New College Opens in the Grain of St. Joseph the Worker| National Catholic Register
An unassuming building in an unassuming town. On the inside, LED light shines upon spacious hubs. There, wood and wire, pipes and vents take their place in ordered form waiting for the craftsman’s hands to lend them their final structure —...
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An unassuming building in an unassuming town. On the inside, LED light shines upon spacious hubs. There, wood and wire, pipes and vents take their place in ordered form waiting for the craftsman’s hands to lend them their final structure — the nondescript turned to the maker’s mind. An image of Divine Mercy finds a home on some planks of timber amid the wood shavings. This is The College of St. Joseph the Worker.
Located in downtown Steubenville, Ohio, a few short miles from Franciscan University of Steubenville, the college was set to open its doors last fall but had to hold off until it received final certification from the Ohio Department of Education. Now, the program, which features a Bachelor of Arts in Catholic Studies closely tied to rigorous training in a skilled trade — carpentry, electrical, plumbing or HVAC — is finally underway, with classes beginning this week.
The inaugural class of 31 hails from 21 states, with one-third coming from the Ohio-Pennsylvania-West Virginia tri-state region. Other students bring together the four corners of America, from California to Washington and Texas to Massachusetts, according to Michael Gugala, vice president of enrollment.
The 29 men and two women live on 4th Street in three houses owned by the college and contribute to utilities as well as handyman labor to practice their skills. When they are not in the workshop or the classroom, “student life is Steubenville life,” Gugala told the Register.
The students’ social calendar is filled with community events downtown — a location founder Jacob Imam believes is a perfect match for the new school.
“With the primacy of the faith and an endless amount to renovate and build, Steubenville couldn’t be a better place for the first trade college in America,” said Imam, who also serves as vice president of finance and holds master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Oxford.
Tracing the Catholic history of Steubenville back to its founding in 1797, Imam notes that the life of the town has witnessed the boom of the steel industry — and more recently, its bust. Most storefronts downtown are vacant but far from blighted, offering a reflection of the latent hope the city retains and what Imam suggests is the reason to set up shop.
“Left with nothing but friends and the faith, the city has a firm foundation on which to build, largely undistracted from the enticements of the world. Steubenville is our home.”
The campus is set across the downtown with housing, two buildings — a third under contract — and the acting chapel, St. Peter’s parish, only seven minutes’ walk apart. The academic building located on Washington Street occupies floors previously used by the Diocese of Steubenville chancery and includes a classroom, library, administrative offices and space for both study and relaxation.
The program requires six years to complete, with the first three years on campus featuring heavy Catholic studies, an introduction to the building trades, and further training in a specific trade of the student’s choice.
“You shouldn’t separate the head from the hands,” Gugala explained. He was clear that the college is not a “trade school” but intends to fill a gap in society — young men and women who have both skilled hands and active minds. The dignity of physical labor and the stimulation of the intellect are both tenets of the college.
Imam explained how the duality of man as spirit and matter is reflected in the college’s course of study and its coat of arms.
The crest of the college includes a hammer and lily symbolizing St. Joseph, purity, and the work required of man, just as it was required of Christ. The lower half includes the words Nonne hic est faber (“Is this not the carpenter?”) referring to Mark 6:3. Imam hopes that graduates from the college will inspire similar incredulity in the world as Christ did in his critics.
“Christ’s occupation itself was a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Christ came to uproot our mode of thinking and behaving so as to better adore and serve God. Our students strive to be just as hard to comprehend — brilliant in the classroom, brilliant on the jobsite — and for the same cause of loving God,” said Imam.
For Imam, the trades combined with academic study follow the training plan that Christ lived himself.
“Pope St. John Paul II reminds us that when the Word became flesh, he spent most of the years of his life at a carpenter’s bench. The smartest, the wisest amongst us was a tradesman,” said Imam.
Like Christ, the program seeks to consecrate the temporal order to God.
“We must recover the profoundly Catholic sense of why we build. That is why our curriculum focuses on work, family and politics — on the fields in which we laity must sanctify and redeem for Christ,” said Imam.
The college, which is included in the Register’s “Catholic Identity College Guide,” seeks to provide a Catholic community in which students receive dual instruction for hands and head — the trades and the Catholic intellectual life.
“Despite the cultural disdain for blue-collar work, the skilled trades are principally an intellectual endeavor. One has to understand the compounds and structures, the methods and potentials of building before engaging in them. But they must also understand the principles of building a particularly Catholic social order,” said Imam.
Principles are quickly put into practice.
The four bays in the campus’ training facility and workshop hold hundreds of tools ready for students to use. In the hubs, students will receive hands-on instruction preparing them for skilled labor under a master craftsman in their trade of study.
The final three years in the program require extensive “on-the-job training” from high quality, high character, preferably Christian, tradesmen in the students’ hometowns or wherever they choose to continue their adult life.
“As leadership demands having a vision and a command of order, we must train our students in the Catholic intellectual tradition, which teaches that Christ wants to redeem every aspect of our lives, including the homes we live in,” said Imam.
The College of St. Joseph the Worker hasn’t been idle during the last two years as it awaited state certification. Craftsmen from the college have been offering courses to the community, often using traditional skills. And while these artisanal skills are not what the college’s students will learn in the classroom, they will be a part of their student life.
Adam Robezzoli, a professional timber framer and carpentry instructor, shared the fine details associated with a recent timber-framing class — setting out the structure of a building using nothing but wood and hand tools. While beam drills and tenon and mortise joinery would have meant something to American pioneers 100 years ago, the words mean nothing to the average man or woman today. The college proposes to change that.
Robezzoli explained that the traditional skills such as timber framing were built on a foundation of craftsmanship instead of modern efficiency and mass production.
Already, its community-education classes on carpentry, woodworking, home maintenance, electrical and others have attracted people from around the area to sharpen their skills.
Said Robezzoli, “The College of St. Joseph the Worker is offering a unique opportunity to learn the great theological and philosophical truths while also encountering the created world, learning how to transform it and offer it back to God.”
Alex McKenna writes from Steubenville, Ohio.
