St. John's College

05/27/2026

Journey with me to visit a mostly unknown monument associated with the American Revolution. In September 1781, multiple French soldiers and sailors, who were marching towards Yorktown, died while in camp at Annapolis.

In 1911, a monument was dedicated by President Taft, in memory of those men who were buried nearby.

Video link in the comments 👍🏼

05/26/2026

Seeking to understand the unique culture of learning that distinguishes St. John’s College, the Chronicle of Higher Education's Beth McMurtrie visited the Annapolis campus in January, where she watched 13 sophomores and two tutors gather around a table in McDowell Hall to discuss Dante's Purgatorio.

Tutor Emily Langston opened that evening's seminar by reading a passage about Dante seeking freedom, and then asked the room a deceptively simple question: In what sense is he free? And has his understanding of freedom changed?

“The students opened their marked-up paperbacks, flipping pages as they considered the questions. There was not a laptop or a cell phone in sight. Then they began an increasingly rare activity on college campuses today. They discussed, for more than two hours, a complicated work and the deeper questions it presents.”

McMurtrie also spoke with multiple Johnnies and tutors, weaving their reflections throughout the resulting profile while exploring how the college's Great Books-based pedagogy has become a model for other institutions—and how a time-tested classical education can be revolutionary in modern times.

Read the full piece below (paywall):

Its Great Books approach is anachronistic, and spreading.

05/26/2026

This Memorial Day, we pause to honor all those who gave their lives in service to our country.
St. John's prepares students for a wide array of thoughtful engagement with the world around them. That legacy includes Johnnies who answered the call to military service and made the ultimate sacrifice. Today, we remember with gratitude the alumni and friends whose lives were lost in service to our nation.
Pictured: Annapolis campus memorial commemorating Johnnies killed in action.

05/22/2026

Save the date 🗓️ On Thursday, June 4, registration opens for St. John's Year of Classics 2026-27 seminars with the theme “Sea to Shining Sea: An Exploration of America.” 🌊 🚗 🌊

Designed to encourage fresh insights and perspectives on our nation's 250th birthday, "Sea to Shining Sea" will provide participants with a vicarious trip across our nation's vast and varied landscape, allowing authors and thinkers to show us some of what the country has had to say for itself.

Journeying from East to West, from cities to frontiers, we will collectively ask what binds us to—and distances us from—this place, this land, these United States. What do we take from it; what do we give? What stories create the myths and the realities of this beautiful, complicated, and persistent nation?

Begin exploring questions like these yourself while browsing our seminar reading lists and class schedules, now available on our Year of Classics website.

https://www.sjc.edu/year-classics/theme-reading-list

https://www.sjc.edu/year-classics/seminar-schedule

05/22/2026

Happy Friday! Here are some words of wisdom for the long weekend, courtesy of The Economist: "Forget Python, study Plato."

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/05/13/is-ai-putting-graduates-out-of-work-already

“The Economist has conducted its own analysis, using a largely overlooked source of data: ten years’ worth of surveys of recent college graduates from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Each year American universities ask new alumni whether they are working, unemployed or in graduate school. Using their responses, we compared labour-market outcomes in fields with differing levels of exposure to AI before and after the arrival of large language models.”

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/05/13/is-ai-putting-graduates-out-of-work-already

05/20/2026

Summer Classics at St. John’s College Santa Fe offers a unique opportunity to watch and discuss films as one would any great text. This summer, from July 20-24, 2026, tutor David Carl and guest tutor/film author David Meyer will lead an in-person “Indigenous Cinema” seminar featuring films by directors Chris Eyre (“Smoke Signals,” “Skins”), Amanda Kernell (“Sami Blood”), and Zacharias Kunuk (“Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner”).

Watch the video below to learn more, and peruse our film courses here: https://www.sjc.edu/lifelong-learning/summer-classics/film

05/19/2026

Founded in 2024, the St. John’s Annapolis Law Club initially functioned as an LSAT preparation group. But eventually, it evolved into something a little different—and a lot more Johnnie—with organizers providing their peers with seminar-style overviews of significant Supreme Court cases while highlighting various areas of practice such as eminent domain, civil rights law, and contract law.

When Law Club isn’t conducting on-campus meetings, St. John’s proximity to locations such as the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County and the Annapolis District Court allows for field trips to observe real-life legal proceedings. “I think Law Club,” reflects Archon Mary “Bo” Bednar (A27), “is a way to sort of try on what it’s like to be a property lawyer or a family lawyer, or all these different types of law, and find out which ones fascinate you.”

Read about the St. John’s Annapolis Law Club by visiting the link below.

✍️ Elio Shiffman (A27)

"Law Club is a way to sort of try on what it’s like to be a property lawyer or a family lawyer, or all these different types of law, and find out which ones fascinate you."

05/18/2026

The New York Times recently highlighted Rita Collins (A78) and her mobile bookstore, St. Rita’s Amazing Traveling Bookstore and Textual Apothecary! Read their feature and make sure to check out our parallel profiles of Collins and Patrick Mahoney (SF93), the co-founder of the nonprofit Rwanda Bookmobile, for more tales of life on the road.

https://www.sjc.edu/news/rita-collins-patrick-mahoney-have-books-will-travel

Rita Collins had a dream for her retirement: bringing books and people together all over the country. Behind the wheel of a van she’s making it happen.

05/14/2026

Members of the Class of 2026: What will YOU be reading next?

Tutor Rebecca Goldner, our Annapolis commencement speaker, opened her address with this question on Saturday, May 9, as more than 140 individuals—including undergraduates and students in the Graduate Institute’s in-person and low-residency programs—received their degrees. Graduation speeches typically meditate on the uncharted professional road ahead (cue the obligatory Robert Frost and Dr. Seuss quotations). Goldner, however, had a different journey in mind: that *of* the mind, one with as many potential destinations lying in wait as there are books in the world.

“It took me a long time in life to discover who I am as a reader," she observed. "To learn to love what I loved and not what I ought to love, to see beauty where I found it, not where others told me it would be, to realize that learning who you are as a reader is a matter of learning your own character. Choosing what to read then becomes an enactment of the Socratic quest to know thyself. It is not an easy task; indeed, as Kierkegaard tells us of faith, it is a task for a lifetime.

"But, in a world that threatens us with scrolling through life, passively digesting what algorithms feed us, I feel confident that you, the graduates of the St. John’s College Annapolis Class of 2026, will continue to choose the stunning discontent of being readers. You are now lifelong members of the companionship of readers. Give us our books, overflowing into the world we imagine and create with them. Send us out with images drawn from the greatest minds and read into our own souls. Sally forth into that world with friends who want to create and recreate it alongside you.

"Be, in short, quixotic.”

We think that Alonso Quijano of La Mancha, Spain, would approve of this advice. Hats off to the Class of 2026, and here’s wishing you a future filled with great books, conversations about said books, vicarious friendships with their authors, and real ones with each other.

Hundreds gathered on the campus front lawn on Saturday, May 9, as more than 140 members of the Class of 2026, including undergraduates and graduate students, received their diplomas.

05/13/2026

A memorial service for longtime tutor and former Santa Fe Dean Matt Davis will take place on Thursday, May 28, at 6:00pm at the Loretto Chapel Museum, 207 Old Santa Fe Trail. All Johnnies are welcome. Note that there is no parking at the chapel; please park at one of the public lots nearby. After the service, there will be a reception at the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi, 113 Washington Ave.

05/12/2026

Congratulations to Deana Moss (SF24, EC25), who will spend the 2026-27 school year in Yilan, Taiwan, as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA)!

Moss, who completed both her Bachelor of Arts and her Master of Arts in Eastern Classics at St. John’s Santa Fe, says she applied for the prestigious award after drawing inspiration from a Taiwanese film she watched in a Graduate Institute preceptorial taught by Santa Fe Associate Dean for Graduate Programs David Carl. Read more about her pending journey from the American Southwest to East Asia by clicking on the link below.

✍️ Jeremy Richter (A28)

Moss will spend the 2026-27 academic year in Taipei as an English Teaching Assistant (ETA).