CNA Staff, Aug 30, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Thomas Aquinas College has been ranked by the Princeton Review as having the most conservative collegiate student body in the country.
The Princeton Review selects 390 top colleges each year and then ranks them according to different categories based on student responses to surveys.
According to student responses, Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), a small Catholic liberal arts college in southern California, ranked No. 1 in “most conservative students.” Other Catholic schools that ranked in the same category included University of Dallas (UD) at No. 6 and Assumption University, an Augustinian liberal arts school in Massachusetts, which ranked No. 20.
TAC is known for its Socratic, discussion-based approach to education where all students major in the liberal arts. TAC doesn’t have desks in classrooms, and students call faculty “tutors,” not “professors.”
TAC also maintains a dress code, requiring women to wear skirts or dresses during the class day and at other events, while men are required to wear slacks and collared shirts.
The Princeton Review surveys more than 160,000 U.S. undergraduate students at “the Best 390 Colleges” for their various rankings, according to its website.
For the “most conservative” ranking, the Princeton Review asked students in a survey to answer if they were politically “far-left, Democrat, nonpartisan, Republican, or far-right.”
But students’ conservative values are closely tied to religiosity at TAC, according to Christopher Weinkopf, executive director of college relations at TAC.
“Because TAC students are serious about their faith, they care deeply about the unborn and hold countercultural views on a number of social issues that qualify as conservative in contemporary political parlance,” Weinkopf noted. “But contemporary politics are absent from our classical curriculum, which aims at eternal truths that transcend all politics.”
“Our students seek to uphold the Church’s intellectual tradition and moral teachings, which is conservative in the truest sense of the word,” Weinkopf added.
Several Catholic colleges also ranked high in the “most religious students” category — TAC included. TAC ranked No. 5, UD ranked No. 10, and The Catholic University of America ranked No. 14 based on student surveys.
TAC’s campus in Santa Paula, California, features a large chapel, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel, where Mass is celebrated several times a day. TAC also has a campus in Northfield, Massachusetts.
“Our founders were determined that, at Thomas Aquinas College, the Catholic faith would not be merely an adornment on an otherwise secular education but would be at the heart of all that we do,” Weinkopf noted.
Weinkopf said TAC’s curriculum “draws on all the major disciplines — especially mathematics, natural science, and philosophy — in the service of theology, the study of God.”
“Our chaplains offer Mass four times daily, with confessions before and after, plus regular nightly rosary and other devotions,” he noted. “And our campus rules of residence are designed to promote Christian virtue.”
On UD’s campus, the Church of the Incarnation hosts Mass at least twice a day and is adjacent to the Cistercian Abbey. The Catholic University of America, for its part, has five chapels throughout campus, including a 24-hour chapel, and Mass is celebrated several times a day.
Both UD and TAC also have distinctly happy students, according to the Princeton Review: UD ranked No. 4 in “happiest students,” while TAC ranked No. 5. TAC also ranked No. 13 in “friendliest students.”
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
They lost me when they said that women have to wear dresses. No deal.
I’m 67, and I stopped wearing dresses when my middle school women’s dean (a woman) announced that girls no longer had to wear skirts, jumpers, or dresses to school. I think a lot of this was because the style back then was the micro-mini skirt, which meant that a girl walking up the three flights of stairs gave the boys a show, unless she was wearing shorts under her skirt.
Wearing slacks made so much sense, as I and my friends chose not to ride the overcrowded buses (baby boomer generation) and just walk home so we wouldn’t keep catching colds! The walk was 2 miles for me, and much of the Northern winter meant cold temps and several inches of snow on the ground. Slacks were a BLESSING, and I never wore anything else to middle school, high school, or college again. I also ditched the odious “panty hose,” which thankfully have been replaced in this day and age with comfortable leggings (which apparently some conservative types criticize for various reasons-no surprise.)
I no longer own any dresses. I have two different sized feet due to corrective surgeries, and both are size 12. I cannot find “panty hose” or “tights” that fit, nor “dress” shoes that fit me and that don’t look dreadful, so I wear socks and tennis shoes with everything I wear–good supportive tennis shoes as I attempt to maintain the corrections that were made during the surgeries.
I cannot believe that women still wear ridiculous and often dangerous shoes (e.g., high heels, platform sandals, flip flips, crocs, etc.) just because they are “cute”, even though they hurt like heck and are the cause of not only foot pain, bunions, callouses, etc., but also back pain, and sometimes, falls and other injuries. That’s just stupid, in my opinion. (The beautiful famous model, Cybil Shepherd, refused to wear heels other than in photo shoots, and the instant the session was over, she donned flats or athletic shoes.)
I wear slacks or jeans everywhere, paired with either t-shirts for casual, or pretty sweaters for dressy occasions like Mass.
Slacks are so much more practical for women, and anyone who thinks that I look/act like a man in my slacks–well, they need to get glasses!
What exactly IS “feminine clothing?” Take a look back through history at all the awful, unhealthy, and at times, just plain dangerous clothing that “decent” women used to have to wear–or else! And take a look at some of the foppish clothing that men used to wear (ruffles? really?!)
Clothing should be decent in cut (not suggestive), and appropriate for the temperature and weather conditions. And that’s all it needs to be. Some women want clothing to be “pretty”–well, that’s fine, but everyone’s definition of “pretty” is different.
My daughters choose to wear dresses much of the time, and that’s just fine with me! To each their own choice, again, as long as it is decent, appropriate for the weather, and non-suggestive.
And…sadly, some men find almost ANYTHING that a woman wears, even a prairie dress that covers her neck down to her toes, to be “suggestive.” These men need to learn self-control and stop blaming women for their own lack of it.