I graduated from Wyoming Catholic College in the spring of 2022 and I am now in the middle of my 2L year at Baylor Law in Waco, Texas. Upon graduating with my Juris Doctorate, I will spend a year clerking for a Federal Judge in the Western District of Texas, and when I finish that year, I plan on becoming a prosecutor in Texas. My long-term goal is to work as an Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting human trafficking crimes, especially sex trafficking of children.

I have already been incredibly grateful for the liberal arts education I received at WCC during my first year and a half at law school and I know I will only grow in gratitude for it going forward. My time studying at WCC formed my sense of justice through philosophy, the Church’s Social Teachings, and the political and literary works of the humanities track. Most importantly, however, WCC encouraged me to think deeply about what it means to fully give your life to Christ and live out incarnational love. It was that reflection that planted the seeds that would mature into my love of criminal law because it is a career where I can serve those with a great need for justice and Christ-like love.

WCC prepared me not just to think deeply about the true, the good, and the beautiful, but to live in accordance with those principles.

Upon graduation from WCC, the next step was to build on what I had gained from the WCC Latin program with more intensive work in languages, so I headed off to Berkeley for a summer course in ancient Greek, followed by a master’s program in classics at the University of Kentucky.  Because of the incredible latinists Terence Tunberg and Milena Minkova, UK is one of very few places where you may take graduate-level classes entirely in Latin.  We spoke Latin everywhere: in our homes, in hallways and offices, on walks and at restaurants.  I loved it.

UK is also where I received my first sustained taste of teaching Latin.  I was glad to continue teaching – this time Introduction to Philosophy – during my PhD program at Marquette University.  They allowed graduate instructors remarkable freedom in our syllabus design, which I exploited to the fullest to craft a course on the philosophy of friendship.  For many students, this would be their only philosophy class, so my aim was to establish the habits of conversing and writing clearly about virtue, happiness, and true friendship.  One of the most popular elements of each semester was memorizing poetry on the theme of friendship, a practice which I stole from WCC (and John Senior, of course).

Just as I finished my coursework and the doctoral qualification process (which comes right before a dissertation) at Marquette, I stepped away from academia.  I began a job at Anchor Group NetSuite Consultants, a company under the aegis of the Brotherhood of St. Joseph, a fledgling fraternity of Catholic men who seek to work, pray, and form themselves in community.  Over the next several years I dove into solving business challenges within the context of ERP software (which you could think of as the technological medium in and through which a business operates most of its functions, such as accounting, inventory and warehouse management, sales, websites, etc.,).  In time I was asked to lead the ERP department as VP.  Now I spend most of my time training and guiding, clarifying company vision, and thinking about how we can work more excellently.

When life allows, I still teach Latin for the Veterum Sapientiae Institute, in an effort to foster an intellectual life alongside my utilitarian day job.  I live in Madison, WI with my wife Miriam and our two delightful daughters.

I sit at my reading table in the back of my rather messy first grade classroom with pen in hand, or rather computer in lap and reflect on how I will begin to scratch the surface of explaining how Wyoming Catholic College brought me to this time and place. I graduated from Wyoming Catholic College in 2018 with a brimming tool box of knowledge ready to face teaching Kindergarten-3rd grade Latin for a public charter school. While teaching, I attended the University of Dallas and obtained my Masters in Humanities and Classical Education in 2021. Once I finished my degree, I moved to Founders Classical Academy in Lewisville, Texas, and began teaching first grade. Through these past five years of continuing education, transitions, and working in the word of education, Wyoming Catholic College has never let me down. I have drawn on the knowledge, leadership skills, spirituality, and faculty members of my alma mater more times than I can count.

If I had to pick one thing about the College for which I am most grateful, it would be the recognition that man needs to live in a community of likeminded people, and my healthy fear of and respect for technology. I firmly believe that my ability to continue my education and my love of teaching stems from the examples of my professors and the lessons I was taught with regards to technology. When I find myself with extra time in the school day, my first though is to channel my “inner Dr. Grove” and take my students on a nature walk rather than turn on a movie. My students are benefiting from my education and there is nothing greater a teacher like me could ask from her alma mater.

My decision to attend Wyoming Catholic College was perplexing to everyone, including myself. I was not, like most people, drawn in by the horses, the snow, or the camping;  in truth, I hated horses, disliked the snow and cold, and avoided camping. I was drawn in by the heart of what WCC offered: the chance to be formed by the greatest minds, and to become a more actualized version of myself.

I have been a first grade teacher at a small Catholic school for the past ten years now. I do a little job for little people who have little rationality. The wonder and enthusiasm that my students show with every menial task is, I believe, one of the greatest beauties of education. The ability to help build and mold that natural wonder in them comes directly from my formation at WCC. There was a small book, The Book Of Wonder,  that I read my freshman year.  I will always be grateful that the school had me read it. That sense of wonder that my education unlocked for me has been my kindest companion through life. No hardship, triumph, sorrow, or joy in life is without beauty. The sense of wonder that WCC left with me allows me to look at life from a unique angle that shows true beauty in the world. This is the message that I try to convey to my students. I hope they never lose their sense of wonder.

I have absolutely zero regrets attending WCC. I still hate horses, dislike the snow and cold, and avoid camping; but now I dislike them with an informed sense of wonder.

WCC deliberately and unapologetically thrust me into challenging environments: backpacking through rugged mountain terrain, engaging in intellectual landscapes created by masters of thought, working with horses on the ranch, grappling with the most profound questions regarding the purpose of human existence.

This unique education taught me that we cannot change the reality of our environment, landscape, or current situation; but we can allow ourselves to be changed as we interact with it. We can choose to see our lives as a constant struggle, or as an invigorating challenge; we can decide to view our work as necessary drudgery, or as a means of expressing our creative purpose; we can make the decision to read unexpected changes in life as an attack on our comfortable routine, or as new opportunities for growth.

My experience at WCC strengthened my belief that I can navigate challenging environments and master complex subjects. I grew accustomed to stretch myself in all ways, to continually face and move beyond my fears, to develop confidence in my own abilities. This gave me the courage and freedom to step off a traditional career path and become an entrepreneur, seeing the world of business and exchange like a mountain landscape to be explored or a Great Book to be studied.

I apply my perspective learned at WCC to the marketplace, whether I am conducting a photo shoot with clients, analyzing the stock market for high-probability trades, or thinking about what businesses to create that will solve problems and serve the needs of others. Economic markets have cycles and seasons, just like the natural world. And we can choose how we behave in these seasons: in an economic winter, we can either grumble about the cold, or we can learn how to ski.

I’m so glad that WCC has taught me how to ski.

Emily’s recent photography work can be seen on her website and Instagram.

When I went to DC, I didn’t particularly want to work with politicians, but I quickly learned that a lot of work is presented by politicians who have something to campaign on but drafted by staffers behind the scenes. I enjoyed in a very small way influencing political decisions in this framework. Before my work at the senate, I didn’t realize how much the U.S. truly is a republic, which sounds funny to say. But after going to some floor speeches and seeing the senators together, I realized how much the U.S. depends on  the representation of a vast population by a relatively minuscule group.

I would say that the liberal arts absolutely will help anyone interested in a political career. Something I was told early on in my internship was that technical skills can be quickly taught, while interpersonal ‘soft’ skills have to be learned over a longer period of time. The liberal arts gives the grounding and community to develop “soft” skills to a level where all you need to do is learn light technical skills to be prepared for a plethora of different jobs.

My experience writing an advisory speech for rhetoric class was a huge help in researching and speaking clearly about political issues, something I put into practice working with staffers on projects. Being able to communicate well either in writing or especially in person is extremely valuable, especially if you have the attention span that WCC’s tech policy inspires, which is increasingly rare.

Read more about Joseph and his wife, Lizzy, and their path to Capitol Hill in “Capitol Alumni:” Joseph (‘25) and Lizzy (‘25) Collins and Life On the Hill.

Thomas Aquinas writes: “[Christ] carried his cross as a teacher his candelabrum” (Super Ioan. 19, lec. 3). His point? That the greatest teacher is Christ crucified. As a result, the best teachers are themselves students of Christ; the light of Christ, especially the paradox of the cross, enlightens all they do, regardless of their discipline. This is the way the liberal arts are approached at Wyoming Catholic College. And this is the example I follow in my own teaching at the Chesterton Academy of Orlando.

When I arrived at Wyoming Catholic as a freshman in 2010, all I knew was that I needed a liberal education.  To quote Plato’s Apology, “the unexamined life is not worth living” (38a)! What I did not know was that “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” As then-Karol Wojtyła’s dissertation director puts it, the mysteries of nature and grace are each like a chiaroscuro painting. The clearer the mystery becomes, the more clearly one sees what is dark or obscure about it as well (Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Sense of Mystery, c. 4). For example, the more one understands the mystery of the Incarnation, the more one also understands how little one understands it. This lesson, which I learned so clearly at Wyoming Catholic College, is one of the defining aspects of what makes a man truly free. It is one of the defining lessons of a liberal education. When I am successful as a teacher, it is because I am passing this lesson on to my own students as well.

The defining aspect of my education at Wyoming, in addition to the College’s fidelity to the magisterium and the wisdom of its professors, was the intellectual community it fostered. Truth is not a private good; it is a common good that unites those who share in it in love. From the moment they step in the door, freshmen at Wyoming Catholic find themselves caught up in a society greater than themselves. It is this kind of community I aim to foster among my own students. And it is just such a love of the truth—a love upon which Wyoming Catholic College was founded—that I strive to inculcate in my students.

After graduating from Wyoming Catholic College in 2012, I worked for two years in Lander in the pesticide business, eventually becoming the Supervisor for the Weed and Pest Department for the City of Lander. During the slower winter months, I began reading All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren (as a break from reports on the effects of Zenivex on adult mosquito nervous systems) and I was deeply moved by that book. But I didn’t know how to talk about it; I couldn’t explain to people why I liked it so much, and I myself didn’t know why I liked it so much.

So I applied to graduate school. I applied to a number of politics programs, because I wanted to understand demagoguery and rhetoric. And I applied to one literature program: University of Dallas, where I hoped to learn more about Southern Agrarian literature. I got into the latter. I spent seven years in graduate school earning a Ph.D. in Literature, with a focus on Shakespeare. I still love Robert Penn Warren’s masterpiece, but it was Shakespeare’s interest in langue and the way language shapes our conceptions—limits our conceptions of the world, ourselves, each other, and God—that drew me into Renaissance Studies. I focused on Shakespeare’s comedies and the gestures that make human flourishing possible.

After graduate school, I immediately went to go work for Beatrice Institute in Pittsburgh. Beatrice Institute is an ecumenical learning and research community that provides high-level academic inquiry into the Christian tradition. We are not a ministry, although we work closely with Christian ministries at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. My time at WCC—my deep dive into Thomistic theology and philosophy, my acquaintance with the Church Fathers, and my general integration of disciplines—has prepared me to develop and teach across Beatrice’s Institute’s curriculum. I routinely return the kind of discipline-integration that Wyoming Catholic College emphasized in my own own approach to giving students an introduction to the Christian idiom.

Judiann (nee Dalimata, ’11) and I raise our five sons according to the rudimentary principles we were introduced to at Wyoming Catholic College: an emphasis on the imagination, low-tech environments, the need to incite wonder in the natural world, and the complete interdependence of our minds, bodies, and spirits. Our boys are all recognizably children of WCC graduates.

In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul exhorts the Christians of Rome: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). How is one supposed to know, though, what is good, and what is evil? It turns out that experiencing real life helps with that issue. Once you’ve touched the hot stove, you know it is evil, and definitely aren’t going to do it again! That the stove is evil is quickly and easily learned. What the good life is, however, is much harder to know. Many men and women before me have thought about this question and tried to live life to the fullest while searching for what was good. Thankfully, they wrote about it.

At Wyoming Catholic College, I read those Great Books and gained the experience of those who had come before, through Greek Epics and Roman Tragedy, in Shakespeare and Homer, in Thomas Aquinas and even Hume. But I quickly learned that having vicarious experiences through great literature is only half the story. The other half is to create your own stories. The College’s Outdoor Program gives its students the opportunity create such stories, and create them I did. Leading others in harsh situations, riding horses, and cooking in the backcountry–all provide an opportunity to not just learn about virtue (which is very important) but act virtuously in the most extreme of circumstances (which is of utmost importance). This formation was invaluable to me, and without it I would not be where I am today.

With this foundation, I decided to attend the International Theological Institute (ITI) in Austria, where I completed a Masters in Sacred Theology. During that time, I was blessed with the opportunity to be a Personal Consultations Intern and subsequently a fellow at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. There, I advised individuals going through very traumatic medical moral issues, including maternal-fetal vital conflicts, hysterectomies and uterine ablations for therapeutic purposes, direct contraception and legitimate therapeutic uses of contraceptives, withholding or withdrawing assisted nutrition and hydration, proportionality of therapeutic interventions near the end of life, hospice, informed consent, cooperation with evil in the workplace and in the use of biological material of illicit origin, and much more. I was also tasked with a research project on moral issues surrounding previable induction of labor and life-threatening maternal complications.

After returning from the ITI, I worked as a Theology Teacher at St. Ambrose Academy in Madison, WI, before I became Mission Integration and Volunteer Services Coordinator for Aspirus Langlade Hospital. There, I worked in clinical ethics, mission, and pastoral care, giving much-needed ethical advice in the hospital environment and bringing our Catholic faith to bear upon modern healthcare. Now I am a Director of Mission Services for OSF Healthcare in Urbana, IL, where I am responsible for bringing the Catholic mission of the organization to four hospitals, 571 inpatient beds, numerous clinics, and hundreds of employees.

My experience at Wyoming Catholic College gave me a foundation built not on sand, but on the sturdiest stone. Wyoming Catholic has set me up for success; it gave me the critical thinking skills to apply my more general philosophy and theology to specific bioethical issues; it put me years ahead of my peers in interpersonal skills and tolerance for adversity; and most importantly, it gave me a glimpse of the good life, which I will continue to pursue forever, holding fast to what is true, good, and beautiful.

Looking back at my four years at Wyoming Catholic College, the thing I am most thankful for is the opportunity to live away from “the world” in an environment that allowed me to grow naturally in ways that I didn’t even know existed, and to develop an understanding of the world previously unknown to myself.

These opportunities to leave the world behind in search of something more that I experienced for myself while at the College is what I seek to give people through Altum L’alto Pilgrimages, which I founded after living in Europe for several years. (“Altum” is from Luke 5:4, when Christ tells Simon Peter “Duc in altum,” meaning “Put out into the deep.”  “L’alto” is Italian for “the heights,” from Blessed Pier Giorgio’s phrase “Verso l’alto,” meaning “Towards the heights.”  We use these two words—“Altum” and “l’alto”—to signify “deep heights.”)

The College’s integrated approach to education laid a solid foundation that I have continued to build upon with my studies of philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and of French and Italian, with my exploration of the natural and cultural world of Europe, and with my continual search for God in the literal and spiritual footsteps of the saints.

Wyoming Catholic will certainly be the start of a great adventure for you, if you are open to it!