From Italian Night to dance lessons, Mount Cardigan to the Crane Estate, another year of Great Books Summer Programs are “in the books”!
Thomas More College hosts two Summer Programs each year: the first dedicated to preparing a debate on a particular topic; the second to staging a Shakespearian play. The participants for each of this year’s programs came to campus excited and ready to learn. Admissions Officer Elizabeth Ingram ’22, who participated as a high school student, remarked, “I was surprised by the energy and enthusiasm of the campers in both programs. They reminded me so much of our student body!” She continued, “Whether it was about the activities or the classes and readings, these groups were always excited and ready for everything. They would have impromptu dance lessons and do readings aloud as a group, and several would chat with the professors after class. These participants really showed an eagerness to learn and to engage in the Thomas More setting.”
In this year’s debate, coached by Mr. Zach Harned, the participants in Great Books I considered the question of whether the government should be concerned with present or future problems. Meanwhile, they dove into Plato’s Gorgias with Dr. Michael Dominic Taylor and Orwell’s Animal Farm with Mr. Clarke Mitchell. Great Books II, on the other hand, was spent studying Thomas More’s Utopia with Dr. Fred Fraser and Machiavelli’s The Prince with Dr. Denis Kitzinger. It closed with a magnificent production of The Tempest under the direction of Mr. Benjamin Wassell ’23. For Mrs. Ingram, “The highlight for me, as is every summer, was the Shakespeare play—but especially this year, because the campers performed the abridged version of The Tempest by Jonathan Wanner ’14, which was the play my Summer Program had performed back in 2017. It was exciting for me to watch an entirely different group perform the same play we had.”
Attending a Great Books Summer Program is a great choice for high school students. According to Senior Admissions Officer Michael Yost ’18, “The Great Books Summer Programs do many things. They allow intelligent, vibrant people to meet and make abiding friendships, and they introduce high schoolers to a wide range of exciting experiences: from hiking in the White Mountains, to exploring the city of Boston, to performing and debating with their peers. There is a generous scholarship attached for applicants to Thomas More that have attended the Summer Programs.” Mr. Yost continued, “However, the most important thing they do is give each student a brief taste of what a truly rigorous intellectual life might look like, lived in community. I heartily encourage any student who wants to live an intellectual life with like-minded, Christian people to attend the Summer Programs and discover what makes Thomas More College of Liberal Arts stand out from other institutions.”
For further reading:
The TMC Great Books Programs:A Collegiate Summer Program Unlike Any Other
