a lecture program. Every second Friday, we bring in lectures because we think that's important for the people, for our students to hear a kind of worked out, sustained position. But you're right. Day in and day out, the natural method is sometimes described as discussion or Socratic method. And that works only if the students are prepared beforehand. So they get it, they get a text. The texts are the great books.

So they might get, so for example, I'm teaching a seminar, which is a literature course this year, and we're reading Aeschylus, Agamemnon. The kids have to read that beforehand, and then we go in as tutors, and we ask an opening question, and they start figuring out how to understand this play, working collaboratively, that is easy for me to say, working together in a way that's,

thoughtful but it's we demand as tutors that the students hold themselves accountable to the text so they have to read the text beforehand and they can't just simply express their feelings about it but root their comments their considerations in the text itself so one way to think about it is we say at thomas quince college that the principal teachers are the authors of the great books

Paul O'Reilly (19:24.17)
It's even in some way Descartes or Hegel that they take a position. You may not agree with where it goes, but you understand what it is first before you see what the implications of that position are. And as a result, the students are active in their own learning, and that's what I think is really important. They can agree and disagree in a kind of a professional, courteous way, but they have to have...

some substance to found both their agreement and their disagreement. It can't be simply expressing their feelings, but an understanding of the text that they've read together. And that formation does, just as you say, Jeremy, it produces graduates that are thoughtful, that are well considered, that are adaptive in their thinking. And I think it makes for a very impressive alumni group.

Jeremy (20:06.702)
Mm-hmm.

Paul O'Reilly (20:17.302)
You know, my wife is also a graduate of the college. We have 12 children. Six of them are alums. We still have a few more to go. And I see it in them. I see it in their lives, in their conversations over the dinner table. Serious, principled, and really wanting to do what is right and think about what is right. And that's really impactful.

Jeremy (20:17.762)
Yeah.

Thanks.

Jeremy (20:44.022)
Yeah, what are you currently teaching? I know all of the tutors, and you call them tutors, right? Not professors.

Paul O'Reilly (20:48.931)
Yeah, tutors just because we're guides, the principal teachers are the authors of the

Jeremy (20:51.722)
Yes, okay. What are your courses right now? Because in addition to being president, you have one or two as well.

Paul O'Reilly (20:57.366)
One, I'm required, there's a couple things about TSC's kind of the way that we organize our administrative structure, but the president is required, one, to be taken from the faculty, so we do not hire from outside, and secondly, must teach one class as he is present. So this year, I'm teaching what's called Freshman Seminar.

which is the great works, the Greek great works, starting with the Iliad and the Odyssey, and ultimately will go up to Plato's Republic.

Jeremy (21:33.778)
Okay, okay. And in this great list of reading lists at Thomas Aquinas College, is there one that has impacted you the most that you just love to teach more than anything else?

Paul O'Reilly (21:44.798)
Yeah, there are a couple, but in sophomore philosophy, we read Aristotle's, the Dei Anima on the soul. And I think that's remarkable, especially as a Christian, because you see the pagan insight into the soul and what makes the principle of life, the soul, what it is, and what makes an animal distinct from a plant and a human being distinct from an animal.

and that he argues, for example, in there that the principle of life cannot be bodily. So it's a fundamental criticism of basic materialism. I find that very compelling. And he talks about then sensation and knowing. Again, all as a pagan.

but deep philosophic insights. That's a favorite class of mine. And then St. Thomas. You can't be a Thomist without loving St. Thomas. St. Thomas's treatment of the sacraments, for example, are extraordinarily helpful or the incarnation. We do those senior years. So those are two of my favorite classes.

Jeremy (22:53.054)
And then tell us about the East Coast Campus. I was actually there. I'd never been to this before, President Riley, I guess a dedication or a consecration of a new space. It was a three hour mass. I'm a convert to Catholicism. The maybe the most beautiful mass I've ever been to and I've been to Sagrada Familia and some amazing places. It was incredible. So tell us about the East Coast Campus and I understand my dear friend, John Daly.

Paul O'Reilly (23:04.894)
Yeah, wasn't that something? Yeah.

Jeremy (23:20.414)
was very involved in the launching of this new campus.

Paul O'Reilly (23:23.518)
He was. John Daley, quite frankly, was a pest. But John, he would not let me forget the fact that there was this East Coast campus that was available, and he thought we should at least apply for it. Now, it was interesting because this was, the Hobby Lobby folks, the Green family, had purchased the campus. They had renovated the campus, and they've done this in several places throughout the states.

Jeremy (23:28.278)
Yeah.

Paul O'Reilly (23:50.782)
and then they gifted to a Christian ministry. So they have a competitive process that was monitored by the National Christian Foundation, evangelical Protestants, really good people. We worked very closely with Emmett Mitchell and others. And we were the only Catholic organization that applied. And to their credit, they took us very seriously. We had some very enjoyable moments. I remember Emmett.

one said, this is a great collaboration between Catholics and Christians. And we said, hey, Emmett, you know, we are Christians, you know. But it was a learning experience for us both. To their credit, the National Christian Foundation wanted to do their due diligence. They wanted to make sure that we could represent the legacy that we would adopt should we get the campus.

Jeremy (24:26.562)
Hahaha

Paul O'Reilly (24:45.91)
which is D.L. Moody, that's where he was born, that's where he died. He had two schools, a school for girls and a school for boys across the river. Beautiful campus. And the problem is when you give something away, a lot of people are interested. So there's 180 institutions that had applied over the years. But eventually we were moving up in the order of...

Jeremy (24:49.562)
Hmm.

Paul O'Reilly (25:13.378)
those who might be considered. And finally they came out to our campus in California and they loved the students. The students sold it to them. They saw what I saw back in 1980, the piety, the seriousness of the kids. And they thought we were doing something right. And so they gifted us the campus. So we got the campus when we had waiting lists in California of students who were eager and qualified to do our program and we couldn't accept.

So it's just a beautiful providential moment.

Jeremy (25:46.418)
And I've heard this for years as well. I was a college counselor when I started CLT and we'd sent kids to TAC, but the understanding as a college counselor was that you wanted to encourage families to apply early because there's always a waiting list at TAC. But this allowed you to have, to take more of those students off of the waiting list and allow them an opportunity to maybe even go a little closer to home as well. President Riley, I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about this summer.

We've got a lot of families, even some listening to this podcast, where they may have, you know, ninth or tenth graders. Is it a two-week program and what do students do here?

Paul O'Reilly (26:25.61)
Yeah, the one thing we ask of our children, I have 12 kids as I mentioned, and you have to be careful. You don't want to just encourage them to go to Thomas Quine's College if it's not the right fit for them. So we asked them all to attend the high school program to see what the college has to offer from the inside. So for two weeks, though next year we're also going to offer a one week program. But

generally for two weeks you can sit in on class, you can be a part of the class, a part of the community, you can go to mass, you can take part in all the various other offerings that the summer program opens up for these kids. Meet really good young people of your same age. So you usually, you have to be a rising senior in high school, so you've just finished grade 11.

And it's a really, it's a fun program, but it's a serious program. And if it's right for you, it'll become very clear. It's right to you, right for you. If it's not, that also will become clear, but you will not regret having done it. It's, it's a really good experience. So it's been excellent for the college as a result of that program. We've gotten even more kids interested in applying to TAC. 50% of the people who come to the high school program.

apply and are accepted into the regular program. So it's been great for us. And it's interesting because one of the things I was a little concerned about is, Thomas Quine's College, we've got a very close knit community and our alums love what they experienced when they went to TAC and so they want that for their children. But you're worried that it will become so inbred that there's not new blood constantly flowing through the veins of the community.

Jeremy (28:13.486)
Hmm.

Paul O'Reilly (28:14.378)
program allows for that because people are willing to dip their toes in the water and see what it's like whether or not they're part of the wider community and so it's brought more people into to our community and made us better and stronger as a result so it's great they go to class they have fun they they're allowed to attend mass if they're so inclined but they meet really good people that have more or less the same

basic principles in common, and that's very formative for young people.

Jeremy (28:50.23)
You know, one of the stories I just love and I wanted to share with our audience as well, someone you, a name you may recognize as well, Michael Bors, who's a dear family friend. And, you know, Michael spent a couple of years, I believe, at George Mason, did all of freshman and sophomore year and was having, you know, he's an intellectual, he's a natural intellectual, and asking really, really deep questions about the faith and ended up deciding to go to Thomas Aquinas.

You can't transfer credits in, so he was starting fresh again. But by his junior year, he came back into the church more passionate and grounded than ever before. And talking to Michael about it, it would not have been possible apart from the community, but it was both. It was getting into the hardest questions people can ask about God and faith and Catholicism, but then also seeing the love.

of this community that brought Michael back in. And I think those, as I understand it, those kind of stories are very common.

Paul O'Reilly (29:51.362)
They are. And even if it doesn't involve a conversion moment, it's a deepening of one's faith. We've had some students who didn't convert came through as some version of Protestant or even non-believer. And then later, in one way or another, come closer to Christ, whether they come to the church or not.

And those are beautiful stories. You see the impact that it has, sometimes a lingering impact. We believe firmly that the Holy Spirit is active and all you have to do is make the soil fertile and He'll plant the seed.

Jeremy (30:31.086)
Well, again, we're here with President Paul O'Reilly, President of Thomas Aquinas College in California. President O'Reilly, next steps for families if they're considering TAC. I would imagine now is kind of the time to get applications in, is that right?

Paul O'Reilly (30:47.582)
Yeah, we do. And, you know, we do have rolling admissions, so there's no drop deadline date, but I think parents want, I know parents want what's best for their children. And the best thing I would recommend, either the high school program, though that's a commitment of time, and it's not too expensive, but it involves some money. But visit. I don't know what your experience is, but Thomas Quince Collins has got, we're an open book.

You are welcome to sit in our class. We have nothing to hide. You'll either like what you see or you'll say it's not for me. You will not be disappointed. You may say it's not for me, but we have really dedicated faculty, really wonderful students. If you sit in, you'll either be moved to say, this is what I wanna do, or this is great, but it's not for me. I think a visit to the campus is really, really helpful.

Jeremy (31:44.862)
Yeah, and I went with very high expectations and I was so absolutely blown away. I mean, the beauty of the campus, and if you're listening to this now, you gotta Google image at least, Thomas Aquinas College in California. It's absolutely stunning. I hear there's a story of Anthony Hopkins, I believe, who's driving in California, and he just stops. Like, what is this place? And this place is...

Paul O'Reilly (32:08.215)
Yeah.

Jeremy (32:09.282)
Thomas Aquinas College, you're combining that with the beauty of the faith in so many ways. Again, President Paul O'Reilly, thank you for being with us. I'd love to have you back on in the future.

Paul O'Reilly (32:21.338)
It was my pleasure. Thank you very much, Jeremy.