Virtue & Power
Reflect on the ethical dilemmas implied by the pursuit of power.
June 19–July 30, 2022
Washington, DC
If you could study with some of the world’s top thinkers on some of the world’s most important topics – war and grand strategy, economic policy, or political thought and philosophy – which would you choose?
Each year, the Hertog Foundation brings together top college students to the nation’s capital to explore the theory and practice of politics in an intensive seminar setting with outstanding faculty. Political Studies Fellows take courses in a wide variety of subjects, from political philosophy to contemporary public affairs, from economics to foreign policy. In the afternoons and evenings, they have the opportunity to hear from leaders in American government and politics.
All fellows receive residential accommodations and a $2,500 stipend to offset travel and living expenses.
Image Credit: Wikipedia Commons.
Watch this video to learn more
Students may apply simultaneously to both the Hertog Political Studies Program and to specific Hertog Summer Courses. Only one application is necessary to apply to any of our programs. Up to 36 fellows will be accepted to the Political Studies Program.
Any college or university undergraduate, or very recent graduate (2021 or 2022) not already pursuing an advanced degree, may apply to the Political Studies Program.
Admission is extremely competitive, and every year we decline admission to many highly qualified applicants simply due to lack of space. A typical competitive applicant will have:
Describe, in 1,000 words or less, the political questions you find most interesting, your future ambitions, and how these relate to your preferred program(s).
Unofficial
10 pages maximum; double-spaced. Please send academic writing that best showcases your ability to invent and sustain a persuasive argument, no matter the subject-matter.
Provide the name and contact information of a professor, mentor, or supervisor. (Letter not required for nominated applicants.)
Director, Maimonides Scholars Program
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. She now directs the Maimonides Scholars Program at the Tikvah Fund.
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.
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. She now directs the Maimonides Scholars Program at the Tikvah Fund.
“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.”
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.
Benjamin Storey
Benjamin Storey is Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. His interests focus on the history of political philosophy. He recently co-authored a book with Jenna Silber Storey entitled Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment.
Robert C. Bartlett
Robert C. Bartlett is the Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. His principal area of research is classical political philosophy, with particular attention to the thinkers of ancient Hellas, including Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. He is the co-translator of a new edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Mary P. Nichols
Mary P. Nichols is Professor Emerita of Political Science at Baylor University. She is author of Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom, and Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus, and Lysis. She has delivered lectures on ancient political theory, Shakespeare, and film.
Darren Staloff
Darren Staloff is Professor of History at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Professor Staloff has published numerous papers and reviews on the subject of early American history.
Jenna Silber Storey
Jenna Silber Storey is Assistant Professor in Politics and International Affairs at Furman University and Executive Director of Furman’s Tocqueville Program. She is the co-author of a book with Benjamin Storey: Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton University Press, 2021). Further information about her work can be found at www.jbstorey.com.
Thomas Merrill
Thomas Merrill is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. He is the author of Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment. He is also the co-editor of three edited volumes, including The Political Thought of the Civil War. He was a senior research analyst for the President’s Council on Bioethics during the George W. Bush Administration.
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.
Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, he was Editor in Chief of the Washington Free Beacon. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
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.
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.
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).
Akhil Reed Amar
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. He is Yale’s only currently active professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service. His latest and most ambitious book, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. He has recently launched a weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution.
Adam J. White
Adam J. White is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and an Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he also directs the Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Eliot Cohen
Eliot Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he has taught since 1990. He served as Dean of SAIS from 2019 to 2021. In addition to public service in the Department of Defense he served as Counselor of the Department of State from 2007 to 2009.
Jacob Howland
Jacob Howland is a Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. His research focuses on ancient Greek philosophy, history, epic, and tragedy; the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud; Kierkegaard; and literary and philosophical responses to the Holocaust and Soviet totalitarianism. His most recent book is Glaucon’s Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato’s Republic.
Martha Bayles
Martha Bayles is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and since 2003 she has taught humanities at Boston College. She is currently at work on a monograph on the threats to independent journalism around the world; and a book about the importance of “voluntary restraint” in the American tradition of free speech.