Talk:Thomas More College of Liberal Arts

Assess
Needs more refs, pics .... have a go! we can help Victuallers 21:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Thomas More College shield.png
Image:Thomas More College shield.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

College seal
The current image displayed as the college seal is Image:Thomas More College shield.png. However, the college website has a new image, Image:Thomas More Lib Arts seal.png (found at this webpage, which explains that the new seal was adopted in the summer of 2007). I have replaced the media accordingly. Alekjds talk 19:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Four notes
There are four notes preceding the article, some of which were appropriate when they were placed there. Right now, the size of the remonstrances very nearly exceeds the size of the article. Granted, the article was not that great before, but overloading with notes is not helpful at this early stage. Some are not now appropriate.

For example, there are hardly any notes except "controversy" that require an outside reference. The remainder often come from inside the college anyway. Just statements of fact.

I have tried to tone down the article. Maybe someone could indicate where it needs further tweaking.

This is a legitimate college. The article is in its infancy. It needs to be thrown a lifesaver at this point, not an anvil! :) Thanks. Student7 (talk) 20:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The college is not in its infancy. It has been around since the 1970's however the new administration is in its infancy. Unless of course it is being claimed that the old established school by that name no longer exists and a new school has taken its place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joeykeo (talk • contribs) 22:23, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, sorry that I haven't been around of late. I just did a cleanup per a few guidelines. I agree that the article needs expansion. I'm not willing to violate guidelines or policy to do so, though. I always consider tags as helpful when I'm looking at an article for the first time, and I've found that people often eschew them more for reasons of image than utility. I did remove the controversy section because it wasn't very controversial and the sources, at first glance, didn't seem terribly reliable. Thanks for the help, Student7. I'd be intrigued to learn more about the college in general, if you're interested in taking some time to research. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 19:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Probation over
Text has been removed that said:

"NEASC stated in 2009 that TMC was not meeting NEASC's standards for financial resources, and NEASC placed the College on probation.(reference)(endref)"

The cite no longer works because the college has been reinstated. Nevertheless, this should remain as a part of history that it was placed on probation from 2009 until 2012 (I guess). A permanent citation needs to be found. We shouldn't be putting transitory remarks in an encyclopedia. Once they are no longer current, they become part of history. If that wasn't the intent, it shouldn't have been there in the first place. But it was (and is) important. NEASC does not do this lightly, I suspect. Student7 (talk) 20:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions for Future Edits
If one takes the time to observe other College's of a similar size and mission, there is much more on their Wikipedia pages than on this one. The Thomas More College page is sadly deficient in its account of the College and as it stands is not really worth being called an Encyclopedic entry. To list a few things that it is missing: The College's mandatory semester in Rome, detailed information about their guild systems, the student organizations, the success of their alumni, their high school summer program, their summer course in Oxford, their new Publishing division, their Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture, their Catholic identity, their curriculum, etc.

As a result, over the next few days I will post suggested edits here before posting to the website itself. Yours, Virgilisalive (talk) 12:00, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
 * College content like this, although it's interesting, is often not discussed in publications independent of the institution. After all, who is going to write about the guild system at TMC?  Many colleges' Wikipedia articles read as though they were copied from promotional material and only slightly rewritten to avoid a copyvio. Of course, WP is not intended to be a platform for promotion, (as discussed in the page WP:NOT). Thanks for posting.  Bistropha (talk) 23:55, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Bistropha I have no problem doing the writing. I have been looking at many other small liberal arts college's and they do go into detail about this sort of thing, i.e. NorthEast Catholic College, Christendom College, etc. It only seems fair that this page be given an accurate representation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Virgilisalive (talk • contribs) 13:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Addition: Catholic Identity
This suggested addition is warranted because many other College's similar to Thomas More have such a section on their Wikipedia, i.e. NorthEast, Wyoming Catholic.

The TEXT:

The Catholic Identity of the College is a strong part of the campus's ethos. The sacraments of the Church are readily available and the required semester in Rome, Italy is further evidence of its Catholic character.

The College offers daily Mass on campus, the sacrament of penance, the liturgy of the hours, daily rosary, the opportunity for spiritual direction, weekly adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, regular celebration of feasts according to the liturgical calendar and pilgrimage opportunities. Some notable feasts include the celebration of the Immaculate Conception, the Feast of St. Thomas More, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter. Some notable pilgrimages include the March for Life, the Auriesville Pilgrimage, the Seven Churches Pilgrimage, and the Station Masses in Rome.

Virgilisalive (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Addition: Rome Semester
This is warranted and relevant since another institution has an identical thing on their page, i.e. Christendom.

the TEXT:

The program of studies at Thomas More College requires that every student spend one semester in Rome, Italy. Normally, it is the sophomore class that travels to Rome during the Spring. There they spend their classes visiting and studying classical architecture and art in situ.

The students are housed by the Antonine order of the Maronites at a classical Roman villa. The villa, officially named the Villa Serenella, is “a typical Roman villa surrounded by 13 acres of olive groves, pine trees, walking paths, a soccer field, and fountains. It is located five miles from the Vatican in a Roman neighborhood with bus connections to the historical center.”

The students are also encouraged to travel around Europe during their semester abroad. The College hosts regular excursions to Krakow, Poland, Assisi, Subiaco, and other small Italian villages and schedules classes to allow for three day weekends.

Virgilisalive (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Addition: The Guild Program
Also a part of the College's program of studies, it worth a more detailed account if one can be provided. This is similar to the focus given by NorthEast to music and Christendom's focus on athletics.

The TEXT:

Thomas More College has established a series of guilds that enable students to gain experience in areas such as woodworking, sacred art, sacred music, and folk music. Each guild offers a skill that is integrated with the College’s academic curriculum, particularly working with their Way of Beauty sequence.

In the woodworking guild, students are taught how to properly work with and care for various hand tools. They are required to prepare a rough piece of wood for finished work, joint making (for example, a dovetail), project planning, and completion. The class is finished in the completion of a semester long project of the student’s design, such as a box or a stool.

The art guild focuses on artistic schemes and method. Students are exposed to various methods of contrasting light and darkness with graphite. Students who have completed the one year of the guild are then given an opportunity for independent study. An example of independent study is taking on a more advanced painting project, the creation of mosaics, etc.

In the folk guild, students are obliged to learn the folk art of reciting poems and communal singing. Most of the guild member's study is centered around the traditional Scottish and English songs, poetry, and lore.

In the Sacred Music Guild, students learn Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and other forms of song in the Occident’s history of sacred music. Students also learn about the Catholic Church’s teachings on sacred music, its academic and humanistic tenants on which these doctrines are based, and how to bring them into their own parish life.

Virgilisalive (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Addition: Rankings
As with most Colleges a section is dedicated to Rankings or Reputation.

I suggest Rankings be listed here as well:


 * The College possesses an “A” rating from the American Council of Alumni and Trustees.
 * Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is one of the top three colleges in New Hampshire according BestColleges.com
 * According to the Best Schools, Thomas More College is one of the top 20 Conservative Colleges in America.
 * The Young America's Foundation has also named Thomas More College on of the top Conservative schools in the United States.
 * In 2006, the Time Magazine cover article, "Who Needs Harvard? ", said that Thomas More College was an alternative to Harvard for those who wanted a rigorous education in Western Civilization.

Virgilisalive (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Addition: The Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture
This effort of the College is worthy of being noted.

In 2016, the College announced that it would be working to create The Thomas More Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture. The stated objective of this Center is to encourage the organization of the faithful in New England. The Center’s labors are attentive to five pillars: family life, civic life, church teaching, education, and culture. To this end, the Center hosts public lectures throughout the New England area. It is also working on the production of a podcast and a journal.

Virgilisalive (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Addition: High School Summer Programs
Since its creation, the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts has been hosting high school summer programs so that interested students might get a glimpse into their Great Books program. These summer programs often require their students to learn through reading and action. For example, students will sometimes preform Shakespeare plays, host debates, visit the mountains in New England, or tour the historical sites in Boston, Massachusetts.

Virgilisalive (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Adding unsourced content
All of the additions mentioned above, are poorly sourced and promotional in tone. Some of it is sourced to Wikipedia, and some is sourced to the college's own website. Neither of these are reliable sources. I oppose inclusion of all of this content, unless it can be based solely upon reliable sources that are independent of the subject, and neutral in their presentation. Also,, if you have a conflict of interest in this topic, you must declare that on your user page per WP:DISCLOSE. Brad v 🍁 15:16, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Adding Sourced Content
The suggestion for adding a ranking section is already heavily sourced outside of both the College's website and Wikipedia.

To be honest, I have never tried to post on anything on Wikipedia until recently. I noticed a deficiency that I am capable of filling, and have been trying to do that.

The people that seems to me to have conflicts of interest are Ken Gallager and Bistropha because both have edited NorthEast Catholic in strangely positive ways.

It seems suspicious to me that this College in particular has been singled out. All the content I am providing is bare bones truth. Nothing promotional in nature, just factual. If you think talking about a Rome program is promotional because it sounds cool, that cannot be helped. That is just how it is. If you don't like flying or aren't into traveling, the Rome program will not sound very good. If you are an atheist and think belief is stupid, a Catholic identity might not be as appealing. ETC.

Lastly, I even went and checked other College pages to be sure that there was precedent for posting the sort of content I am proposing.

I hope we can all agree that these additions are well sourced and ready for publication.

I am CC'ing an admin to be sure that I am moving in accord with the rule of Wikipedia. Courcelles

Yours, Virgilisalive (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Catholic Identity Sources

 * http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/anthony-esolen-accepts-post-at-thomas-more-college-of-liberal-arts
 * http://www.ncregister.com/college-guide/the-thomas-more-college-of-liberal-arts
 * https://newmansociety.org/afternoon-tea-at-the-abbey-and-a-weekend-with-thomas-more/
 * https://newmansociety.org/college/thomas-college-liberal-arts/
 * https://pilgrimage-for-restoration.org/blog/?p=5902
 * https://pilgrimage-for-restoration.org/blog/?p=3709
 * https://www.catholic.org/prwire/headline.php?ID=488
 * http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pjsmith/anthony-esolen-in-his-own-words-why-i-left-providence-college-for-thomas-mo
 * http://catholicism.org/anthony-esolen-joins-faculty-thomas-college.html
 * https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/anthony-esolen-accepts-post-at-thomas-more-college-of-liberal-arts-83283

Virgilisalive (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Rome Semester Sources

 * http://www.study-without-borders.com/uni/us/thomas-more-college-of-liberal-arts-4842.html
 * https://www.catholic.org/prwire/headline.php?ID=9493

Virgilisalive (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Guild Sources

 * http://www.medievalarchives.com/2010/07/27/thomas-more-college-establishes-medieval-catholic-guilds/
 * https://www.catholic.org/prwire/headline.php?ID=9192
 * http://reginamag.com/restoring-a-radical-tradition/
 * https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7024
 * https://catholicexchange.com/how-medieval-guilds-are-a-model-for-a-modern-catholic-education
 * https://www.thewayofbeauty.org/blog/2012/05/the-work-of-thomas-more-college-students-western-iconography

Virgilisalive (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

The Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture Sources

 * https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/faith-intellect-renewal-thomas-more-college-launches-center-to-restore-culture-45117
 * https://thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=181052
 * https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=34213
 * https://newbostonpost.com/2017/12/05/christian-culture-in-new-england-new-college-center-seeking-to-spread-the-word/
 * https://newmansociety.org/thomas-college-restoration-christian-culture/
 * https://www.patrickcoffin.media/restoring-christian-culture/
 * https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2017/05/10/a-center-for-cultural-renewal%E2%80%A8%E2%80%A8/

Virgilisalive (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Summer Program Sources

 * http://www.ccwatershed.org/blog/2014/apr/8/summer-programs-thomas-more-college-liberal-arts/
 * https://catholicexchange.com/learn-to-live-the-way-of-beauty-at-thomas-more-college
 * https://catholicexchange.com/western-iconography-work-by-students-from-thomas-more-college-of-liberal-arts
 * http://www.catholicdigest.com/family/parenting/201601-262016-guide-to-summer-college-programs/
 * https://newmansociety.org/faithful-catholic-colleges-announce-high-school-summer-programs/

Virgilisalive (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Comment on proposed additions
Thanks to User:Virgilisalive for the good faith proposals above for content. IMHO, some of the material is appropriate to add, and some, in my understanding of Wikipedia's guidelines, is too much. If I get some time, I'll selectively add some points to the article.

But first, in order to promote understanding, I should point to a central idea: namely, the concept of what an encyclopedia is, in terms of its scope. Encyclopedias are not intended to present original fact-finding on any topic. They do not publish the material of raw research (primary sources). An encyclopedia does not present its own analysis of primary sources, which would thus be a secondary-source publication. Rather Wikipedia looks for existing published writing in books and periodicals, including those on the Internet -- and summarizes them. So Wikipedia is intended to be a tertiary source.

So when Wikipedia guidelines talk about "reliable sources" (WP:RS), that means: sources of journalistic or other professional quality such as conventionally published books and periodicals, independent of the article's topic. Hence blogs and other user-generated websites are prohibited as sources.

These criteria help us to identify a reasonable range of content to include. If a fact is so unimportant that no independent publication has mentioned it, it probably is not important enough to include in the article.

I wish that every college's article had such benevolent and conscientious readers and editors as TMC's, to lovingly and incrementally improve it. Alas, most college articles are written by people who don't seem to know or care much about the quality of Wikipedia, and the result is that the articles contain too much trivial information. Bistropha (talk) 05:11, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggested Edit
In the section "Since 2009", it says that "the relocation plan was abandoned in August 2015, after the college administration projected it would have required a ten-year fundraising campaign." After reviewing the cited source from the Lowell Sun, it seems clear that this is a misrepresentation. The article from the Lowell Sun says ""About a year ago, Thomas More College was blessed by several donors raising the funds for the college to acquire the old convent school Mount St. Mary's in Nashua," explained Fahey. "The building is ample and elegant. It allows us to grow immediately into the middle term and build upon our local base in New Hampshire."" The idea of the 10 year fundraising campaign was an after thought. The Wiki article should say "The relocation plan was abandoned in August 2015, after the college acquired the Anderson House on 90 Concord Street in Nashua, New Hampshire. This allowed the College to launch forward into the middle term of their plans, rather than wait 10 years for it to work with the building at Groton."

Virgilisalive (talk)