My appreciation for the curriculum at DSPT has increased even more since I began doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America. Most of my classes today focus on twentieth century theologians: Congar, Rahner, von Balthasar, de Lubac, and so on. We often see these scholars as having abandoned the "scholastic" model of Thomas Aquinas. Yet I am finding that in their writings, they regularly assume that their reader is familiar with Thomistic concepts and scholastic terminology. So my study of Thomas at DSPT turns out to not only be valuable in its own right, but to be an essential preparation for the study of more recent scholars. Schools that consider Thomas to be antiquated and skip straight to the "moderns" are therefore not only omitting Thomas, but actually preventing their students from fully understanding these modern theologians as well.
DSPT also prepared me for my doctoral studies in the way its courses were run. The courses I took at DSPT always welcomed input from students, but never degenerated into "bull sessions" where all opinions were floated as "interesting" and left simply at that. I also have a new appreciation for the amount of writing that I had to do at DSPT, as I am seeing that other students in my doctoral program who were not assigned term papers in their master's program are at a disadvantage now. The Master of Arts in Theology degree that I earned at DSPT has turned out to be the ideal preparation for my current doctoral studies.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
January 2009: A Culture of Philanthropy
Breaking News: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and Planned Giving
Congress has authorized the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which extends the law that allows donors to make charitable gifts from their IRA accounts during tax years 2008 and 2009 without incurring income tax on the withdrawal. What is the secret to making a gift that will provide the greatest meaning to you? Plan carefully by looking at your goals, decide how much you can afford to give and take advantage of the tax laws so more of your money can go toward the work you choose to support. Investing in the DSPT is an investment in the future of our Church and of society.
Through planned giving—that is, by including a donation to a charitable organization like the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (DSPT) in your financial and estate planning—it is possible to affect how your contributions are used and by whom. With your gift, you choose how your money is used, rather than leaving it up to the government to spend your money. You can support the causes and needs that are important to you.
More and more people are taking advantage of the many options for planned giving. DSPT’s planned giving options, for example, include distributions from wills, charitable bequests, life insurance, charitable gift annuities, publicly traded stocks and charitable remainder trusts.
Keep in mind the following points when considering your financial and estate planning:
Congress has authorized the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which extends the law that allows donors to make charitable gifts from their IRA accounts during tax years 2008 and 2009 without incurring income tax on the withdrawal. What is the secret to making a gift that will provide the greatest meaning to you? Plan carefully by looking at your goals, decide how much you can afford to give and take advantage of the tax laws so more of your money can go toward the work you choose to support. Investing in the DSPT is an investment in the future of our Church and of society.
Through planned giving—that is, by including a donation to a charitable organization like the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (DSPT) in your financial and estate planning—it is possible to affect how your contributions are used and by whom. With your gift, you choose how your money is used, rather than leaving it up to the government to spend your money. You can support the causes and needs that are important to you.
More and more people are taking advantage of the many options for planned giving. DSPT’s planned giving options, for example, include distributions from wills, charitable bequests, life insurance, charitable gift annuities, publicly traded stocks and charitable remainder trusts.
Keep in mind the following points when considering your financial and estate planning:
- Leaving a bequest in your will provides a tax credit against estate taxes. Donations of as much as 100 percent of income in the year of death can be used for tax relief.
- A charitable gift annuity provides additional income in your lifetime while providing for DSPT’s future.
- Securities can be donated, providing relief against capital gains taxes.
- Donating a life insurance policy allows you to spend a little to give a lot. For example: a woman who is 38 years old and is in the 40 percent tax bracket buys a $50,000 life insurance policy designating a charity as owner and beneficiary. She pays $53.30 per month and in 10 years the policy is paid up. Because of her tax bracket, her out-of pocket cost for a $50,000 gift is merely $3,838 over 10 years.
Over the next few years, the financial needs of DSPT will continue to grow, and private donations will become even more crucial to our ability to complete our mission in the world. Please consider planned giving as an option that benefits your needs as well as those of the school.
To learn more about planned giving at DSPT, please call (510) 883-2085 or email advancement@dspt.edu. Thank you for your continued support.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Faith in Human Rights: An Interfaith Project
The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in collaboration with other universities, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith centers, interfaith coalitions and Bay Area social justice organizations, will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with an interfaith program of study, dialogue, and action entitled, Faith in Human Rights: Promoting Human Dignity, Working for Justice, Building Peace. The project will run from January 12, 2009 through May 12, 2009 and will include a variety of components that will be offered to the general public, such as: courses of study, lectures, workshops, a film festival, and art exhibits. Each of these will facilitate an examination of human rights theory and practice, the abuses of human rights freedoms in the local community, and an investigation into ways we can become better advocates for human rights.
The Faith and Human Rights project hopes to offer a unique opportunity for communities and institutions of the Bay Area to renew their commitment to the directives outlined in the human rights treaties concerning racial discrimination, treatment of women, concern for victims of torture and other issues related to the UN Millennium goals. The interfaith project will focus on the issues and cases that are raised by our local human rights groups and invited speakers. These cases will be discussed in light of the universal human rights treaties/conventions and declarations. In this way, our conversations and sharing of information will help us put our words into action by developing an action plan to promote and protect human rights for individuals and their communities. It is hoped that this collaboration will foster a new set of relationships that can challenge exclusionary and dominative social practices and not leave the values of compassion and solidarity at the ineffectual level of abstraction.
For more information contact Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC (mfarina@dspt.edu).
Important Dates:
January 26, 2009: Art Exhibit opens at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (2301 Vine Street, Berkeley).
February 5, 2009: Workshop on Religion and Human Rights (Venue TBA).
February 12, 2009: Lecture on Judaism and Human Rights by Brian Walt (Rabbis for Human Rights), hosted by Temple Beth El (1301 Oxford Street, Berkeley).
March 12, 2009: Lecture on Christianity and Human Rights by Jean Porter (University of Notre Dame), hosted by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.
April 30, 2009: Lecture on Islam and Human Rights by Abdulaziz Sachedina (University of Virginia), hosted by the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (1433 Madison Street, Oakland).
Dates for the workshops on human rights concerning victims of racism, discrimination, and torture and the Human Rights Film Festival will be published soon.
The Faith and Human Rights project hopes to offer a unique opportunity for communities and institutions of the Bay Area to renew their commitment to the directives outlined in the human rights treaties concerning racial discrimination, treatment of women, concern for victims of torture and other issues related to the UN Millennium goals. The interfaith project will focus on the issues and cases that are raised by our local human rights groups and invited speakers. These cases will be discussed in light of the universal human rights treaties/conventions and declarations. In this way, our conversations and sharing of information will help us put our words into action by developing an action plan to promote and protect human rights for individuals and their communities. It is hoped that this collaboration will foster a new set of relationships that can challenge exclusionary and dominative social practices and not leave the values of compassion and solidarity at the ineffectual level of abstraction.
For more information contact Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC (mfarina@dspt.edu).
Important Dates:
January 26, 2009: Art Exhibit opens at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (2301 Vine Street, Berkeley).
February 5, 2009: Workshop on Religion and Human Rights (Venue TBA).
February 12, 2009: Lecture on Judaism and Human Rights by Brian Walt (Rabbis for Human Rights), hosted by Temple Beth El (1301 Oxford Street, Berkeley).
March 12, 2009: Lecture on Christianity and Human Rights by Jean Porter (University of Notre Dame), hosted by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.
April 30, 2009: Lecture on Islam and Human Rights by Abdulaziz Sachedina (University of Virginia), hosted by the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (1433 Madison Street, Oakland).
Dates for the workshops on human rights concerning victims of racism, discrimination, and torture and the Human Rights Film Festival will be published soon.
Inception of Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P. as Master of Sacred Theology
This year’s feast of St. Albert the Great, November 15, was the occasion of Fr. Augustine Thompson’s official “inception” as Master of Sacred Theology (Sacrae Theologiae Magister, or S.T.M.). Fr. Augustine is a member of the Western Dominican Province and a DSPT alum. He received his doctorate in medieval history from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently a professor of religious studies and history at the University of Virginia. His specialty is lay and religious spirituality in thirteenth-century Italy.
The S.T.M., the highest academic honor awarded by the Dominican Order, has evolved from the final degree of theological studies at the medieval university to a largely honorary degree today. It presupposes at least ten years of active teaching and a record of recognized publication. It is granted by the Master of the Dominican Order and his curia in Rome in consultation with other scholars of the Dominican Order. As a Church historian, Fr. Augustine has himself described the history and ceremony of the degree at dominican-liturgy.blogspot.com.
The ceremony of installation, held at St. Albert’s Priory, featured the lecture required of every new master on this occasion. Fr. Augustine entitled his remarks “The Soul You Lose May Be Your Own: Historical Reflections on the Theologian and the World.” It reviewed the unity-in-tension between faith and culture at key moments in the history of the Church. The ceremony was preceded by a Missa cantata in the Dominican rite at which Fr. Augustine presided. Pictures may be found at opwest.org.
The S.T.M., the highest academic honor awarded by the Dominican Order, has evolved from the final degree of theological studies at the medieval university to a largely honorary degree today. It presupposes at least ten years of active teaching and a record of recognized publication. It is granted by the Master of the Dominican Order and his curia in Rome in consultation with other scholars of the Dominican Order. As a Church historian, Fr. Augustine has himself described the history and ceremony of the degree at dominican-liturgy.blogspot.com.
The ceremony of installation, held at St. Albert’s Priory, featured the lecture required of every new master on this occasion. Fr. Augustine entitled his remarks “The Soul You Lose May Be Your Own: Historical Reflections on the Theologian and the World.” It reviewed the unity-in-tension between faith and culture at key moments in the history of the Church. The ceremony was preceded by a Missa cantata in the Dominican rite at which Fr. Augustine presided. Pictures may be found at opwest.org.
December 2008: Faculty and Alumni News
On November 12, faculty member Dr. Marga Vega presented “The Ontology of Art: An Anthropological Perspective” as this year’s Aquinas Lecture. Her lecture addressed questions like, “What constitutes something as a work of art?” and “Why do experiences like a sunset or Yosemite park produce aesthetic admiration without being considered works of art?” Drawing from the main theories of defining art (institutionalism, functionalism, and the cluster concept approach) and philosophers like Aquinas, Kant, and J. Searle, Vega stated that every work of art possess the logical features of social objects, a status function that we collectively assign. In the case of art, this status function consists in investing the work of art with a further status, personification. In this way, we give the work of art the status of a pseudo-person that deserves respect and must be preserved.
The Second Edition of The Unchanging God of Love by Fr. Michael Dodds, OP is now available from the Catholic University of America Press. Much contemporary debate surrounds the traditional teaching that God is unchanging. It is frequently argued that an immutable God must be cold, remote, indifferent, and uncaring – that an unchanging God cannot be the triune God of love revealed in Scripture. This text provides a clear and comprehensive account of what Aquinas says about divine immutability, presented in a way that allows his theology to address contemporary criticism. Aquinas’s unchanging God proves to be no static deity, but the dynamic, Trinitarian plenitude of knowledge, love, and life, to whom not only immutability but also motion may in some way be attributed. Through this study, it becomes clear that the unchanging God of Aquinas, far from being different or remote, is truly the God of compassion and love revealed in Scripture, who shares a most intimate friendship with the people he has created and redeemed.
The Second Edition of The Unchanging God of Love by Fr. Michael Dodds, OP is now available from the Catholic University of America Press. Much contemporary debate surrounds the traditional teaching that God is unchanging. It is frequently argued that an immutable God must be cold, remote, indifferent, and uncaring – that an unchanging God cannot be the triune God of love revealed in Scripture. This text provides a clear and comprehensive account of what Aquinas says about divine immutability, presented in a way that allows his theology to address contemporary criticism. Aquinas’s unchanging God proves to be no static deity, but the dynamic, Trinitarian plenitude of knowledge, love, and life, to whom not only immutability but also motion may in some way be attributed. Through this study, it becomes clear that the unchanging God of Aquinas, far from being different or remote, is truly the God of compassion and love revealed in Scripture, who shares a most intimate friendship with the people he has created and redeemed.
Alumni Profile: Colleen Knutsen, M.A. in Theology (2005)
As I sit and reflect on how my time at DSPT shaped the person that I have become, I cannot help but think that many of the lessons I learned were outside of the classroom. That is not to say that the lessons were not connected to the classes I took, but it was often in the discussions outside of class that I was most challenged. The search for Truth that drew many of us to the DSPT often impassioned our discussions and led us to challenge one another to live these truths beyond the classroom; we were forced to consider the practical application that studying philosophy and theology had in our daily existence as part of a much bigger reality than the confines of North Berkeley.
Now, in coordinating the Respect Life Ministry Office for the Diocese of Oakland, I have many occasions to put this great lesson into practice as I engage my fellow East Bay inhabitants in critical dialogue that considers the very tenets of our existence. In looking at the question of when human life begins, what it means to be human, and why the dignity of the human person deserves -- demands really -- to be respected, I find myself drawing not only on the principles of philosophy and theology that I studied at DSPT, but equally on the way I learned to engage these critical questions. My time at DSPT gave me both the knowledge and the wisdom to engage the culture in which I live and to cultivate a fruitful dialogue that converts our hearts as well as our minds to the Truth we so earnestly sought in our studies.
Now, in coordinating the Respect Life Ministry Office for the Diocese of Oakland, I have many occasions to put this great lesson into practice as I engage my fellow East Bay inhabitants in critical dialogue that considers the very tenets of our existence. In looking at the question of when human life begins, what it means to be human, and why the dignity of the human person deserves -- demands really -- to be respected, I find myself drawing not only on the principles of philosophy and theology that I studied at DSPT, but equally on the way I learned to engage these critical questions. My time at DSPT gave me both the knowledge and the wisdom to engage the culture in which I live and to cultivate a fruitful dialogue that converts our hearts as well as our minds to the Truth we so earnestly sought in our studies.
December 2008: A Culture of Philanthropy
What is the Annual Fund?
You may have received our Annual Fund brochure in the mail recently or perhaps one of our students called you to talk about our Annual Appeal. Every year we turn to our supporters to help carry out the mission of our school. Your donation directly supports the education of seminarians and lay men and women who will take leadership in the Church and in society. Without your gift to the School, we cannot continue the work of education that is so vital to our future. We know that you have many demands on your money, but as the year winds down we come to you with hope that you and your families or friends will consider donating to our school.
Like most institutions of higher learning, the DSPT operating costs are only partially covered by tuition. For every effort that goes into the formation of seminarians and lay students at DSPT, only 40% of the expense is covered by tuition. The remainder, approximately $15,000 per student per year, is made up for by your generous contributions to the Annual Fund. Take advantage of the tax deduction for this calendar year and submit your donation no later than December 31, 2008.
Your generous gifts to the Annual Fund will contribute to a few of our most important initiatives:
You may have received our Annual Fund brochure in the mail recently or perhaps one of our students called you to talk about our Annual Appeal. Every year we turn to our supporters to help carry out the mission of our school. Your donation directly supports the education of seminarians and lay men and women who will take leadership in the Church and in society. Without your gift to the School, we cannot continue the work of education that is so vital to our future. We know that you have many demands on your money, but as the year winds down we come to you with hope that you and your families or friends will consider donating to our school.
Like most institutions of higher learning, the DSPT operating costs are only partially covered by tuition. For every effort that goes into the formation of seminarians and lay students at DSPT, only 40% of the expense is covered by tuition. The remainder, approximately $15,000 per student per year, is made up for by your generous contributions to the Annual Fund. Take advantage of the tax deduction for this calendar year and submit your donation no later than December 31, 2008.
Your generous gifts to the Annual Fund will contribute to a few of our most important initiatives:
- Academic excellence – Your gift to the Annual Fund will go directly toward the development of new academic programs, and help provide continuing education to our faculty.
- Scholarships – In order to attract the very best students, we must be able to offer competitive scholarship packages. We recently lost a wonderful candidate to another college who offered more substantial scholarship money.
- Intellectual community – The students at DSPT are being prepared to engage in a vital dialogue that crosses boundaries of religion and political or cultural beliefs. With your help we can continue to host renowned philosophers and theologians as guest speakers providing a venue for this important encounter.
- Direct gifts – You may mail your donation to DSPT Advancement, 2301 Vine Street, Berkeley, CA 94708-1816 or give online at www.dspt.edu/docs/splash/contribute.asp.
- Matching gifts – Ask your employer about matching your contribution.
- Endowments – Gifts can be designated for scholarship, fellowship, specific programs, or faculty positions.
- Planned Giving – Include DSPT in your estate planning.
- Charitable Gift Annuity – Call (510) 883-2085 to learn more.
Use Giving Cart This Holiday Season
Did you know that you can support DSPT through your online purchases of holiday gifts or travel? By going through http://www.givingcart.com/ and selecting the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology as your cause, a percentage of each of your purchases goes to support DSPT. Participating stores include 1-800-Flowers, Travelocity, Orbitz, Lands End, iTunes, and more!
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