COMMUNITY
‘College of the Holy Angels’
Private, liberal arts college planned for Hagerstown in 2021
Ed Schaefer, president of Collegium, works in the college office, which is located in the Walker House, 36 S. Potomac St., Suite 203, in downtown Hagerstown. Submitted photo
written by LISA TEDRICK PREJEAN Ed Schaefer has a vision for a private liberal arts college in downtown Hagerstown, and as he walks through the city’s core, the cadence of what could be seems to resonate from the existing bricks and mortar.
Schaefer’s blueprint for Collegium Sanctorum Angelorum – Latin for College of the Holy Angels – incorporates a classical curriculum embodying faith and reason. The plan is to open in the fall of 2021 with up to 120 students. While Schaefer orchestrates the progress with choices that are decidedly prudent, one thing is crystal clear. The steps he takes along this path are guided by his faith. “Everything we do will be faithful to Catholic teaching,” said Schaefer, who has 35 years of teaching and administration experience in higher education.“Our practices will be Catholic. It will look like a Catholic school, but we’re not legally affiliated with the Catholic church. We are simply a lay apostolate.” Most of the students who attend Collegium (pronounced kuh·leh·jee·uhm) will come from a home-schooling background. “The people who are going to come to our school are largely, not exclusively, home-schooled people and people who are part of traditional Catholic communities, people who attend the traditional Latin Mass,” said Schaefer, who has a doctorate in musical arts from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The college will use resources that are already in place. “Within one block, you’ve got classes, dining, housing,” Schaefer said, noting that the buildings are closer together than those on most college campuses. Plus, no new structures are planned. “When there’s no infrastructure cost, it’s easier to stay focused on the mission,” he said.
