WE CORDIALLY welcome you to The Kolbe Foundation web site. The Kolbe Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit educational foundation committed to the development of Catholic schools and colleges for the New Evangelization through the development of liberal arts courses, programs, and educational materials. Currently, we are working with the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth, Texas to develop Greatest Books Online Courses with special emphasis on Catholic Social Doctrine and Christian Civilization. The Kolbe Foundation from its inception over a decade ago has been committed to innovative educational programs in tune with the times yet loyal to tradition.


      The foundation began as a response to my doctoral dissertation "A Community College for Poland's Future" which I completed at the University of Florida and presented to the Polish Ministry of Education in 1992. In actuality, the idea of assisting the Catholic Church in its educational works began much earlier after graduation from the University of Notre Dame when Lisa and I decided to spend three years as missionary servants in the Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico among an indigenous population of Navaho, Hispanic, and Anglo Americans.


      Twenty five years later, after serving as a missionary middle school and high school teacher and then as a public school teacher, adjunct college professor, an assistant and associate professor of Politics and Catholic Social Ethics, Academic Dean, Vice Chancellor of Education, President of a small Catholic college, Superintendent of Catholic Schools and Chancellor of Education for a Society of Apostolic Life, we have a chance to develop the educational programs of The Kolbe Foundation began well over a decade ago.


      During this time, we have edited and produced the Greatest Books for educational television with Time Warner and AT & T and have developed the Greatest Books Library and courses in Politics, Social Ethics, and Christian Civilization. We have been blest to meet and teach with some great Christian educators, some of whom you will recognize and whom you can view on this website discussing various topics in literature, philosophy, politics, and theology with me as the Host of the Greatest Books Program.


      We look forward to the broader development of Greatest Books Courses to augment the educational efforts of Catholic and Protestant, non-denominational schools, colleges and home schools who desire high quality Catholic/Christian education for their students at authentically affordable prices. As a missionary servant for over 25 years, I have developed a keen awareness of the need of so many people who desire Catholic education and yet are not able to afford it for themselves or their children. We have no problem reducing costs to accommodate anyone who desires to enlighten their mind and enflame their hearts with the greatest educators humanity as ever known, those with saint, in front of their names, and all those men and women of good will who have endeavored to understand themselves and make sense of the world we live in as well as to contribute to its positive development in the Christian or natural law tradition.


      I personally look forward to meeting with many of you and having the opportunity to share our courses with you on line and during office hours which I hold weekly with my students. I hope and pray that you benefit by your association with us and with the greatest authors who have developed the tradition embodied in the Greatest Books which we share with you as part of the New Evangelization for a new man and a new humanity.

      On this web site you will find Kolbe's Greatest Books, Greatest Books College Reading List, Wisdom Magazine, Video Lectures and voluminous documents dealing with educational theory and practice, curriculum development, the liberal arts, fine arts, manual arts, strategic planning, and assessment, training manuals and brochures for the continuing education of board members,understanding Catholic school and public school governance, school catalogs, policy templates, contract templates, faculty handbooks, student handbooks, student constitutions and charters, bylaws, articles of incorporation, campus facilities planning manuals, campus safety plans, accreditation and licensure review and quality performance tools for internal educational auditing, and hundreds of forms and templates covering every aspect of school life from the registrars office all the way to that of the principal/president and superintendent/chancellor's office.

We ask God to abundantly bless you as you explore The Kolbe Foundation web site and hopefully as students of the Greatest Books.

Sincerely,

David J. P. Marzak Ed.D
Director

Lisa L. T. Marzak
Executive Assistant

VISION STATEMENT: Integral Education for a New Man and a New Humanity

The Kolbe Foundation was incorporated in 1997 as a non-profit educational foundation committed to integral education and to a new humanism, that is, to a new man and a new humanity.

NEW MAN

By new man, we mean each individual person formed in the image of God and cognizant of this dignity.   A new man is one who is in communion with others because he is first in communion with God and himself.  He is fully aware of his vast human potential and has respect for the freedom he has to develop this potential in a life long pursuit of happiness.

A new man is one who stands in awe of the vast cosmos a panorama displayed for the joy of his senses and the challenge of his intellect.   Over and above this vast panoply; he stands even more in awe of his own human nature and therefore seeks to know himself. 

In the process of self knowledge he becomes aware of his unique composition as a being with body and soul having vast physical and spiritual potential related to the mystery of who each one is as a human person made in the image of God but requiring an unfolding in the continual and integrated process of human growth and development.

A new man is a loving person who has knowledge and understanding of his human nature.  This knowledge begins with his anatomical structure and physiological processes. He masters and enjoys the experience of his emotional life and understands  the relationship it has to his mental and spiritual life.   He is aware of his powers for memory, imagination, rational thought and the volition of his will.   He understands the the interiorization of culture and socio-cultural development as well as the need for political participation as fundamental parts of human development.

In short, a new man is an integral being composed of physical, emotional, spiritual, volitional, socio-cultural, political and aesthetic parts properly balanced and united in an integral whole appreciative of the freedom to pursue happiness.

NEW HUMANITY

The freedom for pursuit of happiness is almost meaningless without a new humanity or a concomitant socio-cultural system in symbiosis with man’s physical and spiritual needs.  By this we mean political and economic structures directed by constitutional laws based on the deepest truths about man and society. They, therefore promote participation, provide a living wage, and assure the universal distribution of property and the opportunity for all people to freely pursue their human destiny.

On the horizons of the 21st century we find an alienated and expectant humanity ready and looking for change.  Realizing that the twentieth century culminated with the dissolution of socialism/communism and with liberal capitalism severely weakened by an increasingly unsustainable debt and an even greater lack of confidence in the liberal market, world leaders are looking for alternative social structures more in tune with promoting the dignity of the human person.

Thus, a new humanity is a diverse and united global community providing political and economic justice necessary for authentic human development.  The two, new man and new humanity necessarily go together; one is not conceivable or sustainable without the other.  It is with this understanding of integral humanism that we advocate a new educational paradigm: integral education.