Political Studies Program
Study the theory and practice of politics in the heart of the nation’s capital.
Shilo Brooks
Shilo Brooks is Executive Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and Lecturer in the Department of Politics. He is author of Nietzsche’s Culture War, in addition to scholarly and journalistic articles on a variety of topics in politics and the humanities. His teaching and research interests lie in the history of political philosophy, politics and literature, and statesmanship.
Daniel Burns
Daniel Burns is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas. His research in political philosophy focuses on the relation between religion and citizenship. He has recently served as a staffer for the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee and as a full-time contractor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Thomas Chatterton Williams is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Losing My Cool and Self-Portrait in Black and White. He is a Visiting Professor of Humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, a 2022 Guggenheim fellow, and a visiting fellow at AEI. He was previously a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and a Columnist at Harper’s.
Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti is the director of domestic policy studies and the inaugural Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his work is focused on American political thought and history, with a particular focus on the development of the Republican Party and the American conservative movement in the 20th century.
Sen. Tom Cotton
Tom Cotton is a United States Senator from Arkansas. His committees include the Banking Committee, where he chairs the Economic Policy Subcommittee, the Intelligence Committee, and the Armed Services Committee, where he chairs the Air Land Power Subcommittee. He served nearly five years on active duty in the U.S. Army as an Infantry Officer.
Daniel DiSalvo
Daniel DiSalvo is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for State and Local Leadership and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York-CUNY. His scholarship focuses on American political parties, elections, labor unions, state government, and public policy.
Charles Fain Lehman
Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, working primarily on the Policing and Public Safety Initiative, and a contributing editor of City Journal. His work on criminal justice, immigration, and social issues has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Tablet, among other publications.
Carrie Filipetti
Carrie Filipetti is Executive Director of the Vandenberg Coalition, a network of leaders committed to a strong and proud American foreign policy. Previously she served as deputy assistant secretary for Cuba and Venezuela in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and the deputy special representative for Venezuela at the U.S. Department of State.
Rep. Virginia Foxx
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx represents North Carolina’s 5th District in the United States House of Representatives. She currently serves as the Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. From 2013 to 2016, she served as Secretary of the House Republican Conference.
Jakub J. Grygiel
Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–18, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present.
Mary Elizabeth Halper
Mary Elizabeth Halper is Dean of the Humanities at Hertog program and a tutor at St. John’s College, Annapolis. Previously, she was Associate Director of the Hertog Foundation. She graduated with B.A.s in Philosophy and Classics from the University of Dallas and has since been devoted to liberal education in various forms.
Ryan P. Hanley
Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment. He is the author of Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life and Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity.
Eliana Johnson
Eliana Johnson is editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Free Beacon, she served as a White House correspondent at POLITICO. She is a regular presence on cable television and has appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, ABC’s This Week, and the PBS News Hour. She graduated from Yale College with a degree in History.
Robert Kagan
Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.
William Kristol
William Kristol is editor-at-large of The Bulwark and founder of The Weekly Standard. Mr. Kristol has served as chief of staff to the Vice President Dan Quayle and to the Secretary of Education. He hosts Conversations with Bill Kristol, which features in-depth conversations with leading figures in American public life.
Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin is a Resident Scholar and Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the Editor of National Affairs magazine. Mr. Levin served on the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush.
Lewis Libby
Lewis “Scooter” Libby is a distinguished fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has held several high level positions in the federal government related to his current work on national security and homeland security affairs. This included roughly a dozen years working in the White House, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of State.
Harvey Mansfield
Harvey C. Mansfield is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at Harvard University. He was Chairman of the Government Department from 1973–1977, has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, and has been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center.
Wilfred M. McClay
Wilfred M. McClay holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization at Hillsdale College. His book, The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, received the 1995 Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American intellectual history.
Mike Pompeo
Sec. Mike Pompeo served as the 70th United States Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, from 2018 to 2021, following his role as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Sec. Pompeo is a former U.S. Army officer and represented Kansas’s 4th district in Congress from 2011 to 2017.
Reihan Salam
Reihan Salam is President of the Manhattan Institute. A second-generation American, he is the author, most recently, of Melting Pot or Civil War? (Sentinel, 2018) and, before that, the co-author, with Ross Douthat, of Grand New Party (Doubleday, 2008).
Mark L. Rienzi
Mark L. Rienzi is President and CEO of Becket, a nonprofit, nonpartisan religious liberties law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious faiths. He is also a Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, where he is co-director of the Center for Religious Liberty, and has served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He teaches constitutional law, religious liberty, and evidence, and has been voted Teacher of the Year three times by the Law School’s Student Bar Association.
Diana Schaub
Diana J. Schaub is Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Maryland and a member of the Hoover Institution’s task force on The Virtues of a Free Society. From 2004 to 2009 she was a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.
Jenna Silber Storey
Jenna Silber Storey is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute. She is the co-author of a book with Benjamin Storey: Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment.
Benjamin Storey
Benjamin Storey is a senior fellow in Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He recently co-authored a book with Jenna Silber Storey entitled Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment.
Flagg Taylor
Flagg Taylor is an Associate Professor of Government at Skidmore College, and serves on the Academic Council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He is editor most recently of The Long Night of the Watchman: Essays by Václav Benda, 1977–1989. He is currently writing a book on Czech dissent in the 1970s and 1980s and hosts The Enduring Interest podcast.
Steven Teles
Steven Teles is Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and Professor of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University. At Niskanen, Teles provides intellectual input into the full range of the Center’s research, as well as contributing to its Revitalizing Liberalism Initiative.
Roger Zakheim
Roger Zakheim serves as the Washington Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. He previously practiced law at Covington & Burling LLP where he led the firm’s Public Policy and Government Affairs practice group. Before joining Covington he was General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. In this role, Mr. Zakheim managed the passage of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, the defense policy bill which authorizes the Defense Department’s budget. Mr. Zakheim’s government experience also includes serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense where he supported the department’s policies and programs related to Iraq and Afghanistan coalition affairs.
Aaron MacLean
Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and the host of the School of War podcast. Previously, he was senior foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Aaron served on active duty as a U.S. Marine for seven years, deploying to Afghanistan as an infantry officer in 2009–2010.
Dan Blumenthal
Daniel Blumenthal is the Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade.
Mike Gallagher
Mike Gallagher served for four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District representative. Previously, he served seven years on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, including two deployments to Iraq.
Gen. Kenneth ‘Frank’ McKenzie Jr.
Gen. Kenneth ‘Frank’ McKenzie Jr. is the former Commander of United States Central Command. He led a distinguished 42-year military career, commanding at multiple levels within the Marine Corps and serving on the Joint Staff. His leadership roles included commanding the First Battalion, Sixth Marines, and the 22nd MEU (SOC) during combat deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Vance Serchuk
Vance Serchuk is Executive Director of the KKR Global Institute and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Serchuk served for six years as the senior national security advisor to Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut).
Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams is the chairman of Tikvah, as well as chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition and senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. He served as special assistant to the president and NSC senior director for the Near East and North Africa in the first term of George W. Bush, and as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the second term.
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Dr. Hanson was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–93), a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991–92), the annual Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Visiting Fellow in History at Hillsdale College (2004–), the Visiting Shifron Professor of Military History at the US Naval Academy (2002–3),and the William Simon Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University (2010). He is the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history and essays on contemporary culture.
Jacqueline Deal
Jacqueline Deal is co-founder of the American Academy for Strategic Education (AASE), which teaches courses on net assessment, China, and political warfare to early and mid-career national security professionals, and president of the Long Term Strategy Group, which uses open sources to improve the US government’s understanding of our foreign rivals’ ambitions and weaknesses.
Rush Doshi
Rush Doshi is a senior fellow for China and Indo-Pacific studies and director of the initiative on China strategy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His expertise includes China’s foreign policy, U.S. strategy toward China, cross-strait issues, and Indo-Pacific security. Before joining CFR, Doshi was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan on President Joe Biden’s National Security Council (NSC), where he served from 2021 to 2024 and helped manage the NSC’s first China directorate.
Matthew Kroenig
Matthew Kroenig is a Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A 2019 study in Perspectives on Politics ranked him as one of the top 25 most-cited political scientists of his generation. He has served in several positions in the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the Bush and Obama administrations.
Andrew May
Andrew May is the Associate Director of the Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense. In this role he is primarily responsible for direction and oversight of ONA’s research program, as well as the design and conduct of net assessments. His principal areas of focus include the nature and scope of future net assessments, the character of the future security environment, and the development of defense strategies for the long-term competition.
Adam J. White
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Vincent Phillip Muñoz
Vincent Phillip Muñoz is the Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.
Gary J. Schmitt
Gary J. Schmitt is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies issues related to the American presidency, the U.S. constitution and its principles, and American civic life.
Richard Brookhiser
Richard Brookhiser is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, a senior editor of National Review, and a columnist for American History. His books include John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court, Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (Basic Books, 2014), and several other books on revolutionary America. He is author and host of two films for PBS by Michael Pack: Rediscovering George Washington (2002) and Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton (2011). In 2008 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal.
Michael Fragoso
Michael Fragoso is Chief Counsel in the Office of the Senate Republican Minority Leader. Previously, he served as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mike is a graduate of Notre Dame Law School. Prior to law school he worked in Washington, DC, on bioethics and pro-life issues.
Sarah Isgur
Sarah Isgur is currently a staff writer at The Dispatch, hosts the legal podcast “Advisory Opinions,” frequently appears as a legal analyst on cable news. Prior to joining The Dispatch, Sarah served in the Justice Department as the Director of the Office of Public Affairs and as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General. Prior to her time at Justice Department, Sarah served as the Deputy Campaign Manager for Carly Fiorina’s presidential campaign.
Lucas Morel
Lucas Morel is John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics at Washington & Lee University. His expertise is in political philosophy, black American politics, and the life and works of Abraham Lincoln. He currently serves on the U.S. Semi quincentennial Commission, which will plan activities to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America.
Cameron Norris
Cameron Norris is a partner at Consovoy McCarthy, where he assists clients with a variety of trial and appellate matters, especially novel questions of constitutional law, tax law, and election law. In 2020, as an associate, he argued the case of CIC Services v. IRS in the U.S. Supreme Court, obtaining a unanimous decision on behalf of his client reversing the decision below. Mr. Norris also argued for Students For Fair Admissions in the Harvard case.
Judge Amul Thapar
Judge Amul Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history.
Michael Zuckert
Michael Zuckert is the Nancy R. Dreux Professor of Political Science, Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. His books include Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, the Natural Rights Republic, Launching Liberalism, and (with Catherine Zuckert) The Truth About Leo Strauss and Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy, in addition to many articles. He has also edited The Spirit of Religion & the Spirit of Liberty and (with Derek Webb) The Antifederal Writings of the Melancton Smith Circle.
Frederick W. Kagan
Frederick W. Kagan is a Senior Instructor with the Hertog War Studies Program at the Institute for the Study of War. The author of the 2007 report “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,” he is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq. He is the Director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project.
Kimberly Kagan
Kimberly Kagan is a Senior Instructor with the Hertog War Studies Program and founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War. She is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and American University.
James M. Dubik
LTG James M. Dubik (U.S. Army, Ret.) is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of War and a Professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. General Dubik has extensive operational experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Bosnia, Haiti, Panama, and in many NATO countries.
John R. Allen
John R. Allen is a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general. Previously, he was commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense on Middle East security, and special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.
Curtis Scaparrotti
General Scaparrotti assumed duties as Commander of European Command and as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe in late spring of 2016. He ad previously been assigned as the Commander, United Nations Command / Combined Forces Command / United States Forces Korea. He also served as the Director, Joint Staff. His awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, and the Army Meritorious Service Medal. He has earned the Combat Action Badge, Expert Infantryman Badge, Master Parachutist Badge, and Ranger Tab.
Brian Babcock-Lumish
Brian Babcock-Lumish is the Recanati-Kaplan Chair and Director of the General David H. Petraeus Center for Emerging Leaders at the Institute for the Study of War. Prior to joining the Institute, he served as a US Army military intelligence officer, retiring after 24 years in uniform. Dr. Babcock-Lumish twice deployed as a part of Multi-National Force-Iraq, first leading a team training Iraqi intelligence collectors, and later serving for a year as a strategic intelligence analyst and General Petraeus’ daily intelligence briefer during “The Surge” in 2007. During his assignment at U.S. Army Pacific, he served as General Vincent Brooks’ analysis chief leading 200 analysts watching the 36 countries of the Indo-Pacific, and as a strategic planner in General Robert Brown’s commander’s action group.
ADM Christopher Grady
Admiral Chris Grady, a native of Newport, Rhode Island and a graduate of The University of Notre Dame, is the twelfth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this capacity, he is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Nation’s second highest-ranking military officer.
Stan McChrystal
Gen. McChrystal is the former commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces Afghanistan and the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command. He is best known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a cohesive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the interagency operating culture.
H. R. McMaster
H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Previously, he served as the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for 34 years before retiring as a Lieutenant General. He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.
Michael Nagata
Michael K. Nagata is a Senior Vice President and Strategic Advisor for CACI International, and also owns and operates Hanada Bridge LLC, a national security and counterterrorism consulting firm. Retiring from the US Army in 2019 after 38 years of active duty in the US Army, with 34 years in US Special Operations, his final assignment was Director of Strategic Operational Planning for the National Counterterrorism Center.
David H. Petraeus
General (Ret) David H. Petraeus is Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. Prior to joining KKR, Gen. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands, five of which were in combat, including command of coalition forces during the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Mick Ryan
Mick Ryan is a retired major general in the Australian Army. He is now an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, and a non-resident fellow of the Lowy Institute in Sydney. In January 2023 Mick was also appointed as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
Hugh Liebert
Matthew Dinan
Matthew Dinan is an Associate Professor in the Great Books Program at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He does research on Ancient Greek, Christian, and 19th and 20th Century Political Philosophy.
Current Position
Student, Yeshiva Maharat
“Hertog is a great place to go if you’re interested in public policy. Whether it’s political journalism, think tanks, Hill work, or diplomacy, at Hertog you get a chance to preview all the different political lives at once. That’s something you really can’t beat.”
Student, Yeshiva Maharat
Researcher to Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Tikvah Fellow
St. John’s College, Annapolis
Prolific freelancer Kate Havard Rozansky has had bylines in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Weekly Standard. A graduate of St. John’s College, Annapolis, Kate was part of the inaugural 2010 class of Political Studies, which she credits for helping her get her start in Washington, DC.
I was a sophomore at St. John’s College when I first heard about Hertog. My freshman Greek professor, Adam Schulman, nominated me for the Hertog Political Studies Program. I went into it being interested in the classics; I didn’t have any political background before that.
What drew me to the Program was the Machiavelli, the Aristotle, and the Great Books angle. That’s what I had already been studying at St. John’s and what I was most attracted to. And, of course, the chance to study with [Professors Amy and Leon] Kass was really exciting for me. So that was my pull, and all the political stuff was new to me.
Something I will never forget from Political Studies is the week we were reading Machiavelli. Henry Kissinger was coming to lecture, and I got to give an introduction about Machiavelli and Henry Kissinger in front of Henry Kissinger. That was amazing to me, and is something I will never forget. That class was one of my favorites I’ve ever been in.
At Hertog, the intellectual experience with your peers is also impressive. I met my best friend at Hertog; she was one of my roommates at Political Studies. I’m also close with a good number of other alumni from the 2010 class.
My time at The Weekly Standard was rooted in Hertog. I met the editor, Bill Kristol, at a Political Studies lecture on Tocqueville that he gave. The Political Studies scholars were given copies of The Weekly Standard, and that was my first time seeing it.
After reading The Weekly Standard, I knew that I wanted to work there. Meeting him through Hertog gave me the opportunity to ask for an internship. I don’t think I would’ve been able to do that without Hertog. This was my first exposure to that world, and I kind of ended up in journalism as an accident after the fact of wanting to work for Bill Kristol.
Hertog gave me a lot of great connections that I’m so glad to have had, especially in terms of friends, teachers, and mentors. After The Weekly Standard, I got a fellowship with the Tikvah Fund. That fellowship put me at The Wall Street Journal working for Bret Stephens, which was a wonderful experience. I helped work on a book he was writing that’s just about to come out.
I think because you have direct engagement with this high caliber of teachers, and just by virtue of being immersed in the DC world from the very beginning, Hertog is a great place to go if you’re interested in public policy.
Especially if you’re politically interested, but you’re not exactly sure what aspect of politics you want to get into. Whether it’s political journalism, think tanks, Hill work, or diplomacy, at Hertog you get a chance to preview all the different political lives at once. That’s something you really can’t beat, particularly if you go in like I did with a purely academic background.
I’d still like to be involved in politics and still writing in whatever capacity I can make a living at.
Letters Editor, The Wall Street Journal
Robert L. Bartley Fellow, The Wall Street Journal; National Review
Stanford University
Elliot Kaufman, who grew up in Toronto, realized he wanted a career in ideas after spending a summer with the Political Studies Program. He works for The Wall Street Journal as the paper’s Letters Editor.
I think I came across it on the email list for The Stanford Review. The Hertog program almost sounded too good to be true. I couldn’t believe that there were opportunities out there like that—let alone that they would even pay you to take them up.
At the time I was halfway through my freshman year at Stanford, and I just thought that the stuff I was learning was interesting and the professors were okay, but it wasn’t what I was expecting: the discoveries that would make me rethink what I had come in with, really challenge myself. Hertog sounded like exactly what I was missing, even at a school like Stanford.
Looking back on it, it doesn’t seem like that much of a surprise that I’m in journalism and working for The Wall Street Journal. I started reading the newspaper very young.
I arrived at Hertog with some vague notion that I would end up working in “business.” I walked into my apartment that summer, and the three other guys living with me—two were entering Ph.D. programs in political philosophy and the other one, the slacker of the bunch I guess, was entering Columbia Law School. They put me—18 years old, the youngest student in the entire program – with the cohort’s three oldest students.
It was such a gift. Hertog opened my mind to what was possible; I saw that ideas aren’t just something you study at university. They can launch and sustain careers. And at the end of summer my roommates joined together to buy me a book, The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. A summer of Hertog and then reading that book—together the experience changed my life. I realized I was missing something, and it helped me to redirect.
I had some amazing professors who got me to ask questions I hadn’t even considered, that I didn’t know anyone was considering. It had a huge impact on me. Among those I would name Robert Bartlett on Aristotle and Darren Staloff on Lincoln.
Reading “What is Political Philosophy?” by Leo Strauss on the first night and then discussing it with my roommates—that’s the memory that stands out. It’s the intellectual excitement: Keeping the education going over dinner with my roommates, then coming back to the room and still continuing the conversation, and really living with the questions and readings.
I keep in touch with my roommates and several other people in the program, and they’re all over the place – in DC especially, New York City and elsewhere. It’s an amazing network of people.
You get sharp kids who challenge each to think deeper and consider new arguments together. You have teachers who bring the issues alive by treating them as fundamental, as human questions. I didn’t have that elsewhere, and I was grateful to be able to experience in the summer what my university should have given me.
The world of reading great books and the world of opinion journalism are not entirely shut off from each other. I find that the best opinion journalists, even if they don’t advertise how many books they’ve read in every single column, it helps inform their writing and can give them an extra edge.
On a more practical note, when I needed to find a job, one of the first people I emailed and spoke to was [Hertog director] Cheryl Miller, who was helpful in introducing me to people all over New York and D.C., and my phone call with her probably led to five other phone calls.
Another thing is meeting people your age, many of whom are going on to similar activities, like you are going out into the world together. Especially for people like me who are not from New York or DC and are moving there. Just having that network, that can be very helpful, too.
I think something similar—really I hope I can stay at the WSJ. Certainly, something that allows me to edit and write. One of the great things is that there are so many conservative magazines in New York and DC that need people to write and edit and to understand that kind of intellectual landscape and do well in it.
Deputy CFO, Philadelphia City Council
University of Oxford, The White House, 2013 Truman Scholar
Villanova University | Columbia Business School
Stefan Johnson has worked in the White House and been a community leader in his hometown of Philadelphia. Stefan was recently appointed as Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the Philadelphia City Council.
I heard about the Hertog Foundation through Dr. Daniel Mark, one of my professors of Political Science at Villanova University. I applied because I thought Hertog would help me understand how theory and practice complement one another. I have had many political experiences, which might be called ‘practical,’ but previously did not have a solid foundation in the history of Western political thought. The opportunity to read canonical texts in the context of contemporary political discourse is what attracted me.
The Political Studies Program provided me with grounding in not only the theoretical aspects of how our institutions came to be, but also in the practical aspects of how they currently function. I read important thinkers such as Aristotle, Machiavelli, and de Tocqueville, while also placing these readings within the context of contemporary public policy, such as American foreign and domestic policy. On top of our seminar classes, we enjoyed weekly lectures and events with accomplished scholars, like Harvey Mansfield, and practitioners, like Congressman (now Senator) Tom Cotton.
I had many of the most intellectually stimulating conversations in my life with my peers at Hertog—both regarding the texts we read in class and about the issues of the day.
The Political Studies Program offers something that is overlooked in academia today: intellectual diversity. The Program truly attracts students from across the political spectrum, and that is something incredibly unique to Hertog.
The study of politics is critical for all people, regardless of someone’s interests or vocation. One of my friends from the program is a Physics major at Princeton, and we both agreed that the knowledge of political institutions is essential to human flourishing. Political ideas propel our republic forward.
I would recommend Hertog to anyone, especially folks who are interested in public service. During my junior year of college I had the opportunity to win the Truman Scholarship, which is awarded to students who have demonstrated leadership potential and a commitment to public service. After doing Political Studies I went back to the Truman people and said, “We’ve got to get more of our Scholars over to the Hertog Political Studies Program. It’s an incredible opportunity to learn about civic life, how to give back to one’s community and ultimately how to be a more well-rounded person.”
Life is very interesting; you never know where you’re going to end up. I helped organize the World Meeting of Families – Philadelphia 2015, an event which worked to highlight the important role of the family on a global scale. I never thought I’d help prepare for a papal visit to my hometown—it’s so hard to know what life with throw at you. But in 10 years, I hope to be in a position where I can give back to my community, especially on a local level.
U.S. Department of State
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Brookings Institution, Fulbright Grantee, University of Durham (UK)
Pomona College | Durham University
Alexandra (“Zan”) Jackson has traveled throughout the Middle East, honing her Arabic language skills, by way of scholarships from the Fulbright Program and the Department of Defense. An alumna of the War Studies Program and Advanced Institutes, Zan has worked for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
One of my professors at Pomona, former Ambassador Cameron Munter, was teaching a course on international crises. He recommended that I apply to the War Studies Program. Following up on my experience at War Studies with “Lessons of the Iraq War” was simply phenomenal. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a course where I learned so much so quickly or been with such committed peers.
What keeps bringing me back to Hertog Programs is the remarkable learning environment. Since the nature of the Programs is so intense, you really get to know people quickly. Everyone is willing to get into difficult discussions about challenging issues because there is already a base of respect among the participants. I don’t know of another program where I could get such a high caliber of instruction on such complex issues.
I studied international relations and Arabic as an undergrad, and went abroad to Oman and Jordan on government scholarships. Directly after doing War Studies, I went to Doha through the Georgetown Qatar Scholarship Program. Right now, I’m in an interdisciplinary Master’s program in defense, development, and diplomacy through a Fulbright Scholarship in the UK.
I do not think I would’ve gotten into my Master’s program, nor would I be doing as well as I am, without the War Studies Program. Before War Studies, I had a bit of a sense of the diplomacy and development side of U.S. foreign policy, but I didn’t even have the vocabulary or any knowledge of the major texts and discussions in the defense realm. My first experience with the Hertog Foundation, and every follow-up course, has given me the vocabulary, background, theoretical knowledge, and confidence to engage these subjects.
There were definitely moments when developing my knowledge of defense sort of felt like learning a foreign language. During War Studies, we visited JCS Chairman General Dempsey, and Generals McChrystal and Petraeus came in to speak with us. We all had these incredibly interesting conversations about where warfare is going, and it dawned on me that even a week prior I wouldn’t have been able to participate in discussions like that because I lacked any background in the subject. To so quickly see the return on investment in starting to develop a language for discussing war was astonishing.
There is a larger flaw in the American education system at the moment, where post-Vietnam, we’re very quick to just say, “War: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” But the bottom line is that our country still goes to war. So let’s go to war smarter, only in the cases where we have to. Let’s have a public discussion that goes beyond the dichotomy of war: good or bad. The Hertog Foundation does a great job of filling in those gaps and moving us towards a better way of approaching these issues as a nation.
I think Hertog Programs are very empowering. One of my hesitations going in was that because the Hertog instructors are so involved in policy and have very strong political opinions, they would be pushing a certain viewpoint on the participants—that’s not what I’ve found at all.
One of the main reasons I keep coming back is that even with these extremely intellectual and experienced people leading the courses, you can have a different opinion. What they teach you to do is to develop a method to argue your own position very well. I’ve learned to put forth whatever political opinions I have, consider them rigorously, and defend them intellectually.
Definitely. There are plenty of students who have a great theoretical background in the issues, but without knowing case studies of military history and working through a conflict decision point by decision point, you’ll always be at the hands of someone else’s analysis. Hertog Programs give you the opportunity to not just learn theories, but test them. Having that much raw material of historical knowledge allows you to craft arguments for yourself and not just take someone’s analysis at face value.
The “Lessons of the Iraq War” Institute is a great example. It’s easy to have a sound-bite understanding of that conflict without really thinking through all the decisions, the evidence, the sequence of events, and the actual outcomes of certain policies as that war unfolded. The Institute deepened our knowledge of the Iraq War to such a degree where it’s impossible to walk away without a fully formed analysis of your own.
I’d really like to be involved on the civilian side of defense policy. I’m very committed to public service. I want to have a career where I’m intellectually stimulated, but also contributing to our society. I’ve been extremely fortunate in that the U.S. government has sent me all over the Middle East to learn Arabic on scholarships, so I’m eager to give back. I want to help shape U.S. policy in such a way that promotes both our national security and a positive image for America in the world.
Judicial Law Clerk
Policy Advisor, Office of Senator Marco Rubio
Abilene Christian University | Georgetown University Law Center
Caleb Orr completed his degree at Abilene Christian University while also serving as an intern and later legislative correspondent in the office of Senator Marco Rubio. Caleb participated in Hertog’s “Great Figures of the 20th Century” Weekend Seminars series, with sessions on Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and David Ben-Gurion.
Working on Capitol Hill is all about keeping in touch with what other members of Congress are doing and partnering with them based on their expertise and abilities. So getting to know other Hill staff from Hertog, but also people in the think-tank community has been very helpful in connecting me to those resources and being able to serve Senator Rubio better as a staffer.
One-hundred percent. It’s a great entryway into the world of DC. Hertog programs provide access points into Capitol Hill and the academic community in ways that you don’t get at universities across America.
With the Weekend Seminars, the Foundation brought in some of the most well-known experts to lead seminars about each of these leaders. The ability to really have an intensive session over a weekend where you’re spending time with these scholars—in an academic setting, but also over dinner or drinks—really allowed you to get to know them as people, which made them all the more effective in conveying the subject matter. It was interesting to take that much of a deep dive into world leaders. To explore all the ins and outs, both the good and the bad of their characters, was helpful in seeing how the same traits that produce epic achievements can also lead to moral failures.
Hertog Foundation programs bring the kind of education that you expect at an elite university, combined with a grounding in the civilizational values that America was founded on and made us able to produce freedom, order, and prosperity. As a result of that, students are able to come together in an environment where you’re with many smart people from different fields and learn from one another.
It really is remarkable how vibrant the alumni community is and how much I’ve stayed in contact with people I met at Hertog. I think that’s unique, even when compared to other DC fellowship programs I’ve done. In fact, I’ve started to meet up with two other Hertog alumni about every other week to get steak dinners and just talk politics.
I want to be promoting the kind of human flourishing that I learned about at Hertog – ordered liberty, the American family, and American leadership. I want to be working for the first “reformicon” president in the White House.
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