New college will combine trade skills, liberal arts education
Blueprints are in the works for a Catholic trade college in Springfield, Illinois.
San Damiano College for the Trades is currently seeking approval by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, with a goal of opening in fall 2025. The college is open only to men and will not accept federal funding.
The incoming president, Kent Lasnoski, comes from Wyoming Catholic College. He provided further details to The College Fix via a phone interview.
“There are things that we want to do as an institution and those for the students. We want to demonstrate a model in the higher ed world that pays for itself and can be reproduced elsewhere,” President Lasnoski told The Fix. “We hope to help students rediscover the dignity of work and to integrate that with a life well lived, by educating the whole person through the liberal arts.”
The goal is to offer an associate’s degree that includes technical training, hands-on experience in trades, and avoids any student debt, according to the school website.
President Lasnoski says the “goal is to fulfill Christ’s words when St. Francis asked him to ‘rebuild my church’ by bringing up a new generation of men in the world whether in a domestic light or for the priesthood.”
“I noticed the need for a renewal of Catholic education in this corridor of the midwest, there needed to be some kind of school to fulfill the need for renewal in the Catholic ed space and also the economic interest of the midwest from a trade standpoint,” Lasnoski said.
“Our goal is to get through the approval process as quickly as possible and hopefully to have an incoming class for fall 2025,” he said.
Other upstart colleges have similar goals to combine trade skills with Catholic education, including the College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville, Ohio.
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A Catholic organization that advocates for faithful higher education shared its excitement about these new opportunities.
“The Cardinal Newman Society is excited about the rise of these trade and technical colleges that promise fidelity to Catholic teaching, commitment to a liberal arts foundation, and devotion to the Catholic formation of students,” President Patrick Reilly said in an email to The Fix.
He said several schools “are working toward Newman Guide recognition, including San Damiano.”
Newman Guide recognition means the college is authentically Catholic in its practices.
“We hear from many families wanting this sort of education,” Reilly said.
“The challenge for these colleges is integrating the insights of our Catholic faith across the entire curriculum, especially in science and the manual arts, and avoiding so much specialization that there is little time to cultivate the mind with the liberal arts,” he said. “The temptation will be to focus solely on career preparation.”
The new colleges align with the group’s patron, St. John Henry Newman.
The English saint, “strongly advocated Catholic education that embraces all aspects of knowledge, and a college that prepares craftsmen with a balance of skill, knowledge, wisdom, and devotion to God could be a great witness to the integrated life that is expected of every Christian,” Reilly said.
“In today’s world, we tend to compartmentalize our work, home, and church life as entirely separate, but this kind of formation could be a remedy.”
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IMAGE: San Damiano College of the Trades
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