“Ladies and Gentlemen, please charge your glasses and be upstanding. I would like to toast the next president of Thomas More College: Dr. Matthew Walz.”
With these words, and hearty cries of “Hear, hear!” President William Fahey introduced the president-elect to the student body at dinner on Monday evening (with Spanish cava and American cider). President Fahey believed it was important to start the new presidency in such a way. “When I was appointed President, then-Chairman Pat Monaghan marched me over to the dining hall and amidst the student body and a few faculty members, and with a few simple words, my presidency was announced. I thought the students again should be given this role of first to hear the words ‘President Walz.’ The president guards and advances the mission; the mission is for the sake of the students. They have a kind of privilege that should not be neglected.”
Dean Denis Kitzinger was among the faculty to witness the announcement. “Dr. Walz’s appointment as the next president of Thomas More College fills me with gratitude and with joyful anticipation for the common work ahead of us. He is devoted to our mission and has a great love for our community of learners, especially for our students. I cannot think of a more fitting choice. Gaudeamus igitur!”
Who is Matthew Walz, the fourth president of Thomas More College?
Chairman Michael Gilleran summarized the President-Elect as follows: “Dr. Matthew Walz is a scholar and teacher who has already lived and worked among us for some time as the St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair of Catholic Studies. He has a record of devotion to the Catholic faith, wide scholarship, and a commitment to the Catholic Newman Guide Colleges’ form of education. Dr. Walz is currently a Professor at the University of Dallas and Director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Texas; he is also a distinguished author of many works of Catholic scholarship and learning, including Thomas Aquinas on the Human Will and Freedom. He received his PhD from the Catholic University of America. His accession to the presidency is a natural progression for him and TMC.” A perfect summary, but Matthew Walz is much more.
“I have known Dr. Walz for about three decades,” reflected Dr. Fahey. “We were Salvatori Fellows in Washington, D.C. many moons ago, when both of us were still graduate students. I immediately took a liking to him. There were certain natural bonds: we both had family history in the northeast, and both grew up in the same part of Ohio. Maybe that had something to do with it. I know it was the fact that after seminars we delighted in continuing our conversation, ranging widely, laughing at the follies of the world and ourselves. Matt was gentle, thoughtful, and also a little impish, briming with Catholic mirth—then and now.”
In the Spring of last year, President Fahey invited Dr. Walz to serve as the College’s St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair of Catholic Studies for the 2025–2026 academic year. With a sabbatical on the horizon, Dr. Walz happily accepted the invitation. At the time, of course, neither knew that almost exactly a year later the College’s Board of Trustees would offer this year’s Newman Chair another invitation: to serve as President of the College.
“I was honored to accept the Newman Chair a year ago,” said President-Elect Walz. “It was an opportunity to participate in the academic and social life of Thomas More College, to familiarize myself with this unique and hospitable academic community. I’m honored even more that the Board has now asked me to exercise stewardship over the College as its President, which I hope and pray to undertake in the same spirit of friendship, joy, and faith with which I’ve been welcomed this year.”
Over the years, through long-standing friendships and visits to campus, President-Elect Walz had already come to know, as he put it, “just how singular a community of learning Thomas More College is.” This year, though, has allowed him to see this up close. “As the Newman Chair,” he said, “I’ve witnessed firsthand how well Thomas More College educates young men and women by means of its integrated Catholic liberal-arts curriculum, nurturing in their souls a life of learning driven by the innate human desire for truth and illumined by the light of divine faith. TMC ensures that its students undertake this challenging education in a fitting environment, within the friendship-suffused context of a tight-knit, joy-filled community shaped by the Church’s liturgy, nourished by her sacraments, and enlivened by the students’ own ebullience and creativity. First and foremost, then, my task as President is to maintain the excellence of what the College has done and will continue to do educationally and formationally. I will also strive to guide the College toward the full flowering of its potential—and there is so much potential here! I believe that my own upbringing and formal education, combined with years of experience as a teacher, scholar, administrator, and seminary faculty member at various Catholic institutions, have equipped me well to embrace these obligations, and I want to put myself at the service of this unique College here in beautiful southern New Hampshire.”
Paul Jackson, the Executive Vice President of the College, has known and worked with Dr. Walz for nearly twenty years. Mr. Jackson and the late Dr. Patrick Powers (who taught at the College from 2011 to 2022) held the Fides et Ratio Seminars at Thomas More College annually, at which Dr. Walz served as a moderator. When asked about the appointment, Mr. Jackson said, “Dr. Walz’s love and knowledge of the Catholic intellectual tradition, coupled with his twenty-five years of teaching and administrative experience, make him the perfect president to lead and continue the work and mission of the College. His appointment emphasizes the institution’s fidelity to its Catholic identity and academic excellence, and promises a bright future for us.”
President-Elect Walz also has a long history of teaching at many of the College’s peer institutions. He will come to Thomas More College after 18 years at the University of Dallas, where he has been teaching in the Philosophy Department at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition, he has served as Chair of the Philosophy Department and Associate Dean of Constantin College. For 13 years, moreover, he has been directing the Philosophy & Letters and Pre-Theology Programs designed for seminarians, while also serving as Director of Intellectual Formation at nearby Holy Trinity Seminary, helping young men to develop their intellectual lives within the context of vocational discernment and priestly formation. In the midst of these tasks, moreover, Dr. Walz became a UD alum himself, earning an MBA from the Gupta College of Business.
Before teaching at UD, Dr. Walz was a Tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California for eight years. He completed graduate studies in the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, earning a doctoral degree by completing a dissertation on human freedom in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. As an undergraduate, he attended Christendom College, double-majoring in philosophy and theology and graduating as valedictorian of the class of 1995. It was there that “the most important event of my life occurred,” remarked Dr. Walz, “meeting a beautiful young woman named Teresa, the love of my life.” They married in 1999 and have been blessed with eight children — two sons and six daughters.
“When I recall the path that has led my family and me to Thomas More College, I have immense gratitude to our merciful Father. I thank him especially for my parents and siblings, who created such a wonderful home in which to grow up. I’m grateful, too, to my undergraduate alma mater, Christendom; to my mentors at CUA’s School of Philosophy; to my friends and colleagues at Thomas Aquinas College who helped me as I began my academic career; to the University of Dallas, where I taught with friends and colleagues who combine superlative teaching with serious and significant scholarship; and to the Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas, which has been our family’s spiritual home for nearly two decades. What I’ve experienced at these wonderful places coheres well with the seriousness, dedication, and esprit de corps so evident among the faculty and staff at Thomas More College. No doubt this is why I have always felt at home when spending time on the TMC campus.”
Walz’s heartfelt commitment to faith and learning inspired the Trustees as they reviewed the finalists. “We saw that Dr. Walz embodies the kind of intellectual and personal leadership that lies at the heart of this College’s mission,” said Trustee Andrew P. Cernota. “It was clear that he is a scholar of genuine depth whose work reflects a profound engagement with the Catholic intellectual tradition. He pairs that seriousness of mind with a warmth and generosity that naturally draws students and colleagues into conversation and community. In its decision, the Board is confident that his scholarship, character, and love of learning will help guide the College into a strong and faithful new chapter.”
Mr. Cernota’s remarks chimed with those of Trustee Michael Mulski: “Even upon meeting Matt Walz for the first time, I came away with the distinct impression that I had been conversing with an old friend—or to use the idiom of the Irish of my generation, ‘one of the lads.’ Matt has an impressive academic background well-suited for TMC. He also holds an MBA. And the fact that he has mentored seminarians makes him uniquely qualified to assist students in their growth in virtue.”
Dr. Walz agreed that his approach to education is profoundly shaped by his work in priestly formation. “It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life,” he said, “to play a small part in the Church’s vital task of priestly formation. I’ve come to see the indispensable role that intellectual maturation plays in a young person’s conscientious discernment of God’s plan for his or her life. While working in the seminary, I was always aware that I was receiving much more than I was ever able to give. I benefited greatly by working with courageous young men who gave themselves over to the demands of priestly formation, but even more by witnessing the authentic spiritual fatherhood of the priest-formators with whom I collaborated.”
Looking ahead, President-Elect Walz is eager to serve as Thomas More College’s new President starting this September. He has spent parts of his visits exploring the region, especially southern New Hampshire: its parishes, historic destinations, and the beautiful landscape. “Our family is excited to move to New England. Besides the joy of joining the TMC community, we will also be significantly closer to our extended family. And, of course, we look forward to enjoying four real seasons in New Hampshire!”
When asked about what he envisions for the future of the College, President-Elect Walz said, “There is, as I mentioned, the ever-present task of supporting the excellent work that the College has done and will continue to do educationally and formationally. This calls for courage and perseverance in inviting others to share in TMC’s core mission: the ever-challenging intellectual and cultural work of educating and forming young Catholic men and women for the good of the Church and the world. Anyone with eyes to see recognizes how indispensable the work of authentic Catholic liberal education is today.”
Dr. Walz firmly believes that the College undertakes this work in a distinctive way: “It offers a fully integrated Catholic, liberal-arts education, and does so on a truly personalized scale. The personalized scale in particular is crucial to TMC’s ongoing success; for it has always been and will continue to be a community in which every student knows every other student, every teacher knows every student, and every student knows every teacher.” Dr. Walz pledged that he is intent on “furnishing a fitting campus home wherein this academic community can thrive, and on making available sufficient scholarship opportunities for any young person who is able and willing to join us in our joyful educational enterprise.”
In reflecting on the months of discernment that the Trustees moved through in seeking a new president, President Fahey remarked, “There were, of course, many concerns about ‘the right fit’ and many qualifications that were being discussed—would we find someone faithful, someone comfortable equally with the classroom, a donor’s dining room, a broker’s office, the chapel, etc.? Would he be a good public speaker, a gentle but firm administrator, an aggressive fundraiser, a diplomatic representative of the College, etc., etc.? At one point, I recall Henry Luthin, the former Secretary of the Board, saying, ‘if only God would apply.’ In my heart, I hoped and prayed for one type of person. It seemed simple. We needed a great-souled man in the mould of Thomas More. We got him. God be praised.”
Thomas More and all he stands for has been on the mind of President-Elect Walz for some time. He reflected, “In 1929 the prophetic G.K. Chesterton wrote: ‘Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about a hundred years’ time.’ We are on the threshold of that hundred-year period, and in the coming years Thomas More College will strive to prove Chesterton right. It is of no small significance for the College, as well as for the Church as a whole, that in 2035 we will celebrate the 500th anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Thomas More, who Chesterton thinks ‘may come to be accounted the greatest Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English history.’ These apparent coincidences are signs of the importance of what Thomas More College is doing: seeding the Church and the world with men and women who, like More himself, integrate wisdom and prudence, charity and virtue, seriousness and good humor, all accompanied with an undying dedication to both Church and country. TMC aims, moreover, to graduate courageous men and women who, if it turns out to be necessary, possess the strength of mind and heart, with the help of God’s grace, to sacrifice their reputations and even their lives in witness to the truth of a well-formed conscience. Indeed, the Church and the world crave such More-like witnesses to the truth of their humanity, rooted in the love of Christ and His Church. Such is the ultimate aim of a Thomas More College education.”
To which the College says, “Hear, hear!”
For further reading:
Smoke-Filled Rooms and Intrigue? Electing a College President
