Ohio Catholic college looks to restore city as students study their faith and work with their hands
The College of St. Joseph the Worker, which trains students in the trades while working through a liberal arts curriculum, is a college like no other.
The Catholic college in Steubenville, Ohio, trains young men to become carpenters, plumbers and electricians. When these students complete their four years, they earn a Bachelor of Arts degree and become certified and licensed in a trade. Unlike many college graduates today, they will have an employable skill and zero debt.
"That's our strategy, that's our model, that's our mission," said Jacob Imam, president of the College of St. Joseph the Worker.
Imam, Oxford-educated and bound for a career in academia, converted to Catholicism and began searching for other ways to do some good. He found it in the empty avenues and vacant storefronts of the depressed Ohio Valley city of Steubenville. Here, he says, there was a great need and an opportunity. He created a college that would invite young men looking for purpose to transform themselves and the town in the process.
"Come to a defeated rust belt town, give it life, give it energy, give it a new hope, give it that future," Imam said. "Then go off and do it in your hometown."
By studying their religion while learning skilled trades, they're already doing good works, saving and restoring old signature buildings throughout Steubenville. In one case, students stripped a building down to the studs, framing and converting it into student apartments.
"You don't just want to be the person swinging the hammer," student Rocky Liguori said. "You want to know why you're doing, what you're doing it for and for the greater good of God."
The College of St. Joseph the Worker is not entirely male, but of its 62 students, only two are women. All work for the college's non-profit construction company. The company pays them for their labor, and the students, in turn, pay the college back for tuition, room and board. When they graduate, they'll be without debt and ready to put their trade skills to work.
"We are toiling in labor as God asked of us. And in doing so, we are fulfilling our purpose in life," student Anthony Covarruvias said.
When asked if this Catholic movement can revitalize Steubenville, Imam said, "We're seeing it now."
The college is part of a broader community-building movement in the city, where Catholic entrepreneurs have begun opening businesses in the urban core, chipping away at a seemingly unlimited number of vacant buildings. While they're here, the students will help in that effort. Then, Imam says they'll go where their faith and skills lead them.
"It's what we need in our country today," Iman said. "We need people that care, that will sacrifice themselves for the common good, for others. That's what we're preparing our students to do."
By studying their faith and working with their hands, the students here at the College of St. Joseph the Worker are transforming themselves and hope to transform the world they inherit.
