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The Augustine Institute prepares to expand its on-campus offerings after acquiring the 284-acre former Boeing Leadership Center (BLC) in Florissant, Missouri. The property is located 20 miles northwest of the Gateway Arch and perched on the bluff overlooking the fertile plain where the Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois Rivers converge.
The Institute, which specializes in theology at the graduate level, plans to use the property as a space of study, contemplation, and prayer for students, faculty, and staff, as well as for conference attendees and retreatants.
While Augustine Institute leaders noted that the migration from Denver to the Missouri campus will take several months, the new campus will open in time for the Graduate School of Theology’s fall 2024 semester. President of the Augustine Institute, Dr. Tim Gray, commented on the expansion:
“The purchase of the BLC offers an unprecedented opportunity to expand our Graduate School of Theology and further our mission to help Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. The BLC’s state-of-the-art facilities will transform the work of the Augustine Institute by allowing us to take our curriculum and resources beyond a digital interface, which already reaches millions around the world, into a national center for Catholic conferences, retreats, evangelization, and fellowship.”
Three rivers converge
The new campus will allow for the expansion of the Institute’s on-campus master’s level graduate programs in Theology, Pastoral Theology, Catholic Education, and Biblical Studies. In addition, the Institute expects soon to reach 70 on-campus students living in its residential buildings, while allowing distance education students to stay on campus for week-long intensive courses.
Students will enjoy contemplation, study, and true leisure on the Institute’s largely wooded campus, with an estimated five miles of walking trails. Students will also participate in the life of the Church in the Archdiocese of St. Louis and the neighboring Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, through internships, work study, and student teaching positions.
The view from the new campus evokes the story of Christian evangelization in North America. It overlooks the fertile plane where the Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois Rivers converge: the site where Jesuits led by Fr. Marquette came down the Mississippi and began sending missionaries up the Missouri river into the great West.
In the digital age, the Augustine Institute wants to welcome today’s missionaries to its campus to give them refreshment and inspiration for taking the Gospel back to their home parishes and schools and to their virtual communities.
20-year history
Initially founded in 2005 in Denver, the Augustine Institute has been working out of a building in the Denver Tech Center since 2012. President Gray noted that the Institute has “been blessed to collaborate with many Catholic organizations within the Archdiocese of Denver” and intends to continue to support and collaborate with the “numerous Catholic apostolates” that will remain in the building.
The Graduate School also looks forward to collaborations with the Archdiocese of St. Louis, in which the new campus is located. St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski also expressed his high hopes for the Augustine Institute to make a tremendous impact on the archdiocese:
“I believe that the Augustine Institute will transform this property into the premier center for the New Evangelization in the United States. By leveraging St. Louis’ central location, the Augustine Institute can foster a new era of collaboration with Catholic organizations nationwide and invite more people to encounter Jesus Christ and his Church.”
Future of the Institute
Once fully migrated to the new campus, the Augustine Institute plans to host both its own conferences and retreats for clergy, parish leaders, and teachers, and to welcome those of other Catholic apostolates and ministries.
The new campus will also lend itself to an ongoing collaboration between the Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press, particularly in their K-8 religious education curriculum called The Word of Life.
This project took five years for the two collaborators to complete and now the Missouri campus will host seminars to train parish and school teachers on how to implement this biblically-based approach to catechesis.
Another addition to the Augustine Institute’s offerings is the upcoming release of the second edition of its popular video catechetical program, Symbolon.
Described as “a walk through the articles of the Creed inspired by the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” this 16-episode series, shot in high-quality film, features footage from some of the great historical sites of the Catholic Church in the United States, including the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York; the site of the first Mass in the U.S. in Saint Augustine, Florida; and sites associated with recent American saints and holy men and women such as Fr. Emil Kapaun.
Learn more about the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology on its official website.
