WCC at Ten

Revisiting the Academic Vision

Thaddeus J. Kozinski, Ph.D.

To understand our College at present, and discern the best future course, I felt it timely to reflect on
the past and to take stock of our progress, in the academic aspects, thus far. It is essential to try to
understand our history, and the aims of our academic program, for it can tell us why we are where we
are, and thus allow us to think, like a navigator, about how to chart the course ahead. This is just one
perspective, but I hope my perspective as a long-term member of this community will be helpful. The
following information on the history and the founders' vision comes in part from my own experience
and conversations with them, as well as interviews and writings of their own, including, primarily, the
PVS.

Wyoming Catholic College was brought into being via the dream of a community-college professor
who was looking back, back to his own halcyon days in the Senior IHP program. That program was a
kind of retreat, almost a monastical program (St John’s College, incidentally, began its career with
seminars coinciding with the Hours of the Divine Office). Its aim was to rekindle wonder, to remove
the scales from the eyes of jaded, modern young people. In learning to see poetically in sub-creations,
they might detect an enchanted cosmos—not a pagan enchantment—but a cosmos redeemed,
replete with the uncanny wildness and magic of grace. The hope and purpose was that by becoming in
love with logos, young people would search for, know, and love the Source, the Logos. Through poetry
in the classical sense, encompassing literature, drama, poetry, song, and philosophical and theological
texts, the eye of the soul would brighten and the heart awaken: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand.
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. And Eternity in an hour.”

This professor, Dr. Bob Carlson, lived and worked in Wyoming for many years, and began to see in
Wyoming herself another means to 'teach seeing.' He knew, as did another Founder, Fr. Robert Cook,
that young people must first be detached from the hydra-like strings of modern life so overwhelming
in suburbia and urbia, and that one powerful way to start the detachment necessary for the healing of
sight is to put young people in the outdoors for extended periods—without screens and computers
and cars and movie theaters and malls.

Bishop Ricken, the third Founder, saw the project from the perspective of evangelization and renewal
of culture, realizing that only young people who had learned to detach from a corrupt culture and had
gained again the vision to see logos could become the leaders of the new evangelization he
supported. His impetus was the final stage. In sum, each Founder represented a stage in the process
of the institution: Fr. Cook's call for detachment coming first, via nature and a return to a certain kind
of old-fashioned discipline; Dr. Carlson's poetic sight would be gained, in our particular modern
context, only after this detachment, immersed for four years in the poetic culture of the College;
Bishop Ricken's call for graduates to re-enter the culture and revitalize it via the discipline,
detachment, and holistic, Catholic 'sight' of God's cosmos was the final stage, the fruit.

Bishop Ricken, if I remember correctly, had been told by a mystic he trusts that "Our Lady wants a
college in Wyoming." WCC is the only four-year institution in the state beyond the public university,
and Wyoming indeed is one of the few states that is both isolated and morally and culturally

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conservative: "Wyoming is what America was" is a popular saying here that sums it up well. This is a
state where detachment and discipline meant survival, and still does, due to the harsh climate and
relative isolation. WCC students experience this first-hand out in the wilderness and even on their
walks from the dorms to the classrooms, during experiences working on local ranches, and just living
and breathing and talking with the Lander pioneer stock. Living here is no tropical vacation. Wyoming
also has a poetic spirit, a spirit of adventure and romance. Wyomingites come from those adventurers
who survived the trip from civilization, those like Pa Ingalls and the fictional Virginian who either
chose the life of the wilderness or had to flee to it. It is a land of honesty, of bandits, courageous, kind
people; the stark beauty and open, silent, vast, brooding spaces hold a lesson, like the desert did for
the Desert Fathers. Wyoming herself provides the first stage—of course Our Lady would ask for the
College here!

So, this place is a Catholic triage center—but not just a triage center, because it is not a short-term,
quick-shot program, as was IHP. The telos of the original vision was to produce through immersion a
certain kind of person with a certain kind of sight, and the end goal was evangelization, not isolation.
The IHP program did inculcate a marvelous sense of wonder, the precursor to deep sight, but perhaps
not the clarity and depth of sight needed for the level of independent thinking that the programme of
detachment, leadership, and evangelization called for. Triage training is not adequately deep, detailed,
and comprehensive for the battles our young people now and will face. Thus, the IHP seems to have
had part of the picture, but something else was needed: a more in-depth, classical, and rigorous
training that could enable true freedom, freedom in a young person’s very being.

The WCC missionary needs a mind and heart freed from ideology, superficiality, egoism, materialism,
individiualism, freed from servile fear bred in ignorance and sloth, and thus free for that sight to which
the poetic is the precursor, the sight that goes beyond information and knowledge to wisdom, the
sight that takes in, receives, and adores the order of the Real in all things. We are talking about a
holistic gaze that penetrates to the roots of the wounds and evils in our souls and in the world, and
can heal them. The Wyoming part, the outdoors part, the detachment and discipline, gives young
people the courage and determination to deal with opposition and persecution; the poetic enkindles,
engages, and channels the romantic heart with its inexorable passion for the infinite, culminating in
agape and Christ-like compassion. It also provides one of the most powerful rhetorical tools for
persuasion: the ability to help others to vicariously experience the true vision of reality.

The liberal arts give a strength and clarity of vision that emerges only from a well integrated, multi-
perspective, multi-skill, and extensive apprenticeship. But however extensive, it is still a mere
beginning, a provisional guide for that road to wisdom that ultimately must be negotiated by and in
the student’s heart. As I meditate on all this, I believe we are forming young people open to God's
presence in their lives towards the wisdom of love to the point of laying their lives down. Thus, the
addition of an extensive, four-year, classical liberal arts programme was essential to the original
project. But this part has been, I would say from my experience, the least understood, even as it is the
element of the programme that brings all the other elements together. It has also been the most
contentious part of the endeavour.

The liberal arts are a finely-tuned, balanced system of personal formation that, to work, must be
integrated with a clear and appropriate end in sight. They require from their teachers an almost heroic
humility about their own subjects, and a fundamental agreement about the end. The teachers must to
some extent model the programme. Yet, none of us were given quite this education, with the

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outdoors, poetic, literary, philosophical and theological properly integrated, and so we are not,
individually, well-equipped to model it. Thus, we have experienced at times fragmentation and
incoherence, and sometimes we have not lived up to our mission and have done a disservice to our
students. What are some of the pitfalls we must watch for?

The Outdoor program becoming its own end and world, with its own peculiar discourse and excessive
focus on expertise at the expense of joy and wonder; theology construing the superior object of its
study to mean its hegemony over other disciplines; Latin not always considering WCC’s down-to-earth
charism and the students’ capacities and needs; humanities, in which specialized literary writing,
analysis, and interpretation tends to outshine its original purpose as the poetic, integrating heart of
the institution; philosophy more interested in students’ mastering a particular school of thought than
gaining dialectical acumen, conversance with the entire history and development of philosophical
inquiry, and an intimate relation to the Real; math and science demanding a level of expertise and
specialized mastery exceeding the cast of mind of the ordinary student and the curriculum as a whole.

None of these 'ends,' such as a certain level of mastery of science or the writing of stellar, grad-school-
worthy papers, are bad in themselves. In fact, in balance with the ultimate end, they are very
important goals. It is simply that they can become their own ends, the seamless garment, which is
what a liberal arts programme must be, meant to build holistic sight and wisdom, is torn asunder into
many different pieces, and the true end of our unique education is lost.

If I can point to what I see as the source of the turmoil that has plagued WCC academically over the
years: A lack of clear, determinate vision of and obedience to this holistic end, leading to a wresting of
the original end of the programme to individuals’ and groups’ idiosyncratic visions and ends. This has
happened in almost every discipline, and in various ways. In the early days, there was dissension
between the TAC graduates who were drawn here and the IHP folks; the IHP people ended up being
forced out, it must be said, including one of our founders. Was this fight and outcome even necessary?
Were these two modes actually opposed to one another? Through a lack of trust and receptivity, what
I believe was meant to be a kind of marriage of two essential elements—rhetoric and dialectic, the
Ciceronian and the Aristotelian, the poetic and the philosophical—was broken, along with many
relationships. As a result, the foundation was destabilized. Trust was broken among the faculty, and it
should be clear that for this education to work, trust and humility are more than pious dreams: they
are essential. Know-it-all-ism, if I may call it, mixed with a spirit of suspicion of the “other,” has been
the bane of our community.

Second, there was a push to create a theological graduate institute alongside WCC. The IHP founder
refused this, and rightly so, because the graduate school could quite easily have become another 'end'
for the institution, with the particular tension and balance needed among all the disciplines weighted
toward Thomistic theology. Again, theological learning is a great educational good; erudite and
accomplished theologians are desperately needed; Thomistic graduate schools are essential. But
providing students for such institutions is not the end for which this institution was called into being.

I think the main reason for these failures and contentions is the immense difficulty of what we are
trying to do. The WCC mission of holistic wisdom requires a unique balance and healthy tension in the
curriculum and faculty that is most difficult, perhaps impossible, to maintain, but it is our special
calling. This can be seen more clearly if we contrast it with the missions taken by our sister liberal
arts/great books programs. One of our precursors, St. John's College, has maintained a certain level of

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integration and balance in virtue of a certain orthodoxy about the curriculum and pedagogy, with
“tutors” who are self-identified as amateurs, and through a peculiar lens that has tended to preclude
fights over hegemonic disciplines. Historical or cultural context is not taken into account in the St.
classroom—indeed, it is forbidden from discussion: “Only the text!”—and conflicting truth claims and
paradigms are explored, but never authoritatively evaluated or adjudicated. The program is meant to
develop the skills of close-reading and dialectical inquiry, but not the formation of students in any
particular tradition of enquiry or rationality. Such a protracted and penultimate educational end does
tend to prevent fragmentation and fighting among both faculty and students, though it can tend to
inculcate skepticism, nihilism, and dilettantism.

Thomas Aquinas College, our other precursor, has chosen, like St. John's, to require tutors to teach
across the disciplines, but its lens and end are quite different: rather than Straussianism or deep
skepticism, TAC forms its students through the lens of Laval Thomism, undergirded by a firm emphasis
on an Aristotelian philosophy of nature. Though they read the Great Books in various disciplines, all
students graduate, de facto if not de jure, with a degree in Aristotelian Philosophy. Now, the Real can
be encountered and known through philosophical inquiry applied to Great Texts, but it’s just not a
holistic education of the whole person. Education through this particular lens can also lead to the
temptation that through these particular philosophical tools and principles, and these alone and
above all, we can best become 'those who know.' But it’s better, all other things being equal, to
become “those who love,” for this is true wisdom. Wisdom, through deep receptivity of and
participation in the Real, must include all facets of our nature, including the physical, imaginative, and
emotional, and philosophical inquiry within the confines of a particular theological school is just not
holistic education for wisdom and love, however rigorous and advanced it is. Our power of intellectus
(Josef Pieper), that intuitive receptor of holistic reality, is, I daresay, more important for the gaining of
wisdom than our power of ratio, discursive reason. The former, to do its job of bringing us into union
with the Real, requires a charged imagination, visceral experience of sensible and spiritual reality, and
strong passions—Dionysius must have his place in classical education! WCC knows this, and that’s why
we are not merely TAC with horses.

The end for WCC students is, in a word, wisdom. Our Lady is the Seat of Wisdom, and that’s why we
look to her as our Heavenly Founder. I have closely observed, over my nine years here (almost the
entire life of the institution), the kind of students Our Lady has called here. They are varied in terms of
academic training, abstract intelligence, and career potential, but they care deeply about the
community, about their friendships, about making a real difference, about being a humble servant of
and for the Gospel. We have had various degrees of maturity in our students, but we have had
marvelous human beings with tremendous potential walk through our halls, called to various
vocations. We need most desperately in these times young people in all walks of life who 'know what
they do not know,' who know how to wait and observe, to drink in beauty and let it fill them with awe,
who understand the difference between servile fear and the loving fear of a God they know intimately.
They must be souls of wise humility, not rationalist arrogance and know-it-alls, servants in a myriad of
positions, leaders who understand the crucifixion that is true leadership.

In looking at our graduates, despite our problems and turmoil, I find that this is being done in the lives
of many of our students, and surprisingly, often it is unfolded in those who are not the most
academically-inclined. We should be proud of the fruits God has given us. Like the soil at the roots of a
rose tree, God has used us to grow something astoundingly beautiful, and this despite our turmoil at
times. It tells me that this endeavour is wanted by God, and that Our Lady is watching over it; if we

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can all agree in our hearts, not just our minds, and become, more and more, humble servants, I
believe it will continue to become the stable and profound gift to the culture and the Church it is
meant to be.

Each person who comes to serve this institution must understand its end, and to be willing to lay aside
his or her own private end to work towards it. Ongoing integration and conversation among the
disciplines is essential, and each teacher must see the ties between and inter-dependence of the
other disciplines and his own. This requires radical humility and trust, as well as clear guidelines and
expectations. I have been working with the faculty over the last year to provide them with clear
expectations that reflect both the PVS and the present Faculty Handbook. The AC, with the faculty
behind it, has now approved a set of criteria for professors that the accreditation team asked for,
along with a revised process for contract renewal, a process which the entire faculty had ample
opportunity to critique and provide input about. It has been a year's process and I feel this will help
support unity among us as well as clear communication.

Let me conclude with my sense of what the academic program looks like in operation, where trust,
integration, and collaboration help us form young people disposed to the Wisdom of God. The
outdoor program begins the process of detachment and discipline discussed at the outset, and instills
the initial poetic wonder. The teachers in the first academic semester reference this experience, draw
it out, and illuminate connections, such as the successes and failures of Greek heroes and leaders
away from home. As language skills are developed in Trivium, students become aware of the many
uses of these skills in poetics, Latin, the outdoors, in philosophy, theology, and science. Philosophy
draws the lines between grammar, logic, the categories, the ideas of the Greeks, and those that
emerge from the students' own experiences in the outdoors. Humanities reveals the order—and the
consequence of trespasses against this order—that is also reflected in nature as seen in observations
through field science and learning the categories in philosophy. Students learning Latin begin to hear,
for themselves, the traditional prayers of the Body of Christ, and they find the language is living,
indeed. This is just the first year.

The success of this integration depends upon the faculty who model it and thus are a conduit of it to
the students, and it requires humility above all–"my expertise is only one element of a whole much
bigger than me." A liberal arts program will not survive under gurus, because it is by definition not
something that can be done by one person, however erudite, hard-working, and intelligent, but by a
community. This requires trust and exquisite communication, and also much courage. It takes courage
to be humble enough to become integrated with others, and to serve an institution and students,
rather than one's own ego. We all love to showcase apprentices that reflect our own expertise!
Furthermore, this is not a 'safe' education; it is just as important that students learn how to ask the
right questions, and to find the answers for themselves with the tools and modeling we give them, as
it is that they are instructed in the truth of things as we, with more experience, training, and
(hopefully!) wisdom than them, see and interpret it, and as the Church knows it. Thus, open-ended
dialectic and enquiry into our own ignorances has a vital place in this education, and in all disciplines,
for it not only teaches students how to become independent truth-seekers and knowers, but reveals
the present ignorance of both student and teacher—a wonderful thing to aspire to and behold. The
Real exceeds anything and everything we can say about it. Students who are merely instructed, as
important as this is in younger years, are not educated, and thus are not equipped for the path to
wisdom, a wisdom required to deal with the myriad of situations, philosophies, errors, truths, and

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complex human beings in the world who desperately need a versatile, living, loving, vulnerable, and
sacrificial response and model.

Wisdom is knowing our own radical inadequacy in the face of the Real and inability fulfill, without
much help from others and above all from God, our sacred task as teachers. We must have the
wisdom to know that it is not our mission to control this institution or make it over into our image, but
it is, we hope, God's institution to serve; as Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI said about baptism, we are
called here as facilitators who must leave the individualistic "I" behind for the sake of a new "I.