We need trades professionals
with a theology of work
I don’t know anyone who would dispute the need for skilled trades professionals. Well, here’s a new - and exciting - twist on training for the trades.
You may have read of the closing of some colleges - dozens over the last few years. A headline in the January 12, 2024 Hechinger Report was “Experts predicted dozens of colleges would close in 2023 - and they were right.” The article reported 30 colleges closed last year, for a variety of reasons.
But, have you read of any new colleges opening? No? Well, you’re about to.
If you haven’t heard of the College of St. Joseph the Worker located in Steubenville, Ohio, please read on. It’s opening this fall for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Students select one of four professional trade tracks - carpentry, HVAC, plumbing, electrical - and will graduate with the necessary professional certification and a BA in Catholic Studies.
What is the mission of the college? “The College of St. Joseph the Worker forms students into effective and committed members of their communities by teaching them the Catholic intellectual tradition while training them in skilled and dignified labor. We teach our students to think, but also to pray, to love, and to build.”
And, from the college website:
Students of the College of St. Joseph the Worker will graduate with a BA in Catholic Studies as well as a solid foundation in the skilled trades. Our goal is to produce faithful Christians who are virtuous citizens, intellectually formed, and capable of building up the Church in their communities.
In ancient pagan societies, as again today, people often thought of manual labor as undignified. The Roman consul and lawyer Cicero once remarked that all workers “are engaged in vulgar business; for a workshop can have nothing respectable about it.” Aristotle, speaking a few hundred years prior, stated, “the citizens must not lead the life of craftsmen … for such a life is ignoble, and inimical to virtue.” Such convictions were the basis for the slave societies of antiquity. Christianity casts aside such ideas.
And there’s more, much more, to be excited about as this fully accredited college opens its doors - for example, a unique approach to funding tuition where students work in paid construction projects and specific apprenticeships.
The vision of the college emphasizes the societal contributions of workers:
The importance of work has become obscure in our time. Work has become merely toilsome, as if Adam’s fall is the order of the day—as if the work of our redemption never occurred. The mission of the College of St. Joseph the Worker is to place the student back in his rightful place: to place mankind again in a position “to subdue and have dominion” over the world precisely because he has dominion over himself. Virtue is strength. And the foundations of society are built by strong workers. The mission of St. Joseph the Worker is to serve the Church and to serve our country through providing our society with such workers.
Imagine … trades professionals formed intellectually and spiritually. This is very good news.
To learn more, please visit the college website.