Long before joining the Board of Governors in 2010, Dr. 托马斯。 克劳斯 actively supported 托马斯。 Aquinas College as a benefactor, 父母和, 也许最值得注意的是, 雇主. 克劳斯·贝尔集团的创始合伙人, an international consulting firm specializing in organizational culture and safety management, Dr. 克劳斯 regularly hires the College’s graduates — and with great success.
他是北加州人. 克劳斯 learned of the College around the time he started practicing psychology in the nearby city of Ojai in the 1970s. “Hearing about the curriculum locally caused me to be interested because I knew I had never read all those books, 尽管我有社会科学的博士学位,他说. Then his sister-in-law Leslie Hidley (‘86) enrolled as a freshman in 1982 and “had a really wonderful time,证实了他的第一印象是积极的.
When his daughter Christel (Kelsey ‘91) was nearing graduation from high school, Dr. 克劳斯 and his wife, Cathryn, were determined to send her to the College. “She had been accepted at a really good school, 一所类似常春藤联盟的大学, 那就是她想去的地方,” Dr. 克劳斯 recalls, but Christel agreed to give the College a try. 在她在校期间, 她“被课程迷住了,以及信仰, 大一的时候就皈依了.
“那时我们都不是天主教徒。. 克劳斯 observes, “but most of the family is now,” including Dr. 和夫人. 克劳斯, who have also since been received into the Church. “Christel’s conversion had a big influence on me in that it caused me to rethink things I hadn’t thought about in a long time.”
1990年，被克里斯特尔的学识所鼓舞. 和夫人. 克劳斯加入了 总统委员会 -书院的财政支柱, consisting of hundreds of loyal benefactors who contribute $1,000或以上. 作为感谢的象征, the College invites Council members to its Great Books Weekends each July, 克劳斯一家非常喜欢. “It was those early seminars that really got us interested; it was having the actual experience of reading and discussing those books,” Dr. 克劳斯还记得.
Eager to get a further taste of such an education, he went on to earn a master’s degree in liberal arts through a program at St. 约翰学院在圣达菲，n.n.M., where he has been a member of the Board of 访问ors and Governors since 2001.
When Christel and her friends began graduating from the College, Dr. 克劳斯 began hiring alumni for Behavioral Science Technology, Inc., a company he founded in 1979 and ran until selling it in 2012. He soon discovered that these liberally educated men and women made for exemplary workers, 主要有三个原因:第一, through reading political philosophy the College’s graduates acquire a proper sense of citizenship. “A good citizen is someone who understands the overall objectives of the organization and works hard to accomplish them,他说. “It’s almost rare these days to find someone that gets the idea of organizational citizenship. It’s an idea that’s almost lost in the modern culture.”
第二,博士. 克劳斯 finds that because of their knowledge of the Discussion Method, the College’s alumni are uniquely adept at solving problems and working cooperatively. “如果你的任务是, 说, 与客户进行讨论, you need to have some familiarity with what a discussion is and how a set of issues gets approached,他解释道.
最后,博士. 克劳斯 notes that the graduates’ thoughtful study of philosophy prepares them for the modern economy, 错综复杂的人际关系在哪里, 通常依旧心存芥蒂, 会使道德决策复杂化. “What the employer is looking for is an employee who gets that (complexity), 愿意仔细检查吗, and behaves in a way that’s consistent with an ethical standard,他说.
“当你想雇人的时候, you’re looking for someone you think of as a good person, 一个会成为好同事的人,” Dr. 克劳斯说. “It’s very hard to tell when you interview people who’s going to be like that because everyone is trying hard to look like that…. So, knowing that (an applicant) went to a college like 托马斯。 Aquinas gives you a kind of direction that goes in a positive way.”
Dr. 克劳斯’s experience — as both 父母和 雇主 — has sustained his generosity toward the College over the years as a member of both the 总统委员会 and the Board of Governors. “I think it’s very important to American Catholicism that there is a place like 托马斯。 Aquinas College,他说. “这是美国唯一一个这样的地方.S. That’s good for education and it’s good for Catholicism. So as a Catholic and as a citizen, I have at least two reasons to support the institution.”