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Center for Thomistic Studies Students Earn Accolades
12/7/2010
The University of St. Thomas Center for Thomistic Studies, nationally acclaimed as the only graduate program in the United States centering on the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, can add two more accolades to its impressive record. Most recently two graduate students, Daniel De Haan and Sr. Anne Frances Ai Le, OP, have received prestigious awards from prominent philosophical associations.
 Daniel De Haan was awarded the American Catholic Philosophical Association Young Scholar’s Award for his paper, “Linguistic Apprehension as Incidental Sensation in Thomas Aquinas.” The award is open to any scholar under the age of 35. He was competing with advanced scholars who have already completed their graduate and doctoral degrees. His paper will be published in a peer-reviewed publication, Proceedings, from the ACPA Conference. De Haan credits the Center for Thomistic studies for his increased interest in Thomas Aquinas’s philosophical anthropology and metaphysics.
“I came to the Center for Thomistic Studies because I wanted to study Thomistic philosophy and this is the only graduate program of philosophy in North America that specializes in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas,” De Haan said. “It has been primarily through my courses with Dr. Edward Houser, professor of philosophy, and his colleagues that I have brought into further focus my interest in Thomistic philosophy.”
De Haan received a Master of Arts in philosophy from UST in May 2010, and is now in the doctoral program. He intends to write his dissertation on the doctrine of being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Shifâ' to explore the differences between the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas and his Muslim predecessor. After the completion of his dissertation, he intends to teach philosophy and continue research on Thomistic and medieval philosophy.
 Sr. Anne Frances Ai Le, OP, was recognized for her outstanding philosophical research by the American Maritain Association and was given the Yves R. Simon Award for her outstanding graduate student paper, “Contemplata aliis trader: The Universal Call to Contemplation and Its Implications.” Sr. Anne Frances has been attending St. Thomas intermittently since 1998. She received a bachelor’s degree in theology with a minor in philosophy in December 2002, and returned to the Center of Thomistic Studies where she received a Master of Arts in philosophy in 2007. She is currently working on a doctorate in philosophy.
“The Center for Thomistic Studies has been greatly instrumental to my academic pursuits by providing me with rigorous intellectual experiences and formation,” said Sr. Anne Frances. “The Center’s program, with its accomplished and diverse faculty, has definitely expanded my intellectual horizons and appreciation of the whole of reality.”
In addition to their award winning students, the Center for Thomistic Studies boasts of a prestigious faculty with degrees from Oxford, Duke, Notre Dame and the University of Toronto’s Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies among others. Since the fall of 2009, they have published six books, 37 articles, given 30 papers, and been invited to lecture abroad in Chile, the Philippines, Lithuania, France, Germany, and Romania. They currently have 35 students.
The Center for Thomistic Studies was a joint venture between Fr. Victor Brezik, CSB, who wanted to rekindle interest in Thomas Aquinas, and Hugh Roy Marshall, who thought the Thomistic philosophy he studied at University of St. Thomas “made sense” in a way nothing else had. In 1975, they approached Fr. Patrick Braden, then president of the University of St. Thomas, with their ambitions plan for a doctoral program and in the fall of 1980, the first classes in the new program were held.
After more than 25 years, the Center for Thomistic Studies is still thriving. The Center offers courses in all periods in the history of philosophy, but distinctive of the Center’s courses is the way in which they seek to maintain a dialogue between the thought of Aquinas and the thinking of major philosophers from a variety of philosophical traditions. Driving these inquiries is a thirst for the truth, for the reality of both nature and supernature, which culminates in a unified understanding known as wisdom.
For more information on the Center for Thomistic Studies, contact Dr. Mary Catherine Sommers at 713-942-5048 or sommers@stthom.edu.
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