Written By: Ariadna Campbell
The name “Dr. Hippler” is familiar to all high schoolers at Providence, even those who have not yet entered his classroom. A philosopher and theology teacher, he has been esteemed at Providence Academy for 20 years. He has captivated the school not only because of his intelligence, but also because of his vibrant character. Despite his two decades at Providence, his story had never been documented on the PAW. He began his story with his greatest influence: religion.
“I was raised as an atheist,” Hippler stated. His father was a fallen-away Catholic for three decades, and consequently, the faith was never incorporated into his family growing up. Catholicism was not communicated to Hippler through his public school in Alaska, either; he did not even discover that many of his friends were Catholic until after his conversion. So what, then, drew Arthur Hippler to the Church?
“Reading,” he replied. “I read my way in.”
His father attended a discussion group filled with people eagerly attempting to rekindle his faith. They insistently handed religious books to him, hoping that one of them would secure his conviction in God’s existence once again. Their success was eventually won, but it was through the conversion of someone else: his son, Dr. Hippler.
“‘My father brings these books home and leaves them lying around the house. I read them–C.S. Lewis and Frances Schaefer,” Hippler reflected. “I was convicted by them. I was somebody who always believed that there was a moral law, that there was a right way to live. And I saw that I couldn’t sustain that as an atheist.”
Two weeks later, Hippler, a junior in high school, began attending Mass. His father, inspired by him, went to confession for the first time in 30 years. Within a year, his sister, brother, and mother converted. An entire family converted to Catholicism because of a few haphazardly-disposed books.
Because of his conversion, Hippler geared his college search towards more religious institutions. He did not fear being plunged into a secular environment and being forced to defend his faith. However, he felt that it was first necessary for him to grow in his faith.
For most of his high school career, the prospect of college was a painful thought. He felt excruciatingly frustrated in his public high school because the education lacked the Great Books, and he did not want to relive that experience. Once again, his despair was cured by the hand of literature when a friend gave him a pamphlet for St. John’s College. It read: “The following teachers will be returning next year to St. John’s College: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Newton, Einstein, and Marx.”
Dr. Arthur Hippler
Hippler cast all restraints of practicality to the wind in pursuit of his career: “Every idea that I had was impractical. I never cared about law or medicine. I was never good enough at math to be an engineer or scientist. I came up with all these ideas that are completely impractical. And here I am: I’ve got a PhD in philosophy, the very pinnacle of impracticality. But somehow, I managed to get a job and pay the bills.”
He attended and graduated from Thomas Aquinas College with a BA in Liberal Arts and went on to pursue a PhD at Boston College. It was there that he got his first taste of teaching, and it was… disappointing. Even at a highly selective school such as Boston College, Hippler noticed that students lacked preparation from high school and therefore, could not flourish as easily in college. He decided that this problem could only be solved at the roots of intellectual germination: high school.
“What is satisfying about teaching high school is that I am able to teach things like St. Augustine and St. Thomas in challenging books, but I also have the time to do the backfill,” Hippler stated.
Hippler was still far from coming to Providence Academy once this realization dawned upon him–he would journey through Louisiana, Alaska, and Wisconsin before finally settling in Minnesota. After graduating from Boston College with a PhD in philosophy in 1993, he became an assistant professor of philosophy at Xavier University in Louisiana. Once again, he observed the results of unsound intellectual foundations in college students and decided to leave after two years. He then found himself back in Anchorage, Alaska, his hometown. There, he taught at a small Catholic school named Holy Rosary Academy from 1996 to 1999. Though the school was minuscule, his role was colossal: he taught Latin, Greek, religion, history, and literature.
“I really enjoyed my work–a lot more than I ever enjoyed teaching college. Students are a little surprised by this, but I tell them that I do not miss teaching college,” Hippler explained. “They think that, as a teacher, you would want older, more mature students, but at college, I couldn’t teach at a higher level.”
It was halfway through Hippler’s career at Holy Rosary that his life was, once again, shaped by paper. However, this time it was not in the form of a book or a pamphlet, but of a letter. Hippler entered a personal ad in a magazine that was distributed in various countries in Asia. The women in these countries would flip through, read about, and contact the men that they were interested in (think long-distance dating app). Hippler awaited a response for three months. Then, the letters piled in. One letter stood out among all the others; it was from a “Miss Theresa Gallego,” who would soon become his wife.
“I picked her letter because of the things that she said and the way that she said them. I recognized not just intelligence, but a charm,” Hippler smiled. “My wife has a great way with words.”
A “whirlwind romance” is how Hippler described the beginning of their relationship. They began corresponding in November of 1997, met in June of 1998, got engaged in July of 1998, and were married in August of 1998.
About two years after his marriage, his career shifted again. He moved about 3,000 miles away from home to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he became the director of the Office of Justice and Peace under Bishop Raymond Burke (now Cardinal Burke). This position gave him the responsibility of overseeing the Church’s social work. His six and a half years there were pleasant, but they were permeated with a longing to return to teaching.
In 2006, Hippler grounded himself at Providence Academy: “I taught [moral theology] year after year, and I never got tired of it. I am bringing adult-level topics to kids who, in many cases, haven’t thought about them before. I get to be on the ground floor of a kid’s intellectual development, and it’s wonderful to see.”
Hippler’s story is far from coming to a close. Looking back on Dr. Hippler’s life thus far, it may have been drastically different without those books, that pamphlet, and that letter. One can conclude, from Hippler’s narrative, that we should pay attention to the influences in our life, no matter how seemingly unimportant, because they can shape a life profoundly.