St. John's College

08/26/2026

New academic year, new fall formal lecture schedule! The series kicks off on Friday, August 28, with the annual dean's opening lecture. In Annapolis? Swing by Key Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. ET to catch Suzy Paalman's talk, "Marital Flaws and Moral Education in 'Pride and Prejudice,'" or, if you're in Santa Fe, head to the Pritzker Student Center's Great Hall at 7 p.m. MT to hear Sarah Davis's "Standing Before the Mysteries." Whether East or West, we hope you'll be in the audience!

Lectures, offered in Annapolis and Santa Fe, are free and open to the public

08/24/2026

Johnnies always find a way to continue the conversation—even on a different continent! Last month, nearly 40 alumni and friends gathered in Seoul, South Korea, for a reception with President J. Walter Sterling. The Alumni Association Award of Merit was also presented to Yonghwa Lee (AGI01) in recognition of his outstanding service to the college, including his efforts to establish an all-ages Great Books movement in Korea inspired by the St. John's Program.

Of particular fun was the attendance of Hak D**g Jang (A87), who, so far as we know, was the first international student from Korea to attend St. John's. Younger alumni from both campuses enjoyed talking to him and asking him what the college was like “back in the day."

A special thank-you to Seoul chapter co-leads Eunbee Yu (A18) and Seung Eun Lee (A19), along with BVG Member Derek Alexander (A99), for organizing such a wonderful evening. And thank you to Eunbee for capturing these memorable moments and sharing them with us!

08/21/2026

The longstanding undergraduate St. John's College Great Books program has been recognized by educational authorities as equivalent to a triple major. The degree will be renamed from a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts to a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Literature, and the Natural Sciences. The Class of 2027 will be the first class to graduate with the new designation. There is no other college in the country where every student’s degree is recognized as a triple major upon completion of the program of study.

“At St. John’s College, we offer an all-required, interconnected program across disciplines, and that isn’t changing,” says St. John’s College President J. Walter Sterling. “This new degree name allows the outside world to better understand what our students and alumni have always known: that this education gives students a deep foundation in the humanities and in math and science.”

Every student at St. John’s is admitted to an all-required comprehensive program in the liberal arts where they read more than 200 of the most important texts ever written and discuss them in small classes. Implemented in 1937, our signature Program of Study does not follow traditional disciplinary boundaries and will remain that way amid the triple-major recognition.

The college’s renowned undergraduate liberal arts Program renamed to benefit students and alumni

08/18/2026

When Santa Fe tutors Paola Villa and David Carl first contacted the campus Student Engagement Office in 2022 for permission to build an outdoor oven on campus, “the title of the email was Operation Prometheus,” Villa says. “We were asking to steal fire from the gods and give it to the students.”

The tutors' request was ultimately vetoed due to the high-desert climate. But from its ashes, the Prometheus Club—a group of students, faculty, and staff that hosts culinary-based events such as themed tastings, holiday feasts, and globally inspired fêtes—was born and continues to flourish.

Now entering its fourth year of existence, the Prometheus Club has evolved and expanded beyond its initial mission of communal cooking. After its first president, Finn Huggs (SF25), moved on to a master’s program in Italy to study food policy, his successor, Alexander Burk (SF25), dove deep into the art and craft of Neapolitan pizza. The club’s third president, Touky Kim (SF26), brought a more philosophical approach to the role.

“We have a lot of art programs and practicums at St. John’s, but they’re focused on creation for individual intellectual practices,” says Kim, an international student from Korea who graduated this past May. “That’s not quite for sharing. But the whole concept of St. John’s is sharing your ideas and opinions. Prometheus Club allows the creation and the sharing of the creation. It’s an invitation. You get to share and consume rather than observe.”

Learn more about the Prometheus Club:

When Santa Fe tutors Paola Villa and David Carl requested to build an outdoor oven on campus, their proposal was vetoed due to the high-desert climate. But from its ashes, a new student club was born.

08/14/2026

So, you're a freshman bound for St. John's College. Your bags are nearly packed, you're busy purchasing seminar books, and your laptop computer proudly bears an axolotl mascot sticker courtesy of our Admissions office. But you might still have questions about your future alma mater, including how the axolotl became the college mascot. What *is* an axolotl? Where do they come from? And why do we associate them with St. John's? Luckily, we have answers, which can be found by reading Philip Psaledakis' (SF25) story below.

The axolotl is a valuable component of Freshman Laboratory—and a beloved mascot among Johnnies.

08/11/2026

Applications are now open for our January Freshman class! JFs begin school in Santa Fe after the winter holiday, continue through summer, and officially reach sophomore status by fall semester, after which they can continue their academic journey in Santa Fe or matriculate on our Annapolis campus. The scheduling is particularly advantageous for prospective Johnnies who want to take a gap semester between high school and college, are looking to transfer from another college or university, or have completed high school early and want to get a head start on the college experience.

Questions? Hear from two veterans of the program, or check out our Admissions web page for more information.

For most Johnnies, August is the month when students flood campus ready for an invigorating year of reading and discussion. But another group arrives in January: the aptly named “January Freshmen,” or

08/04/2026

Politics, war, betrayal, and the decline of Athens.

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is both an epic adventure and one of the most well-sourced works of the ancient world. For decades, he tracked the Athenian Empire’s war throughout the Mediterranean against a rising Sparta and her allies, analyzing the moments that led to the Empire’s collapse.

The characters are unforgettable. Spartan commander Brasidas wins allies through personal charm and proclaims an end to Athenian dominance, leading to his title, liberator of Hellas. Athens’ favorite rascal Alcibiades plans a huge invasion of Sicily, only to get accused of treason, flee to Sparta, and betray his city.

But Thucydides wasn’t writing for fun. He was documenting how power and ambition corrupt democracies like Athens. As Athens famously tells the neutral island of Melos before invading, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Studying how greed, fear, and pride corrupt nations is why we read Thucydides at St. John’s. Which moments from the Peloponnesian War do you want to discuss today?

08/01/2026

What is the odyssey of a language?

Words we’re familiar with in everyday English, such as “mentor,” “siren,” and, well, “odyssey,” can provide us with a starting point: they respectively began in Homer’s “Odyssey” as “méntōr,” “seirênes,” and 'odýsseia” and endure to this day.

Understanding language is so important at St. John’s College that all undergraduate Johnnies spend six semesters translating ancient Greek and French, a multi-year endeavor in which students are transformed through the translations they produce.

Several Annapolis Johnnies have even taken that journey beyond the classroom and into the campus bookstore by translating entire ancient Greek texts into English and making them available for purchase.

Liam Hansen (A26) and Davin Faris (A28) are two such examples: Liam individually translated Epictetus’s “Handbook,” while Davin chose to work through Euripides’s “Hecuba.” The two shared differing perspectives with us on the art of translation while encouraging their classmates to embark on a similar voyage of self-discovery through language.

Read their full thoughts here:
https://www.sjc.edu/news/when-student-translations-become-campus-bestsellers

07/27/2026

How does Homer speak to college students?

“You could imagine that the ‘Odyssey,’ in some sense, was designed for students to read the first week they come on a college campus,” Associate Dean for Graduate Programs Brendan Boyle told the Baltimore Banner in a new article about Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster.

“What are [students] doing there if not coming into the fullness of their adulthood?” he added, invoking Telemachus' journey to find his father and fight Penelope’s suitors—perhaps the original coming-of-age story.

Following the “Iliad,” Homer’s “Odyssey” is the second text that Johnnies read as freshmen as they wrestle with themes such as heroism and homecoming through one of history’s most famous epics.

The poem's complexity is present from its very first line—and its meaning continues to be hotly debated by translators:

Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ. πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν.

“Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many ways, who wandered far and wide, after he sacked the city of Troy.”

Read the Banner's story here: https://www.thebanner.com/opinion/column/christopher-nolan-odyssey-matt-damon-st-johns-HE2WOM4ZEFGPPBZZIMF4EXLH6E/

Learn more about classical studies at St. John’s: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/subjects/classical-studies-and-greek