“Campbell Hall is one of the more adored dormitories on campus, with spacious and charming rooms that have housed everyone from freshmen to seniors. It’s a beautiful building, but it needs some upgrades. Simple things like renovating the bathrooms have already improved the quality of life for currents residents, and the planned upgrades will reinstate Campbell as a highly sought-after living space. Moving the coffee shop and the bookstore to Campbell and improving the accessibility will allow all members of our community to take part in the fun. I am very grateful to have been a resident of Campbell, and I can’t wait to see how the new-and-improved dorm looks!”

“To graduate debt-free from college sounds like a dream. At St. John’s College, it is my (very sweet) reality, and at the time that I was applying to college, it did not occur to me that the generosity of others would have such a profound impact on my life. I get to frolic in the minds of Rousseau, Euclid, and Austen! I cannot help but be moved by my experiences, to be shaped by the sincerely marvelous, and I am so grateful for that place to be St. John’s College.”

“Attending Summer Classics was the highlight of my summer. When I was looking for a place to read, write, and think, a colleague, who is a St. John’s alum and regular Summer Classics participant, recommended it to me. I was instantly intrigued, not to mention thrilled, when my school’s post-graduate specialist connected me with the college and secured financial support through our Southwest Scholars partnership. Since then, I have sung the praises of the Summer Classics experience and urged others to consider this wonderful opportunity.

Personally and professionally, the St. John’s program offers a rich, culturally engaging, intellectually stimulating experience I won’t ever forget.”

“Reading about a place like St. John’s is one thing, but my experiences at Summer Academy showed me firsthand what this college has to offer. Experiencing seminar for myself was pivotal because I felt exactly how electrifying and enlightening that kind of conversation could be. I was equally moved by the culture I found here. I felt so welcomed and supported by everyone I met, and I understood that, as a student, I would be truly valued and respected by my community. I came away from this program with complete confidence that St. John’s was the right place for me.”

“When an admissions email suggested I could learn directly from Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, and Darwin, I was curious. I thought ‘intriguing…but there are probably better places for me.’ However, as I began touring other schools and hearing the same pitches about career paths and double majors, I kept thinking back to St. John’s.

What if I wanted something more? What if I wanted to learn not just about the world, but how to live meaningfully in it? Thanks to my school’s involvement with Southwest Scholars and the financial support I received through it, I found myself realizing that St. John’s was not just another small liberal arts college. It was not just a better place—it was the only place for me.”

“The thing that stood out to me most starkly when I came to St. John’s as a job candidate was that the tutors actually heard me and thought about what I was saying. They asked me deep and genuine questions that I still think about. Since coming here, I’ve realized that the broadness of St. John’s curriculum is really generosity, a willingness and excitement to see what someone else is seeing, to love what someone else is loving. We lend each other our minds, and something magical happens: instead of talking past one another, safe in the alabaster chambers of our respective disciplines, we discover passions we didn’t know we had. There is something spiritually enriching (and deeply challenging) in becoming a beginner again. And the payoff is that, even when I am challenged by a text, I will inevitably encounter someone who is enchanted by it, and when I set aside my preconceptions and look with them, I discover new and unexpected beauty in the world.”

“The history of the Johnnie Chair is long and storied, but the history of those who occupy the chairs is quickly changing for the better. As a first-gen low-income student, the scholarships I received from the college made my education a reality. The college has been dubbed “The most Contrarian College in America” but I think we should strive for a new title: “The most Affordable College in America” where financial aid packages do not include student loans, as mine does. That dream is not out of reach.”

“When I first arrived on campus after 30 hours of travel, my peer mentor welcomed me with much-needed food. When classes began, I already knew my peers and knew I was not alone. When I first had to write a Math essay, I knew a Writing Assistant who would help. And when the second-semester bill looked surprisingly different, I knew whom to contact.

Friendships formed, coping methods solidified, and confidence grew. Not everything is perfect, but that is precisely why the Pritzker Bridge Program exists—and it makes me proud to be a part of this community.”

“The Pritzker Bridge Program provides an incredibly valuable first step for freshmen. In the two years that I have been a peer mentor, it has been a privilege to witness the connections they are making, from gaining familiarity with campus to finding friends.

I feel the impact of the program most personally when, long after classes have begun, my freshman (and now sophomore!) mentees come up to me with questions or seek me out for a chat. They know it’s okay to ask for help.”

“Coming to St. John’s as a student from a first-generation, immigrant family and low-income background, it is reassuring to know that I have a place on this campus. In particular, the Pritzker Summer Bridge Program helped me integrate myself socially, financially, and academically. It creates that space for underprivileged students to feel identified with and heard. Now, as a peer mentor, I have seen it help many other students find their footing, and it definitely helped me feel like St. John’s College is truly the place for me.”

“Being an RA opened the door to many discussions that I didn’t know I had the strength to hold. It also required me to grow into a new understanding of care. How do I be at peace with being the person who shows and offers resources but cannot decide the ultimate health of a struggling student? How do I do my job to enforce campus rules in moments of social pressure against it? What does it mean to care for a community in a way that respects my own boundaries?

At times I still struggle with these questions; and yet, thanks to many discussions with my supervisors, who are very open to discussing these issues and sensitive in their responses, I am learning to grow in empathy and care while keeping my own reserves full. And I am happy and grateful to move into my junior year as a continuing RA.”

“As a Resident Advisor with a responsibility for the care of my classmates, I hugely appreciate that students can source their prescriptions, vaccinations, sexual health needs, counseling (and more!) right here on campus. The trusted staff are warm and approachable, and I know from experience that they offer professional and thorough care.

I’m grateful that the college also provides many other avenues for student mental health support, including the Dean’s Office, Public Safety, and of course St. John’s “first responders,” the RAs. We are all working together to provide campus-wide support and guidance, and I am already seeing how these efforts underpin and strengthen one another.”

“This summer I was given the opportunity to intern with Albuquerque Street Connect, which provides case management, primary healthcare, and therapy to individuals who are living on the streets. After spending time in the field, I worked on case reviews, cross-referencing charts and records to create a narrative of the barriers to care that each patient faced.

It is usually easier to speak about the effect St. John’s has had on my interior life than it is to talk about the real-world applicability of the skills I have acquired here—but at Street Connect, I was able to truly understand the functionality of my liberal arts education. It is with a renewed sense of purpose that I can work towards establishing myself in this field, with a continuing focus on addressing injustice in medicine at its roots.”

“At St. John’s, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed exploring the compounding development of scientific thought in its theory and application, but to pursue a career in environmental research, I needed a more structured introduction to hands-on field research. At the University of Pittsburgh’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, I gained a broader vantage point on the different avenues environmental research can take and accumulated skills I can use as a springboard to future research. I also found it immeasurably helpful to sit down with professors and talk about what I should look for in a graduate program, how the application process works, and what career options look like.

Those discussions were among the greatest benefits of my fellowship—that, and the uncontestable benefit of spending a large part of my summer wading through swamps and ponds.”

“During my time at St. John’s, I encountered only a few peers who were interested in business careers, so I was anxious about my postgraduate plans until I participated in the Jobs4Johnnies program. Networking was one of its biggest advantages! I was matched with alumni who answered my technical questions about the field and helped alleviate my anxieties around job searching. Staff in the Career Development Office then discussed how students can leverage the value of their liberal arts education in business and convey that in interviews. Ultimately I successfully landed a job offer at the software company where I had a summer internship during my junior year.

I am grateful for the resources provided to me, and I hope this initiative will continue to aid students in their career journeys.”

“My internship award allowed me to spend my summer working in the Kay Lab at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Mind and Biology, under the mentorship of St. John’s alumna Dr. Leslie Kay. About halfway through the internship, which involved research on olfaction and sensation, I was offered a permanent position as lab manager.

As someone who hopes to follow a path in STEM, specifically medicine, having the opportunity to work in such a prestigious lab is invaluable. Without my internship, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to test whether research was truly a path of interest for me.

I’m extremely grateful to have been granted this award and can now proclaim employment directly out of St. John’s.”

“Before this summer I had never been outside of the country, but with a fresh passport in hand I pursued six weeks of seminars at the Rome Institute of Liberal Arts, founded by a Johnnie. By far my biggest takeaway from the experience is a much deeper appreciation for my St. John’s education. It may seem like the magic of the seminar is contingent on the cloister-like peace and focus of our campus, but what continually stood out to me in Rome was the way in which the seminar remained just as impactful in a new context—and even felt reinvigorated by the often-synchronous contents of the art we encountered and the texts we read.

I’m struck by the way in which this opportunity has reaffirmed my commitment to my education and primed me for my senior year at St. John’s—and for the journey beyond.”

“I’m so glad to see St. John’s being among the first to set the trend of solar-powered institutions in New Mexico. Despite our nearly constant sunny days, states like Massachusetts far outrank our state's solar production. This is unacceptable. I’m saddened that “Big Oil” in this state has chosen to look out for its own profits over the health and wellness of this oft-overlooked state. To be a at St. John’s makes me proud to be a part of that change.”

“The student center is the heart of our community. Here, we think and read together, eat together, and share our ideas with one another. The improvements that are in store will make this space safer, more comfortable, and more inviting. I know I speak for my peers when I say that we are especially excited, and thankful, for the coming updates to the Cave, which is our much-frequented, student-run space. Improvements to the Cave are, to us, a demonstration of the support for student initiatives. And since the Cave is student-run, it is an opportunity for students to become more accountable for the kind of campus culture we create.”

“If there is one thing we should learn from Plato, it should be to seek beauty in the world. Put into action, this means we need to recognize the beauty in our environment and work to preserve it moving forward.

I believe that sustainability entails individual engagement, but communal impact. And to be blunt, the impact of sustainability matters to what we do at the college because being sustainable is really the only way our institution can continue existing into the future. There is no time to stand still.”

“I have never been so enchanted in a classroom. At St. John’s, I am surrounded by people who want to learn for the sake of learning, and my classmates and I spend late nights in the library and have lively debates at mealtimes because it fills us up.

I recently learned that tuition only covers a portion of the cost of this experience. The rest comes from gifts. Thank you for believing in the college and for making this beautiful community and this meaningful education possible.”

“A truly liberal education, an education like the one St. John’s offers to its students, should not be limited to those who had the fortune to be born into wealth—or burden its graduates with life-long debt, indeed not a very liberating state of existence. The fact that these phrases are not empty platitudes at St. John’s is due in no small part to the support you give. St. John’s offers me the possibility to truly think freely—what greater gift can you give?”

“The opportunity to read the pillars of the Western canon under the tutelage of the St. John’s faculty has been an unmatched experience. I love picking apart Aristotle, examining Plato, and dissecting Harvey—and a cow heart along with him!

This school, and the Johnnies who inhabit it, have forever altered the course of my life, and that could not have happened without you.”

“This year, I intend to join the Historic European Martial Arts club, where I will learn the basics of sword fighting from the primary sources themselves. I also intend to join the St. John’s Choir as well as the Storytellers’ Guild, and I am already a member of the Thursday Night Singers, who meet to sing folk songs and sea shanties. Will I be able to handle it all? I don’t know, but that’s the point.

This is precisely why scholarships are so important to me and my classmates. By allowing us to attend a school that offers so many opportunities, you give us the chance to find out about the things for which we are passionate, in the process becoming more complete than we were before St. John’s. It’s this elevation from mere being to meaning that you help provide, and I cannot thank you enough.”

“I have always been an avid reader, and as soon as I discovered St. John’s College, I knew this was where I wanted to engage myself in higher education. Receiving the wax-sealed acceptance letter in the mail was quite honestly one of the highlights of my senior year in high school. Finances were, of course, a major consideration during the application and admission process, but I was overjoyed and relieved at how attainable an education at St. John’s College was. As I begin my sophomore year studies, I can honestly say that I cannot imagine myself anywhere else, and I am so grateful to be here.”

“I discovered St. John’s College over two decades ago, and since then, it has been my dream to study the Great Books here. Unable to attend then due to financial realities and eventually taking my bachelor’s elsewhere, the possibility of pursuing the Graduate Institute refreshed my earlier ambitions. However, as a father of five and a full-time teacher, the impossibility of relocation was another reality imposed on my aspiration to study at the college. As a result of the low residency program in the GI, I can now attend seminars virtually and discuss Plato, Aquinas, and Nietzsche with excellent tutors and colleagues through the convenience of remote study.

The low residency program has made the impossible possible for me.”

“As a tutor since 1974, I have been privileged to witness the development of the college as it has grown and matured in Santa Fe, Annapolis, and on our expanded global campus. We continue to steadily improve as we work, quoting Frederick Douglass, ‘to be true to our past, true to our present, and bind ourselves to be true to our future.’

We tutors are grateful to you who love this college and who came together to support the Freeing Minds campaign. Together we are having a revolutionary effect on the future of education, of the survival of republican values, of human rights, and of ideas with powerful consequences for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Our world needs these gifts as we steer a course through changing times.”

“Theatre and music have prospered since the reopening of Mellon Hall. As archon of the King William Players, I have greatly enjoyed both performing in and directing shows in the FSK auditorium, and the new studio theater was an ideal rehearsal space throughout the process of putting those shows together. While the various make-do performances spaces we used during the renovation (Great Hall, Boathouse, Mellon courtyard) afforded a certain amount of creative inspiration, the experience of watching performances (and performing) in a real theater with real lights is magical.

I am looking forward to our growing artistic endeavors in these updated spaces.”

“As a writer, I find the most important element of St. John’s College to be dialogue, whether between faculty and students or the authors in the Program. A trickier step is extending that dialogue outside the Program and applying it to life after St. John’s.

The Santa Fe Office of Personal and Professional Development has been essential to my attempts to do that as a screenwriter. I’ve remained in dialogue with Senior Career Advisor Charlie Bergman since graduating from the Graduate Institute in 2017, working on everything from job applications to networking opportunities. Thanks to this help, I’ve returned to Santa Fe after teaching and acting in Miami, and I am now pursuing my dream of making my own films.”

“Unable to speak in Seminar, I asked Mr. David Carl to help cure me of my excruciating muteness. His initial suggestions were standard, but I returned, pleading for a more radical treatment. He jokingly suggested I try magic, and out of that humor a fruitful mentor-mentee relationship was born. Fueled by our mutual admiration for Joan Didion, shared interest in Velvet Underground-adjacent music, and thwarted attempts to learn the bongos, we met consistently during my freshman year to discuss everything from Program-specific questions to our feelings about humanity. My experience of St. John’s would have lacked complexity and relevance if I didn’t have a tutor I could talk to outside the classroom, someone who could openly relate to my confusions and concerns. I’m grateful to have been paired with Mr. Carl, and trust I’ll return with requests for guidance in the years to come.”

“During the school year, I strive to be a model learner for my students; but in the summer, I benefit from the investment you make in the faculty’s learning.

Over the last few years, I have studied Archimedes’ New Method, Madame de Lafayette’s ‘La Princesse de Clèves,’ Frederick Douglass’s ‘My Bondage and My Freedom,’ Boscovich’s ‘A Theory of Natural Philosophy,’ and Hannah Arendt’s ‘The Human Condition.’ At the conclusion of these study groups, which are difficult, stimulating, and deeply rewarding, we will often talk about how a work might be approached in class. Regardless of the direct instructional outcome, the study groups are essential for the audacious project that is the New Program.”

“Coming to any college is a formative and serious threshold to cross, and that is especially true with St. John’s. As an RA, I have seen firsthand how orientation has transformed from a slim information session to a robust and mindful program that aims to bridge the often-difficult transition to our beloved college. One significant improvement is the newly created session in which the RAs and new students divide into small groups and discuss the students’ academic fears and questions about living and working together in a small, intense community.

I admire and support this strengthening because our unique college requires an orientation as specific and attentive as our program of study, which is future-minded but also grounded in the beliefs that have always moored us.”