Aquinas College focusing on ‘what we do best’ to shape its future

September 7, 2018

by Andy Telli, Tennessee Register

📷Bishop J. Mark Spalding celebrated a Mass of the Holy Spirit on Tuesday, Aug. 28, to mark the start of a new academic year at Aquinas College. Sister Mary Agnes Greiffendorf, O.P., the president of the college, made a Profession of Faith and an Oath of Fidelity during the Mass. Sister Mary Agnes reads the Oath as Bishop Spalding looks on. Photo by Andy Telli

As Aquinas College enters the second academic year since it unveiled a major reorganization of the college in the spring of 2017, the school’s leaders are focusing their efforts on what the school does best: preparing teachers for Catholic schools.

Besides giving its students the tools to be effective in the classroom, Aquinas can help students and current teachers grow in their own faith and bring that faith to their students, said Aquinas President Sister Mary Agnes Greiffendorf, O.P.

“That’s why we came to Nashville,” Sister Mary Agnes said of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, who own and operate Aquinas College and who came to the city in 1860 to open St. Cecilia Academy, a school for girls that is still thriving.

“That work of teaching flows from our Dominican charism and apostolate as Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia,” Sister Mary Agnes said.

In the spring of 2017, the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia announced a reorganization of Aquinas that included eliminating its nursing and business degree programs to focus solely on its education programs. As part of the reorganization, about 60 faculty and staff lost their jobs.

“Obviously that was a difficult thing to do,” said Sister Mary Agnes. It was a decision made “after much prayer and discernment,” she added.

“Any time there’s change, it’s difficult, especially when we’re dealing with a 50-year history as an institution with a large number of programs and a large number of ways to respond to the needs of the community,” Sister Mary Agnes said. “We’re talking about impacting people’s lives. That has been a difficulty.”

After the reorganization, Aquinas now offers seven undergraduate degrees: aa bachelor of science degree in interdisciplinary studies, which will lead to licensure to teach kindergarten through fifth grade; a bachelor of science degree in English, which will lead to licensure to teach in grades six through 12; a bachelor of science degree in history, which will lead to licensure to teach in grades six through 12; a bachelor of arts degree in English; a bachelor of arts degree in history; a bachelor of arts degree in theology; and a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy.

New cohorts of students are not being admitted to the theology and philosophy degree programs while the school evaluates whether to continue offering degrees in those subjects, Sister Mary Agnes said. 

Aquinas also offers three graduate programs: a master of education for those who already have a teaching license; two master of arts in teaching degrees, one leading to licensure to teach at the elementary school level and the other leading to licensure to teach at the secondary school level.

Both of the master of arts in teaching degrees are for people who have an undergraduate degree in a discipline outside education but who would like to pursue a career in teaching, Sister Mary Agnes said. 

The college’s student body is primarily Dominican sisters preparing for the community’s teaching apostolate, Sister Mary Agnes said. Of the school’s 70 students, about 60 are Dominican sisters.

“Since the majority of sisters come to the community with a degree already, a majority go into our master’s program,” Sister Mary Agnes said. 

The theology and philosophy degrees are being evaluated because currently they don’t offer enough classes to complete degree requirements, although theology and philosophy courses will continue to be offered as part of the other requirement programs.

The lay students are split among those who are already teaching and are seeking a master’s degree and those who are looking to teach as a career change, Sister Mary Agnes said.

“The master’s programs classes are in the evening so they’re accessible to those working in the day,” she said.

Aquinas is looking at how it can make its degree programs more accessible to a lay audience, particularly for graduate degrees or certification programs in the mission and identity of Catholic schools, Sister Mary Agnes said.

To help chart the future of the college, it started a strategic planning process last September.

The planning included an extensive survey of bishops, school superintendents and principals in the more than 30 dioceses around the world where the Dominicans serve to ask what are the needs for Catholic education and evangelization in their diocese. They also surveyed principals in the Diocese of Nashville and national leaders in Catholic education and evangelization. 

“We got a lot of answers,” Sister Mary Agnes said.

“The number one thing that came through was a desire for help with faith formation of teachers and administrators in Catholic schools, to help them understand the nature and mission of Catholic education and to be able to reinvigorate Catholic schools through a deeper experience of their relationship with Christ that they are able to bring to their students,” she said.

To meet that need, Aquinas hopes to provide more professional development and faith formation workshops, conferences and retreats through the college’s Center for Catholic Education and Center for Evangelization and Catechesis, Sister Mary Agnes said.

Aquinas’ centers and School of Education already offers those kinds of programs but would like to do more, either on its campus or traveling to groups of Catholic educators.

“We are happy to develop professional development or faith formation talks, workshops, conferences and tailor them to individual schools,” Sister Mary Agnes said.

The college also can use its Siena Hall, a former dormitory opened only months before the reorganization of the school was announced, to host conferences, workshops and retreats on campus, she said.

Siena Hall can accommodate up to 94 overnight guests, Sister Mary Agnes said. The conferences that have been held there so far have been for about 30 people, so there is room for them to be larger, she added.

Aquinas’ leaders hope to complete its new strategic plan this fall and begin implementing it in January 2019.

With the strategic plan, Aquinas is trying “to put all our focus on what we do best: responding to local needs and the needs of the Church,” Sister Mary Agnes said.

A life-long learner

Sister Mary Agnes entered the Dominican community in 1997. She has served as a teacher and principal at schools in Nashville, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Providence, Rhode Island.

She graduated from Aquinas with a bachelor’s degree in teacher education. She also holds a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s in religious studies from Providence College. Currently, she is a doctrinal candidate in Catholic Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program at Catholic University of America. 

Before becoming president of Aquinas College in May 2017, she served as the Director of Education for the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. In that position, she provided support for all the sisters who serve as teachers and administrators in the schools where the Dominicans serve. Those responsibilities included overseeing the ongoing education of the sisters at Aquinas and the continuing formation for the sisters after they earn their degree from Aquinas, Sister Mary Agnes said.

“As Dominicans we’re life-long learners, so we’re always studying,” she said.

“It’s a nice natural segue coming from being that director of education and attending to sisters’ ongoing education to be here at the place they receive their initial education,” Sister Mary Agnes said. “We navigated that by the grace of God and the prayers of many and the goodness of our faculty and staff and the community here in Nashville.”