School’s in for Jeffrey Nelson. On Sept. 1, the former senior vice president at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in , , took office as the second president of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in
Nelson brings a Renaissance-man background to this small but faithful Catholic college founded in 1978. Along with his work in , he also co-edited American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, co-founded the for Cultural Renewal in , and served as a board member of the Seton Hall-based G. K. Chesterton Institute for the Study of Faith and Culture.
Before moving with his wife Cecilia and their three young children from the Mid-Atlantic region to northern , Nelson talked with Register staff writer Joseph Pronechen.
What are your first thoughts as you settle into your new work?
I do feel called in many ways. God has prepared me for this through the various experiences of my life. It’s an honor and privilege to lead such a liberal arts college, to strengthen it and to position Thomas More as a leader in liberal arts education in .
I have spent most of my adult life working to renew the higher purposes of higher education, with a particular vocation to invigorating the Catholic liberal arts tradition.
Whether in school, politics, writing and publishing, marketing, development, or in my years with ISI, this has been the common thread: to explore ideas — first principles — for the sake of the individual and, through their actions in the world, for the health of our culture, Church and polity.
What is your educational background?
I went to a Catholic college, the , as an undergraduate. At the time, I felt disconnected from my faith. It was through an economics professor there that I found my way back to my faith and connected with writers of the Anglo-Catholic literary tradition, Chesterton and Cardinal Newman, chief among them. That encounter fired up my faith, my imagination and my intellectual commitment to the Catholic faith, which then led to a deeper spiritual engagement through reading and studying the Carmelite tradition, from Teresa of Avila to others.
What will be your initial priorities?
One of the goals the board of directors has set for me is to build the college to approximately 400 students. (Current enrollment is around 100.)
Thomas More has traditionally been what Time magazine rightly referred to as a micro college. While we’re micro in scale, we’re macro in orientation because we’re Catholic and a liberal arts college engaging the universal, timeless tradition in the West and of our fathers, and we’re doing it in a way that forms the whole person intellectually and spiritually.
These kinds of colleges are the future, I think. I’ve been in the education business the last 15 years and I know the problems of higher education. I’m convinced more and more that the smaller-scale college, very vigorous and directive, is the way.
We need to bring back the college model of really preparing and equipping young Catholics with this universal, catholic, whole education for life and culture in the 21st century. We have to be working with them to develop leadership skills and appreciate the various culture and language skills so they can take their place as leaders. That has to be done on a smaller scale.
What inspiration do you find in the college’s namesake?
Thomas More is the perfect patron for our time. He was a humanist anchored in the patristic tradition and believed very strongly in the centrality … of a liberal arts education as conceived in the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) as crucial for forming society’s leaders. That seems to be the mission of the Catholic colleges now — to renew and restore their own tradition of education within the context represented wonderfully by Thomas More and his time.
Thomas More is the hinge. For Catholic educators, he is a man for every season — literary stylist, apologist, a leader of state, a devoted and integrated Christian, a wonderful family man, and such a happy and funny guy. I think a Catholic college should exude joy. I want our graduates to be humble and joyful and equipped to be able to have a skill set that allows them to realize success in whatever vocation God has chosen for them.
God became man, he died for us, and he promised he will always be with us. There is no dark night for us. We carry the light out from and bring it out to the world. Thomas More is a great model there, too, in developing that kind of joyful stance. I very much want to be one Thomas More himself would recognize and appreciate and recommend.
What’s your vision for the college’s proposed Chapel of the Martyrs?
The college draws students from all around the country, from to , and particularly along the Atlantic seaboard. Conceiving of in its fullness is important. The chapel and the emphasis on all the North American martyrs will engage them in a living past and be a wonderful source of spiritual energy for the college.
I think that looking at the North American martyrs as people who prepared the way for us to be Christians in this part of the world is important for students to connect with as we move forward.
This special chapel is part of our larger strategic plan and it will be adjusted to our numerical goals. We do have the plans and a wonderful Catholic architect, but we’re taking a pause to reconsider our needs in light of our goals. We don’t want to build a chapel that’s too small.
What is the college’s stance toward Pope John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae (on Catholic Universities) and the mandatum?
Thomas More gave his life for the integrity of the magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church, and the absolute need of such an authority in temporal as well as spiritual realms. With the example of our patron before us, we joyfully submit to the Church’s instruction in Ex Corde Ecclesiae and other like documents.