A New Catholic College (Guests: Joseph Pearce & Fr. Dwight Longenecker)

[00:00:10] Speaker A: A new catholic college is starting this fall in the Deep south. What makes this college unique and what does it offer for students? That's what we'll talk about today on crisis point. Hello, I'm Eric Samms, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, just want encourage people to like this episode. Subscribe to the channel, let other people know about it. Also subscribe Email subscribe to our newsletter, just go crisismagazine.com. fill in your email address and get our article sent to you every day right to your inbox. So I'm going to try to interview two people at once. I've never done before, but I think I can pull it off. We'll see. I have two people to kind of like. They'll carry the weight for me. First, Joseph Pierce. He's been with us before. Actually, both these men have. He's a visiting professor of literature, Ave Maria University, visiting fellow at Thomas More College, liberal arts, and he's the author of over 30 books and a senior instructor with homeschool connections. And I think we're trying to sign up my daughter for one of your classes next year, Joseph, just so you know, we're making every effort to make it happen. And Father Dwight Longenecker, he's a former anglican priest. He's now the pastor of Arlay of the Rosary church in Greenville, South Carolina. He is the author of, I think, over 20 books and including his autobiography, there and back again. So I guess Joseph wins in the number of books in this, authored in this, in this group here. [00:01:29] Speaker B: I think we have over 50 between us, which is pretty good. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, I feel like I have a lot of eight, but I'm like nothing compared to you guys. I'm not even in double digits yet. [00:01:38] Speaker C: So I'm interested in quality, not quantity. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, there we go. [00:01:42] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Okay, so we're going to talk about today is Rosary College, which is a new college that is starting up in Greenville, South Carolina, where you both live. And it's starting up this fall. And both of you are very involved in it. And I think it's very interesting. And I wanted to get you guys on about, to talk about it. I think first, though, I want to talk a little bit about just catholic higher education and the purpose of it because I think there's a lot of, like, debate. Is it like mostly a technical school? Is it intended liberal arts? Is it, is it necessary? I mean, there's a lot of debate today on higher education general, but particularly catholic higher education. So I like to ask both of you, actually, to give your take on kind of the purpose you see for higher catholic higher education today. So, Father, go ahead. [00:02:29] Speaker C: Let me start with an anecdote. I was a catholic high school chaplain for five years, and I'll never forget one of our enthusiastic grads came back to visit after she'd been to college for her freshman year. And she was going to a local Greenville college, which was known previously as a baptist school. And therefore it had a heritage of being a christian school. And she said in her orientation class in the first semester, the professor stood up in front of all the freshmen and said, raise your hand if you've been brought up in a christian home. And all their hands went up. A lot of hands went up. He said, okay, now it's my job in this orientation class to dismantle your christian faith so that you can start to have a proper education. So if this was the atmosphere in a nominally christian liberal arts college, what is it like in the secular colleges? So I'm aware, therefore, that the first two years of college education, our students are extremely vulnerable. They're vulnerable because maybe they've been poorly catechized. They're not very strong in their faith. They're suddenly in an environment which is morally lax, spiritually lax, religiously indifferent. And so that's one of the motivations I had to actually say, let's look at those first two years of college and see if we can do something better. [00:03:58] Speaker A: What would you say, Joseph, as far as just the role of catholic higher education in general? [00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, basically, you know, all of us need to be knowledgeable about who we are as human beings and who our neighbors are as human beings and our relationship with them and with God. That's the purpose of life, basically, is to get to heaven, that life is the quest for heaven, and we can't get to heaven unless we're loving the Lord our God and loving our neighbor. So how do we do that? Well, in terms of education, that's learning about the humanities. The humanities teach us about humanity. That's the purpose. And basically, insofar as the humanities are taught at all now in secular and even in many so called catholic schools and colleges, they've been butchered. Butchered by bad philosophy, bad theology. So what we're not getting at these schools is the humanities. We're getting the inhumanities, right, or the dehumanities, that which dehumanizes and makes people inhuman and inhumane. So it's crucial that people get a good catholic liberal arts education in the humanities. And that's what good catholic schools, the Newman guide schools provide. And that's what we certainly are planning on Rosary College providing. [00:05:20] Speaker A: So, I mean, how would you. Just taking a step back. So if you're a high school student, how important do you think it is? I mean, I'm not trying to undercut your own project here, but how important do you think it is for a high school student in general to get a college education beyond high school in today's world? Do you think it's necessary for all students? Do you think just certain types? And if so, what type of students, like, who really should be looking at catholic higher education at a school like Rosary College or Franciscan or Ave Maria or something like that? [00:05:52] Speaker C: I'll jump in here. I think, you know, there's been so much emphasis in american education, both lower, lower school, high school and higher education, on job training. You know, will this help me to get a high paying job? And that's not really the point of education. Into my mind, it's an aspect of education, but it's not the point of education. And I think giving all students an extra two years to give them a foundation in, as Joseph said, in the humanities, to really consolidate their ability to think, their ability to see the big picture is an advantage. No matter what their career path, no matter what their vocational path, whether they're going into the caring services in some way, or whether they're going into technology, whether they're going into a trade, all students, therefore, would be able to benefit from this kind of an education. That's one of the reasons we've made it a two year junior college, so that it's affordable in both time and money. This is not a college with a typical campus. So we're following the principle of the small is beautiful. We're beginning very small teaching in rented classrooms and with an online component so that it'll be very affordable and we won't be going to people every year with some big fundraising gala and so forth. Instead, it's designed to be self financing and to be affordable and to be able to be a very manageable little college now. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it was interesting. I remember I used to be in the tech sector, and I ran a customer service center. Like, had about 100 people working for me who would answer tech emails about, like we were a web hosting company. And one of the things I realized is a lot of these young men and women who worked for me, they had technical knowledge. Like, they knew how to reboot the server, they knew how to edit the code, stuff like that. But they were just unable to have a conversation with a customer to figure out what that person wanted. And it was like the most frustrating thing for me because I realized it had nothing to do with their technical knowledge. It really had to do with their ability to think through, like, okay, what's this person asking is? I mean, it was just, it boggled my mind. And it's interesting because it made me realize that it's beyond just getting the technical knowledge for whatever the field you're in, but just being able to kind of, okay, understand what this person is saying, write a coherent response. I mean, sometimes the responses, they would write back, I'm like, I don't even know if that's the english language anymore, I mean, what you're saying. And they were, but they were technically very proficient. So I changed my hiring practices after that, by the way, because I realized that the technical knowledge wasn't the most important thing. Go ahead, Joseph. [00:08:43] Speaker B: This Eric. Yeah, this is one of the reasons why I say to people, well, would it help me get a job? I say basically, whatever field you go into, obviously, clearly, if you know, you want to be a surgeon, if you know, you want to be a rocket scientist, then you've got to be aware of that as you navigate the sort of education you want. But basically, for most people getting most jobs, what people want, first of all, is to show that you can communicate with other people. And if you can't communicate with other people, it doesn't matter what technical skills you have, you're going to be no good at the job. So that the, that's why many of the big corporations now are looking for people that have had good, solid liberal arts education, because I know these people would be able to communicate with their fellow workers, communicate with the customers, and basically be someone that's going to function as a fully fledged human person, able to cope in society, rather than someone who's got a little niche they've learned in their basement, but apart from that, they don't know how to communicate to other people. [00:09:53] Speaker C: You know, I've just spent the last weekend at a writers and artists conference sponsored by the Benedict 16th Institute in San Francisco. And one of the things which we discussed there was what is, what consists? What does the imaginative mind consist of, whether it's an artist, a composer, a poet, a novelist, whatever. And the interesting strand which is connecting them all, and I think this applies to classical education, is they have the ability to connect previously unconnected things. So a poet is putting together ideas which don't seem to be connected. And they're finding the connection that's there. This is what a linguist is doing when they're learning a new language. This is what someone's doing when they're studying the classics. They're putting connections together, things which were previously unconnected. And that particular gift and skill is connected with the skill of language that Joseph was talking about. So people are looking for people, employees who can communicate well with other people, but also the people who can think outside the box, think laterally and make connections, because that's what solves problems. Not AI. This is authentic intelligence, not artificial intelligence. [00:11:05] Speaker B: One of the buzzwords in industries, always the word innovation. What is innovation? Innovation is the practical application of the imagination, right? So if you don't have an education that teaches you how to use your imagination, you're not going to be any good at being innovative. So not just about communication. I'm glad father put it up. Not just about communication, but about innovation. And a good liberal arts education allows you to excel in both those crucial aspects of how to succeed in the world. [00:11:36] Speaker A: And actually what you said about AI, father, I just thought of that. AI is going to take over a lot of that drudgery tech work. I mean, a lot of these people of answering questions like that, just because they can do that, it doesn't take that much thinking for a lot of that. So they can do that. So really, the people who are going to be able to succeed more, the people who can think, they actually can think outside of what AI could cause. AI can regurgitate a lot, and it does a pretty good job of in a lot of these more unthinking fields, so to speak. So if you can think, I think you're going to be more likely to be successful. [00:12:10] Speaker C: I had a mini debate recently with somebody who's a keen technophile, and I said, AI will never pray and never write a poem. He said, no, no, no. They really do write prayers and write poems. I said, no, no, they will not be able to write an original poem, or they will never be able to pray. They will only be able to mimic. AI is a kind of parrot, right? [00:12:33] Speaker A: It's very good at it. It makes, I mean, it's like the whole stupid. What's that called, that law that they say if you can't tell if it's a human, if you're not looking at who you're talking to and you can't tell if it's who or not, then therefore it's the Turing test, then it's passed during test. I'm like, well, that doesn't mean anything. I mean, it just means it can mimic, like you said, it doesn't mean it's actually able to think. It just, it can repeat some things. Now talking about Rosary College specifically, how did it originate? Like, who founded it? And like, what is, like, what was the kind of genesis of saying, you know, we really need a college down here in Greenville, South Carolina. Another one, Joseph has that story actually. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Because I've got a little anecdote about it and it can, and it concerns father. So I was, I was in my car. And what you should know about Father Dwight is that he is an innovator and he's very good at it. So, you know, he built a church from scratch. I told him he was mad. He would never raise the money. He ignored me, obviously, with retrospect, very wisely. There's now this beautiful romanesque church, Our lady of the Rosary, that father's the pastor of here in Greenville, South Carolina. And then he said, then he announced he was going to start a traditional catholic class high school. And again I say, you know, why? There's already a catholic school here. Why would you do that? He ignored me. And now, you know, Our lady of the Rosary, you know, high school is what is one of the finest catholic high schools in the country. And people are moving from all over the United States to be here. So with that background in mind, right, I'm driving home from the garage, I'm getting my car fixed, and the phone rings and I pick up the phone and it's father on the other end of the phone. He says, he said, joseph, he said, I have an idea. So I said, well, that's a first. And then he said, we really should start a college here in the catholic college here in the upstate. So of course, you know, with father's past record of, you know, startups, shall we, shall we say, I thought, well, you know, I have no right whatsoever to say anything, but yes, so that's what I've done. So he and I have been part of this since his genesis. We now have colleagues obviously helping as well. And yeah, we're launching in the fall, so it's very exciting. And father is the father, so to speak, of rosary College in terms of innovation and the idea, if I can. [00:15:03] Speaker C: Add a few of the things that came together. First of all, I knew nothing about the complexities of starting a college, just the complexities of putting together a curriculum, the whole complexities of having it be accredited, the crediting system, how it interacts with other colleges, and all that sort of thing. So a few weeks after talking to Joseph, Jared Stout moves to the upstate of South Carolina. Jared is a PhD in theology. He's a content provider for Augustine Institute. So he moves to Greenville. So I begin to pick his brain. He comes onto the board, and Jared has already started two or three Chesterton schools. He's completely clued in on the academic scene and how it all works and how it functions. And a few weeks after that, a guy called Doctor Michael Schick moves to the parish. He's a newly retired lieutenant colonel from the US Air Force with a PhD in management and leadership. And after mass, I asked him, what do you think you could contribute to the parish? He says, well, I don't know. What do you need? I said, well, not knowing his background at all, I said, well, we have this idea about a college, a catholic college in the upstate. He smiled and said, father, I've just completed a graduate project in how to start a college. And I've been praying about this very thing with my wife for the last three years. So Michael's come on board as our first president and chairman of the board. He's done all, he's volunteered all his time so far, putting together all of the pieces of the puzzle with making contacts with other catholic colleges. So we now have agreements with eleven of the Newman guide colleges to recognize our credits for this first semester. And Michael's done all that background work, made the contacts, and hired the faculty members, checked out their credentials. And so I haven't done anything, really, except have an idea. And Joseph and Jared and Michael and our other board members have worked hard to put it all together so far. [00:17:08] Speaker A: Very good. And we've actually had Jared on the podcast before for one of the books he wrote. He's a great guy. And I think he was just getting ready to move to Greenville when we have had him on now. Okay, you mentioned already, father once about it being a two year program. So explain exactly what if somebody goes to this school? What do they get out of it? Like, what do they end up with? I should say. [00:17:31] Speaker C: Yeah. The curriculum in the first semester will have five classes, five faculty members, five classes. Joseph can help to refresh my memory, because I don't have it in front of me here, but it'll be. Joseph will be teaching literature. Is that correct, Joseph? [00:17:47] Speaker B: I'm teaching. So what we tried to do is to integrate our curriculum with some of the other catholic liberal arts schools, specifically from the very early stages. We were in consultation with Ivan Murray University and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, like two ends of the spectrum, sort of the fully fledged university that offers, you know, dozens of majors, and then the smaller college offers only an integrated humanities major. And what we wanted was, you know, what, how can we harmonize and dovetail our curriculum so that people that take our classes will be, basically, you can accept the credit because we're really offering what you're also offering in your freshman and sophomore year. So people can they want to transfer at the end of this end of the freshman year or at the end of the sophomore year. So it would be the smoothest possible process. So to ask the father's question, I'm teaching classical, epic and tragedy, because that dovetails with what both Ave Maria and Thomas More college. Indeed, many other of the Newman guide schools offer for first semester freshman students in literature. So, yeah, that's what I'm offering. [00:19:04] Speaker C: And Jared is teaching the history of art. Caitlin Curtin is teaching sacred scripture. The other two professors and courses. Joseph, do you remember there's an introduction to catholic theology and then philosophy, I think, is the fifth one. [00:19:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it might be one. Euclidean geometry, which, again, is something which is very much of the classical liberal arts course. [00:19:33] Speaker C: So I think mathematics credit. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah, mathematics, basically. Yeah. [00:19:38] Speaker A: So if a student goes there and they begin with these classes, they're fully transferable if they want what is, like, kind of the environment that they're, that they would be in. Like, do they have to live in Greenville? Is there housing for them? Do they take classes on campus, or can they take it online? Like, what are the options for a student? [00:20:00] Speaker C: Well, initially it was conceived as being an opportunity for our own local students there in Greenville, as Joseph has said, we've added at Our lady the Rosary in the recent years, an upper school, grades nine to twelve. And because we have something called the Faithful Family Scholarship, in which families pay for the tuition for the two oldest kids and all the rest come free, we've attracted a lot of large catholic families, and therefore, faced with the potential of sending them all to college, is rather daunting. So if they can knock off the first two years by staying at home, getting a job, and paying something like 15,000 rather than 50,000 by going away to a residential college somewhere, that was the original idea. Now others may want to come in from further afield, at which case we would probably try to find them accommodation with one of our families who might want to take on an extra young person to live with them in their family environment, in a safe catholic family environment. We haven't had that application yet, but I think we could probably do that. Others from further afield will take the courses online. [00:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:11] Speaker B: So basically what we're doing, Father mentioned earlier about thinking outside the box, or perhaps it was you, Eric, that said that. But I think Rosary College is a thought outside the box, so to speak, because there are some challenges to higher education at the moment, which we all know about. And whether or not the model with the huge campus and the huge endowments is sustainable, particularly for startup colleges, is doubtful. Even for long existing colleges, they may have real challenges to survive. So what we're offering is what we might call a hybrid approach. So we're not going to have a physical campus. We're going to have basically rent space to teach from. There's a place called Christ on Main here in Greenville, which is a catholic information place in the middle of town, would be a good space to have classes that father's offered space ali the rosary school. So we rented space, and so we're keeping costs down. And then we can either offer the classes in situ, in person, traditionally, but if people want that are living in Bangladesh or Australia want to take classes, but with the Rosary college, they can do so, because what we're offering, we will also be offering online. So it's a hybrid institution meant to be flexible and certainly not capital intensive. Lean. A lean program. [00:22:36] Speaker A: What degree would somebody get? It's a two year program, right? [00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:41] Speaker A: So what would be their degree when they're finished? [00:22:44] Speaker B: Well, basically, they'll be earning college credit. They want. If they want to go on to get a full bachelor's degree, they would have to go and do the third or fourth year somewhere else. [00:22:54] Speaker C: But we are aiming for them to receive an associate's degree in catholic studies. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:59] Speaker B: So an associate's degree would be offered. If they want to get a bachelor's degree, they would need to proceed from. From where we are to another institution. But the point is, of course, this is a good way to do the first two years in an economic way, to actually be taking the sort of classes they'd be taking at a more conventional college, but at a more economic, affordable level of cost. And so that's the idea. We offer the quality, but in terms of the quantity of cash required, it's lessen. [00:23:30] Speaker A: It's similar to the model of a lot of community colleges where they offer associate two degrees. If you want a bachelor's, you can, but you save a lot of money in those first two years. [00:23:39] Speaker C: We're aware also that we're starting this up in a climate when a lot of small, private, liberal arts colleges are closing down. And they're closing down because, of course, they're struggling with the burdens of an expensive to maintain campus, tenured faculty who have high salaries and need to have full time jobs, extra extracurricular facilities, which are very expensive to maintain. And we're cutting through all of that and saying, that's not really our objective. That's not our goal. If you want a college experience like that, by all means, come to Rosary College for the first two years, and then add that on in your last two years at the college of your choice. The other thing is, a lot of high school students make their choices about college when they still don't know anything about it. These two years can help them to make an educated choice about where they want to go to get their degree, their final bachelor's degree. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Now, if somebody wanted to take the online option, let's say they just live somewhere, they can't move to Greenville. They want to take the online option. Will they be able to take the classes completely? Are they. Certain times will have to be. Or would they be able to. Are they recorded in which they. If they have, like, a nine to five job, then they could take the class later? Or how does that work practically? [00:24:56] Speaker B: Well, I think hopefully it would be both. I think if someone's paying for an education, they would probably want in person time with the professor. So the online classes will be offered live to online students. But, you know, there was also the flexibility that if the online student can't make a class, the classes will be recorded, then they can watch them later. So it's both. And. But certainly, they won't be paying, you know, a full amount of money just to take a recorded course, because there's. There are cheaper options for doing that. [00:25:32] Speaker A: And then they'll be able to interact with the professors, like, if they have questions about things like that, even. Okay, now, what if. So, okay, now I want you guys. It's in Greenville, South Carolina. I know most of the people who will probably, particularly starting off take classes live will be Greenville residents already. But what else am I like, you know, I wouldn't mind, maybe I want to go to Greenville. You know, what. What's the selling point? I just want. Before you even say it, I want to say you are the top ten in the top ten of places for catholic families to live. So I just want to. For crisis, I just want to mention that already. But, like, what if somebody's, like, you know, I actually wouldn't mind maybe moving out of the house and going. It sounds like a cheaper option, something like that. If somebody wanted to go Greenville, what. What kind of would a young Catholic have to offer to them in Greenville? [00:26:18] Speaker C: Well, Greenville is amazingly blessed at the moment because there are three parishes which are pastored by all by converts, but also have a strong liturgical tradition, musical tradition, with orthodox preaching, a strong catechesis, and a strong traditional community of young families. And that would be St. Mary's downtown, Our lady the Rosary, and Prince of peace over in Taylor's, which is a suburb of Greenville. And in addition to these three parishes, which are lively and orthodox and young with traditional worship. When I say traditional at St. Mary's and Our lady, the Rosary, the Novus Ordo, is celebrated in a traditional manner, ad orientum worship and the traditional things that you would expect with decent music program and so forth. At Prince of peace, they celebrate the Latin, the traditional latin mass, I believe, every day, but also at prime time on Sundays, again, with a strong congregation and a strong musical tradition. So those things are there. But also there are strong family aspects. All three schools have a parish school, Our lady of the Rosary. We actually have a k, four through grade twelve school. The others are kindergarten through grade eight. And in addition to that, strong youth and youth group programs, fraternus and fidelis, the young people's program performing are young men and young women. So there's an awful lot going on there in these. In upstate Greenville. There's catholic radio. There's an active ministry to the needy in all three parishes. So, yeah, there's a lot happening here. [00:28:00] Speaker B: There's part of me that the mischievous, devil's advocate side of me that's thinking that the road around the corner here is currently being dug up, and it's down to one lane. It takes forever just to get around the corner because of roadworks. I'm not sure that we should be doing a puff piece of why everybody in the United States moved to Greenville, South Carolina, because everyone seems to be doing already. But I would say one thing that, you know, that in addition to what Father said, they have three to me, that those three parishes you mentioned are living what Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Edward XVI, wrote about in the spirit of the liturgy. To me, the spirit of the liturgy is the go to as to how liturgy, both the novus Ordo and the traditional latin mass, should be celebrated. And we are very blessed here because we have three parish offering mass in accordance with the principles of the spirit of the liturgy. Ad Orientum, you know, with receiving communion encouraged on the tongue and encouraged through kneeling, beautiful choirs. And I'm guessing if you added the number of altar servers up from those three parishes, we're probably something like 200 all male altar servers. And of course, that also then feeds vocations, the priesthood. So this is a very, very dynamic place to be as a Catholic. Yeah. [00:29:24] Speaker A: So if a family has a number of kids and then some of them are getting near college age, you got a lot of options all the way from k preschool, probably k through college there. Yeah, I know of at least one family I like in Greenville, South Carolina, that I'm related to. What else? Okay, what are the kind of the future plans for rosary College? You're just starting off. You're taking applications now. You're just starting off this fall, 2024. And so obviously your first kind of graduating class. So the associate would be over two years. Do you at this point have any plans for going beyond associates or more? Just like, hey, let's just do this, see how it works out, and then just kind of see what people need. I mean, how are you looking at the future? [00:30:11] Speaker C: I think the latter. Start small, build brick by brick, see how the Holy Spirit leads, see how God provides, and move on from there. If we need to get our own buildings sometime, then there are plenty of commercial spaces that could be leased. I, for one, would resist the growth into any large major campus because, as we've discussed already, the overheads that are there and the long term commitment that's there. However, should we be able to lease a building in the future, which is appropriate, there's plenty of buildings available, and we'll take it one step at a time. [00:30:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And also one of the books that I wrote is called small is still beautiful economics, if families mattered. And I believe in human scale in the economy, and also believe in human scale in education. So I don't think that we want rosary College to become too big anyway. We want it to be successful. But it doesn't have to be huge to be successful. That's the point. [00:31:13] Speaker C: The other principle that goes with smaller is beautiful, is the principle of subsidiarity. To keep it small, to keep it local, to keep it family based, to keep it parish based, is actually great strength. I mean, we found this in our upper school. We decided that the upper school would never be a big catholic high school, a big american high school experience, you know, with Friday night football and cheerleaders, with pom poms and the Broadway musical and all the rest of it, that it would remain small and family based, and therefore avoid an awful lot of the problems of being big, a lot of the high school disciplinary problems, a lot of the financial problems, a lot of these other difficulties that go along with being big. Keeping it small keeps it manageable. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Father, you're backsliding there, because I understand that I missed it, but I understand you did a wonderful production of the Sound of Music. You're backsliding with the Broadway musicals, Father. [00:32:03] Speaker C: Yeah, but sound of music isn't a Broadway musical. It's a good catholic show. [00:32:06] Speaker A: That's right. Exactly. One question I actually forgot to ask earlier was, is somebody able to take maybe just one course or two courses, or do they have to, or do you really want them to take the whole five courses this fall, or can they just pick and choose? [00:32:21] Speaker C: Individuals can audit courses. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. They can. [00:32:27] Speaker B: The beauty of it, we think and hope, is the flexibility that we offer to the students. So you can, you can, you can take the class for credit, the college credit. You can take the class just to audit it. And there are obviously different rates for doing, taking these different options. And you can take individual classes or you can take the full, the full, the full curriculum so that you're going through the conventional college experience. So all of the above, basically, that's what we're hoping to offer, so that we should be able to offer what students want and need. [00:33:01] Speaker A: Now, I will link to the college website in the show notes, but I know the first thing people ask, of course, is think of as the cost. And so what is the basic cost for the classes this fall? [00:33:15] Speaker B: Hope, you know, father, they should go to Rosary College and check it out there. [00:33:24] Speaker C: Go to. I don't remember the numbers either, but I can remember us having a discussion about what would it cost to take the full thing, the full curriculum for a year, the two semesters. And I think if, Joseph, you can remind me if I'm, if I'm, correct, me if I'm wrong, but I think we were aiming at somewhere between ten and 15,000. [00:33:44] Speaker B: Okay, that sounds like the sort of ballpark figure. This is not, this is not education on the cheap. So in other words, we're aware of what good Newman guide colleges charge, and we're in that ballpark figure, but a little bit on the cheaper side. So that's basically where we're at. Because, you know, we've got good, good professors. We're going to offer good, solid Newman guide quality education. But we're trying to make it affordable. But it's not, it's not a cheap experience because we're not offering a cheap education in terms of the quality. [00:34:20] Speaker A: And of course, a lot of that is going to come from the faculty. And so obviously, Joseph, you're on the faculty and you've mentioned some of the names of the other people in the faculty, but can you give a little bit of a kind of what was, kind of what the backgrounds are of the, of the professors there, kind of what's their experience, what's their education? And so we kind of understand that level. [00:34:40] Speaker C: Well, the criteria is all the professors have at least a master's degree in their subject, but most of them so far have the equivalent of master's degree and also at least working towards a PhD. [00:34:53] Speaker B: Well, except for me, father, I finished my education at the age of 16. Let me just say there, by the way, in case that's caused a scandal to anybody, that I may, university back in 2001 hired me on the strength of the books I published in lieu of a PhD. And since then, I've now have 23 years of teaching at undergraduate and in the graduate level. So I hope I qualify. But, but certainly I do not have a PhD. And I want to clarify, Joseph is. [00:35:28] Speaker C: The best educated, uneducated man I know. [00:35:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. I was going to say like, I would not care when he finished. I know enough about him. I would have any of my kids, like I think I said beforehand, I, I said during this, I'm trying to get one of my own kids to take a home school class that he's teaching next year. So, yeah, it's important to have well qualified people, but there are exceptions of people who are actually very well educated without being technically educated. So each of them, and so there are five courses starting this fall, is that correct? [00:36:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:36:01] Speaker A: And then the idea is, will be five courses each, each semester going forward. Okay. [00:36:07] Speaker B: And we'll probably offer summer as well. So if a student wants to take the full curriculum, but can't necessarily take five and five in the fall and the spring, then they can actually take whatever they haven't managed to take the fall, in the spring, in the summer. So they'll still be able, in the course of twelve months. So we've got that flexibility. But if you like, three semesters to cover the two semesters to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the students. [00:36:37] Speaker A: Okay. And then like we already mentioned before, there will be opportunities for online students and in house students to interact with the professors, correct? [00:36:48] Speaker B: Yes. That's why I would encourage, obviously, that you're going to reach many people beyond the area of Greenville, South Carolina and the upstate of South Carolina here. So you know, I would encourage people that just love crisis and what you're doing to check out Rosary Dot college website because yeah, it may well be you want to take either become a fully enrolled registered student with us for college credit or you may just want to take a couple of classes either for credit or just to audit and you just check it out. Because again, we really should have something to offer for anybody that's interested in an authentic, solid, orthodox catholic liberal arts education. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Very good. And this is probably not least questions the president could answer off his head. Maybe you can, but what is the deadline to register for this fall if somebody wanted to take classes? Like when do classes start? [00:37:43] Speaker B: I guess, yeah, classes start at the end of August because I know I've got my own class on the calendar and I think it's probably the last. My classes I think are on Thursday evenings and it's going to be the last Thursday in August. It's first day my class. I think it's the last week of August. As regards final day for registering, I think it might be July 31. But don't hold me to that. [00:38:07] Speaker A: Okay? Okay. So coming up here in the next month or so if you want to look into it. Like I said, I will link to its rosary college for people who want to go and check out. Is there anything else you guys want to tell us about the college or encourage people about it before we head off? [00:38:23] Speaker C: That is that upper school high school age students who are actually looking to a college career should be able to fit in some of these courses and actually knock them out while they're still in high school. So therefore, when they are ready to go to college, they've already made leapfrogged over some of the requirements and they're getting a head start. This inspired, this is what got me going in the, to start with in that our youngest son actually began his college career in the second semester of his sophomore year because he took college credit courses while he was still in high school. [00:39:03] Speaker A: I'm glad you brought that up, father. I saw that on the website and I wanted to bring that up was so if a high school student wants to get some college credit beforehand, he could take a course or two through Rosary College and then he would have those be able to train. If you decide to go franciscan or Ave Maria or something like that, then likely, you know, those things would. And he, I assume he should talk to the administration there to make sure that the credits would transfer where he might be thinking of going, if you. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Already indicated that they will accept our credits. Some of these we have in writing, the others we the process of getting in writing. But basically, you know, and the fact of the matter is that even those that we don't have written agreements with are going. If they know that all these other schools, the other Newman guide schools, accept our credit, they're not going to turn students away. So basically, if you're thinking of going to a good, solid catholic college, this in the Newman guide, although we're not technically the Newman guide yet, because we're new, we're basically of that family. And that family have recognized us as family members. So anybody who takes courses with us will have those credits will be transferred and accepted by other Newman guide schools. [00:40:23] Speaker A: Okay. So that's another option for high school students. Okay. Well, I appreciate both you gentlemen coming on, and this has been very helpful. I think it's great to have these options to think about because I think you know, so much of catholic higher education, unfortunately, the non Newman guys are just, it's just awful and just, and the secular schools, I mean, like the story you told father, I mean, they're just, they're not really great options anymore. So having another option that's, that's relatively affordable is great. So thank you, father, for the idea. And thank you, Joseph and everybody else who's involved getting it started. So we'll look forward to it. And like I said, rosary College for people who are interested in becoming part of the program. So. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. Until next time. God love you. [00:41:06] Speaker B: Thank you.