SANTA PAULA, Calif., March 4, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Dr. Thomas E. Dillon, president of Thomas Aquinas College, was recently appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige to serve on the 15-member National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI).
"This committee's responsibility is to advise me on issues of accreditation and institutional eligibility," wrote Paige in his letter of appointment. The committee makes recommendations on national and state accrediting agencies, the criteria for accreditation of institutions of higher education and the process of eligibility and certification.
"I look forward to serving on this advisory team for the Secretary of Education," says Dillon. "It is critical to the future of our free nation that we uphold high standards of accreditation while taking care to preserve the autonomy of our country's institutions of higher education."
Over the past decade, Dillon has distinguished himself as a champion of institutional integrity both within the western region's accreditation body-the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC)-and nationally. He served two three-year appointments by the United States Congress to an independent, 11-member Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance that advises Congress and the U.S. Secretary of Education on the use of $60 billion a year in federal financial assistance to students.
Under Dillon's direction, in the late 1990s, Thomas Aquinas College gained prominence for its leadership role in the reform of accreditation standards and procedures. Such venerable western institutions as Stanford University, Pepperdine, Cal Tech, Claremont-McKenna and UCLA followed the small college's lead. The issue generated national and international attention and was covered in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the London Times.
The college's leadership spawned other opportunities. Columbia University later invited Dillon to participate in a Mellon Foundation-funded study on institutional autonomy. Its authors sought to consult "a small number of leading thinkers and doers in higher education" in order to "contribute to the public debate about accountability and to urge greater attention to teaching and learning."
Dillon is a co-founder, and Thomas Aquinas College a charter member, of a new national accreditation agency: the American Academy of Liberal Education, which received authorization in 1995 by the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Dillon most recently served as co-chair of the accreditation team for St. John's College in Annapolis.
Dillon's appointment to NACIQI is for a three-year, renewable term, effective immediately.
About Thomas Aquinas College: Thomas Aquinas College offers a four-year program of Catholic liberal education exclusively devoted to the study of the Great Books, using only the Socratic method of dialogue in all of its classes. There are no textbooks, no lectures and no electives. Instead, the college offers an entirely integrated curriculum using only the original texts of the greatest thinkers who have helped shape Western Civilization. These authors include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Euclid, Dante, Descartes, our American Founding Fathers, Adam Smith, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton and Einstein, to name a few.
Thomas Aquinas College graduates consistently excel in the many world-class institutions where they pursue graduate degrees such as law, medicine, business, theology and education. They distinguish themselves in these professions, serving as headmasters, business owners, lawyers, priests, doctors, military service men and women, professors and college presidents.