On/File: A Continuing Record of People, Groups, Movements, and Events Impacting Contemporary Religion

The College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville, Ohio, is a new kind of Catholic college blending training in the trades with liberal arts into a conservative Catholic framework. Students take classes on subjects such as the New Testament, advanced geometry, and rhetoric, and earn a liberal arts degree in Catholic studies. They also specialize in one of four trades—carpentry, HVAC, electrical work, or plumbing—and work toward a certificate that attests to their expertise. Jacob Imam, the college’s founder, says the college is trying to mend the “great divorce between the head and the hands,” modeling Jesus’s early work as a carpenter. The college also sees itself as moving students outside their “bubble,” exposing them to the real world by having them work as apprentices, fixing up buildings and also using their wages to pay their tuition and living expenses, avoiding college debt. The school is also part of the largely conservative attempt to revive and rehabilitate young men and masculinity after their incapacitation from porn and Internet addictions and exposure to far-right influences. (Source: The New Yorker, April 17)