You might have heard some buzz about San Damiano College for the Trades, a new school in the process of opening in Springfield, Illinois.
The school is part of a growing renaissance of the skilled trades among young people, many of whom feel that the debt burden and iffy job market make a four-year college degree a poor bargain.
San Damiano College’s website articulates its unusual but inspiring mission, as students will study great books and the Catholic intellectual tradition alongside technical instruction and on-the-job training in a trade:
Our mission is to form men to recover the dignity of work, integrating it into the whole of a life ordered toward the kingdom of God and the sanctification of the world.
We offer a rich variety of vocational paths with an emphasis on restoration and new construction. Intentional community and leisure are daily integrated into a rich spirituality of our Catholic faith.
Because our program includes paid apprenticeship, students graduate debt free. Experience and training in a trade plus an associate degree in liberal arts make our graduates highly employable.
If you are curious to learn more about San Damiano College, below is Aleteia’s interview with Kent J. Lasnoski, Ph.D., who served as a professor at Wyoming Catholic College before joining San Damiano as its president.
What inspired the decision to open a Catholic trade school in Springfield?
Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki lamented the closing of the Franciscans’ St. James Trade School in 1972 and the Ursuline sisters’ Junior College in Springfield, Illinois, more recently. At the same time, he noted the need for a renewal in Catholic higher education in the Midwest to counter economic, ecclesial, and cultural degradation. Discernment revealed that a college combining an associate degree in classical liberal arts and theology with a recovery of the dignity of manual labor would fill the gap.
Then all the pieces began to fall in place. A beautiful 75-acre campus became available through the generosity of Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, who are sharing their former mother house with the College. Finally, chaplains became available with the founding of the Corpus Christi Norbertine Priory on the very same Campus.
At what point in the accreditation process is San Damiano College?
The College has submitted its application to the Illinois Board of Higher Education for operating authority. Once this authority is granted, the College can accept students into its degree program, which will then go through an approval process for degree-granting authority, and finally accreditation through a regional accreditor such as the Higher Learning Coalition. We are hopefully to be through the operating authority process soon enough to open in the fall of 2025 but may need to wait until 2026.
Who would be a good candidate for San Damiano College?
Practically speaking, it’s young men who want an alternative to the standard 4-year bachelor’s degree and a pile of debt. Philosophically speaking, it’s any young man who wants to be formed by the authentically Catholic community of spiritual, intellectual, and virtuous life and share in God’s call to St. Francis: “rebuild my church.”
No trades experience is necessary, but interest and a willingness to learn and discover the dignity of hard work is essential. Any young man who wants to avoid debt, prepare to be a husband or an ordained priest, and contribute to the restoration of the Catholic Church through the work of his hands and a life of intentional holiness would be a good candidate.
How many students do you anticipate accepting for the first class?
We’re looking at a fairly limited first class of around 25 students, but can scale up from there.
Why study the Catholic tradition alongside learning skilled trades?
First of all, the dichotomy between “thinkers” and “doers” has to go. Electricians ought to be theologians. Everyone should live a life that integrates the body, mind, and spirit.
The truth is one. It all fits together as a whole, and for a person to be fully human, he must encounter the truth from multiple angles. Learning the truth from the trades alone would be like only lifting weights with one side of your body.
The tangible realities of wood and how it works show us what is possible, but they also humble us into the truth. In the same way, divine revelation humbles us into understanding our sin but also reveals what is possible with the grace of God and our participation in the cross of Christ.
The theologically minded construction worker has what he needs to become a saint, which is what we’re all after.
How would you respond to parents or prospective students wondering if students will get the usual “college experience”?
I’d say, “thanks be to God, you most certainly won’t get the ‘usual college experience,’ which is a waste of your time and money.” The usual college experience is typically disordered, if it has an order at all. San Damiano gives students an opportunity for what college is supposed to be: a particular disciplined program toward the perfection of the human person beyond the high school level. It’s not a four year party but it’s also not drudgery.
Our community life perfects the moral virtues. Our intellectual life perfects the intellectual virtue. Our liturgical life invites the theological virtues. Our trades program perfects practical skills. At the same time, our students have wholesome pursuits outside studies and their job.
Our students allow themselves to receive God’s gift of true leisure—that is, things worth doing for their own sake—the highest form of which is the liturgical life of the Lord’s day. The work of receiving this gift, however, requires a sincere pouring out of oneself to honest and hard labor six other days of the week.
What is the most important thing you would want people to know about San Damiano College for the Trades?
We’re answering God’s call to “rebuild the Church,” we’re putting dignity and integrity back into the trades with an alternative to the standard higher education model, and we’re looking for young men who want to get going on that project with us and supporters who want to help see that project flourish.
And today we celebrate...