Student Life at ASU Newman
ASU Newman exists to support your child (spiritually, emotionally and socially) as he or she begins a new phase of life: college studies, independent living, and increasing maturity (we hope!). We are here to build on and strengthen the formation that your son or daughter has received at home in these past 18 years. We very much envision a partnership with you in helping guide your son or daughter into maturity – spiritual as well as everything else.
Here are some opportunities we hope you can encourage your student to get connected with.
Newman Nights: Our bread-and-butter for students is our Newman Nights every Wednesday evening. We attend Mass as a student community, sing evening vespers together, and then attend a talk or an event. Free dinner for all our students follows… and usually fun and games ensue as well!
Mary College: We urge every Newman student during their college career to take at least one class at our affiliated institute for Catholic studies, Mary College. Many of the challenges to our faith in modern society are intellectual in nature, and students should have a mature understanding of their faith in order to appreciate and defend it on a secular university campus. Classes at Mary College count for ASU credit and fulfill university requirements for graduation, so this is kind of a no-brainer! We especially encourage incoming students in their first year to take CATH101, which is heavily discounted for freshmen/transfers and offers the perfect place to begin forming Christian friendships at college. Mary College also offers a Rome study trip for credit each December.
Small Groups: Our FOCUS and SPO missionaries provide a critical link for students between the sacramental life at our Newman campus and the day-to-day challenges of the Christian life. They offer Bible Study groups and household formation to help students come to full Christian maturity.
Retreats: We hope that every student will attend at least one (and hopefully more than one) retreat during their college years. Studies show that a personal encounter with God on retreat is one of the principle motives for young people retaining their faith as adults.
Connect: Finally, we invite your student to get connected with us – even before they’ve arrived on campus. They should sign up on our registration list to begin receiving updates, and can also subscribe to our Instagram channel @asucatholic to see what we’re up to!
We are grateful to be entrusted with your child’s ongoing formation in these critical years – thank you! We offer many more activities, which you can explore by poking around on our website. Since students don’t tend to be big donors, as part of our partnership we very much appreciate your financial support which increases the ways we can connect with students. We always love hearing from our parents and are grateful for your interest in your child’s spiritual well-being – an interest we very much share! Please see our Staff page to contact us with your questions and concerns. Blessings to you!