Our Annapolis residence halls are cherished and often historically significant spaces—but time has taken its toll, and many of our residential buildings need significant work.

Through the Pritzker Challenge and the generosity of the Jay Pritzker Foundation, the Annapolis campus is crafting a plan to renew our residence halls, beginning in 2023 with Campbell Hall, the largest residence hall on campus.

The renovation will improve ADA accessibility, modernize the infrastructure, and make Campbell Hall a destination for students seeking great conversation. The bookstore and coffee shop will move from Humphreys Hall and McDowell Hall, respectively, to Campbell Hall’s lower level, facing the new Mellon Hall outdoor terrace and events space.

St. John’s 2019 tuition reset made the college more affordable, yet our students still require an extremely high level of financial assistance. Approximately 80 percent of current freshmen receive need-based financial aid—the highest percentage in our peer group. Demographic statistics indicate this trend will continue: more of our students will represent lower-income households, and many will be the first in their families to attend college.

As a result of philanthropic support, students paid just over $15 million in tuition during the 2022 academic year but received $18.5 million in financial aid.

By providing educators with affordable access to St. John’s seminars, we can help them to better understand our discussion-based approach to learning and promote the college more effectively and enthusiastically to their students.

Through philanthropic support, K-12 educators can attend select seminars, including Summer and Winter Classics at a greatly reduced cost—and in some cases, no cost at all. Teachers are also eligible for significant scholarship support to earn a master’s degree or a Liberal Arts Education Certificate through the Graduate Institute.

Summer Academy gives high school students a chance to enjoy great conversations in a Socratic format alongside St. John’s tutors. For many, this unique program will be their first experience with discussion-based learning. It is also one of the college’s most reliable pipelines for future students: one in six current freshmen participated in Summer Academy, either in-person or online, while in high school.

St. John’s wants more students to have this opportunity, but not every family has the means to afford tuition, travel expenses, or both. Because of gifts to the college, including gifts of scholarship support, more than one-third of the students who participate in Summer Academy receive some form of help with the cost.

Times are changing. The southern half of the United States is growing; the financial resources that families can afford to commit to college are shrinking. Through Southwest Scholars, a donor-funded recruitment initiative, the college is taking a strategic approach that includes outreach to lower-income communities in the six states of the American Southwest.

We now have 23 partner schools, and students enrolled in these schools are eligible for scholarships to study in Santa Fe or attend Summer Academy. The college, in turn, enjoys a stronger relationship with school personnel, who serve as ambassadors for the Program and point high-achieving students toward the college.

St. John’s can attract a globally diverse community of seekers and searchers because your gifts enable us to establish fruitful partnerships with high schools around the world, keep our tuition costs low, and still provide aid to students who need support.

One of our most reliable pipelines for bringing international voices to St. John’s is the global network of United World College high schools.

As a result of an anonymous gift, UWC students like Parth are eligible for a full-tuition scholarship to study at either campus.

Since the founding of the New Program in 1937, when St. John’s adopted an egalitarian model that was rare in higher education, the range of backgrounds represented in a St. John’s classroom has steadily expanded.

Compared to our peers, St. John’s has a very high percentage of freshmen who receive need-based financial aid and a high percentage who qualify for a federal Pell Grant. Almost 30 percent of students in the Class of 2026 identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

We can attract diverse voices, which give so much texture to conversations around the seminar table, because your gifts open doors and provide support.

With the Pritzker Promise Bridge Program, St. John’s took a big step forward in addressing the needs of incoming freshmen whose backgrounds and circumstances can be obstacles to success. The program is held in the week before New Student Orientation, giving participants almost two weeks to adjust to their new community before classes begin. Activities include writing and math workshops; panel discussions with staff, tutors, and alumni; and quality time with peer mentors.

Initial results indicate the program is especially beneficial to students from lower-income families: 88 percent of Pell-eligible freshmen who attended the Summer 2021 program returned as sophomores compared to a freshman average of 80 percent in Annapolis and 74 percent in Santa Fe.

The first year of college is a time of self-discovery but also challenges, particularly for students who possess limited sources of outside support. This is especially true for international and first-generation students, as well as students from less-wealthy backgrounds.

Through peer mentorships, a component of the Pritzker Promise Bridge Program, these new Johnnies benefit from the guidance, experience, and friendship of a classmate who has walked in their shoes. Funded through a Freeing Minds gift, the initiative is part of a collegewide effort to prepare new students for success.

Across both campuses, 26 peer mentors are helping new students navigate their freshman year—and enjoy all the college has to offer.

The Pritzer Promise, which includes the Summer Bridge Program and an annual scholarship that will match a student’s federal Pell Grant, is among the donor-funded initiatives that earned John’s national recognition as a “First-gen Forward” college.

St. John’s is the first institution in New Mexico to receive this designation, which acknowledges our commitment to attracting, supporting, and graduating students who are the first in their families to attend college.

Since the launch of the Freeing Minds campaign, the college has been able to greatly expand and improve the training provided to resident advisors, enabling them to better support the students in their care.

Through a specialized training program, RAs learn how to intervene in crisis situations, recognize signs of distress in fellow students, and establish open and nonjudgmental dialogue. Anti-harassment training is another recent addition that empowers these student leaders to combat on-campus bias and foster an environment where every student can feel at home.

St. John’s College is famously rigorous, with a workload that makes immense demands of students—intellectually, emotionally, and socially.

Students can expect to encounter stress, but they will also find an improving array of health and wellness services that are focused on their complete well-being. The newly remodeled and holistically integrated Student Health and Wellness Center in Annapolis is one example of the college’s commitment to broader, more supportive care.

At the Student Health and Wellness Center, Annapolis students can access primary medical services and free counseling, attend wellness workshops, and find resources for managing stress—all in one central location.

Summer internships, which are entirely donor-funded, give students hands-on work experience—often with prominent employers. Many internships are unpaid, but your generous gifts allow St. John’s to offer stipends, making these opportunities more accessible to students who rely on paid summer jobs.

Beginning in Fall 2023, all undergraduate students are guaranteed funding for one unpaid or underpaid internship during their time at St. John’s.

Taking summer classes outside of St. John’s gives students an opportunity to explore areas of graduate study, fulfill pre-requisite courses, or achieve certification in a field of career interest. These experiences are funded entirely through philanthropy, making them more accessible to students who might otherwise pursue seasonal employment that does not address their long-term goals.

As word continues to spread about the support St. John’s provides, demand for summer opportunities has grown, with applications for internships and fellowships rising 60 percent in 2022.

The support you show for our students also extends to their postgraduate goals.

Through the Odyssey Program (formerly Jobs4Johnnies), staff, alumni, and board members help members of the senior class to identify fields of career interest, polish their resumes, make connections, and confidently answer the inevitable question: “what will your education bring to the job?”

Now in its fourth year, the Odyssey Program is part of a more robust suite of career service programming, much of it donor and volunteer-driven, that is available on both campuses.

Through important texts, penetrating conversations, and hands-on lab work, St. John’s encourages students to wrestle with humankind’s understanding of the universe.

For students who are especially interested in the STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, donor-funded summer internships and fellowships provide a pathway for further exploration.

Fellowships enable students to augment their St. John’s education with specialized coursework at some of the world’s most influential research universities. Internships offer a firsthand experience of day-to-day work in applied science.

Of the internships and fellowships undertaken in Summer 2022, one-third were related to STEM.

Each summer, students have the opportunity to read and discuss important ideas in the places that played an important role in shaping them. Programs include the Marchutz School of Art in France, the Rome Institute of Liberal Arts (founded by a Johnnie) in Italy, and beginning in Summer 2023, Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

Through the donor-funded Global Pathways Fellowships and the Bienenfeld-Pemberton Fellowships, the college can provide students with significant financial support to help offset the cost of these experiences. Student applications reached a record high in FY22, and the average award exceeded $5,000.

Thanks to a Freeing Minds gift from two anonymous alumni and an energy audit supported by the Class of 2019, the electric needs of the Santa Fe campus will be met entirely through solar energy.

Upon completion of the project in 2023, a combination of ground-mounted solar arrays and covered carports will house 1,670 photovoltaic panels that will also provide energy to 20 electric vehicle charging stations. Excess energy will be fed back into the local grid, enabling the campus to draw from that supply on rainy days.

The project is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 858 metric tons, an amount equivalent to 96,530 gallons of gasoline, and make the campus nearly carbon-neutral.

Work has now begun on a major renovation that will reinvent the Pritzker Student Center (formerly the Peterson Student Center) as the social heart of the Santa Fe campus. Students will enjoy comfortable new lounges for study and conversation, a more spacious coffee shop that connects to an expanded bookstore, and enhancements to the student-run performance venue, the Cave.

Everything that distinguishes this building, from the Territorial Revival architecture to our treasured works by designer Alexander Girard, will be wonderfully refreshed and renewed. Additionally, without a major renovation since 1964, the building will undergo important safety and accessibility improvements that will better meet the needs of our community.

Through Freeing Minds, St. John’s undertook a variety of projects designed to shrink our carbon footprint and conserve our natural resources.

In addition to going solar, Santa Fe adopted LED lighting—a much greener alternative to fluorescent lighting—throughout the campus and installed high-efficiency boilers in several buildings. These additional projects will result in savings of 358,000 kilowatt-hours annually.

In Annapolis, the renovation of Mellon Hall made the largest building on campus significantly more energy efficient. Heating, air conditioning, lighting, and plumbing were all updated with an eye to saving energy and conserving water. In addition, the outdated window units in Fielding-Rumore Hall were replaced with a modern HVAC system—that actually keeps students cool.

Small colleges are in a vulnerable position. Since the start of the millennium, more than 850 have closed or merged with larger institutions, giving up their unique identities. The cause? Changing demographics and finances. The number of college-age students is shrinking, along with the contributions that families can afford to make toward tuition.

Your support for Freeing Minds allowed St. John’s to reduce tuition and pivot to a more sustainable financial model that is built on gifts, grants, and income from the St. John’s Endowment, a collection of invested gifts.

In FY22 these donor-funded sources covered more than 40 percent of the college’s needs.

With the Freeing Minds campaign, St. John’s switched from a financial model that depends heavily on tuition to one that relies more on philanthropy. This approach calls on alumni and friends to provide ongoing support so the college can maintain tuition at the lowest rate possible and offer this incredible education to as many people as possible.

FY22 marked the third consecutive fiscal year in which gifts, grants, and the income from invested gifts played a greater role in sustaining the college than tuition.

The St. John’s Endowment provides enduring support for the college and ensures that students will always have the chance to pick apart Aristotle, examine Plato, and dissect Harvey.

The individual funds that make up the St. John’s Endowment were established by donors who wanted their gifts to last forever. These gifts are not spent but are instead invested, with the goal of generating a permanent—and growing—stream of income for the college to use, year after year.

In 2022, the St. John’s Endowment generated $10.7 million in income, an amount equivalent to $10,500 in support for every student.

One-third of gifts to the Freeing Minds campaign are allocated to student support, a category that includes $80 million in new scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students.

Of this amount, $25 million is designated for immediate use and granted to students as gifts are received. Many of these gifts have already been awarded throughout the campaign. The remaining gifts—$55 million—were given by alumni and friends for the purpose of establishing endowed scholarships, frequently in honor of a loved one. These gifts are not immediately spent but are instead invested, and the income they generate will fund scholarship awards in perpetuity.

As a result of widespread support for the Freeing Minds campaign, the college was able to cut tuition by one-third in 2019, eliminating a decade of price increases. This bold step made St. John’s one of the most affordable colleges in the Small College Consortium, a prestigious group of small schools that excel in the liberal arts.

In the years since this historic reset, tuition at St. John’s has risen less than the rate of inflation and remains lower in 2023 than it was in 2013.

St. John’s is listening when prospective students tell us what the college can do to attract lifelong learners to the Graduate Institute. Convenience, flexibility, and financial aid are among their needs.

In 2020, the faculty approved an instructional proposal to offer all three master’s degree programs in a low-residency format, making them more accessible to students who cannot relocate. In addition, the Graduate Institute offers significant financial aid, special scholarships for educators, and a 25% discount to alumni who earned a bachelor’s degree at St. John’s.

By serving as a permanent source of annual income that is not tied to tuition, the St. John’s Endowment is the bedrock of St. John’s new financial model.

Approximately $80 million was added to the endowment over the course of the Freeing Minds campaign. The college expects to receive another $90 million in the relatively near future from donors who pledged their gifts over time or included the college in their estate plans.

Once these gifts are received, annual income from the St. John’s Endowment will, under most market conditions, cover more than a third of the cost to educate our students.

Mellon Hall is in the final stage of a transformation that re-establishes this multipurpose building as the academic, social, and creative heart of the Annapolis campus.

Signature elements of architect Richard Neutra’s iconic design remain intact, but the lobby of Mellon Hall now opens into a welcoming commons area, and the Winiarski Conversation Room has been greatly improved in acoustics and accessibility. The popular student gathering space, the Fishbowl, has been upgraded to a more comfortable setting for deep discussion, private study, and faculty-student meetings. New additions include a studio theatre for the performing arts and an adjacent music rehearsal room, both with state-of-the-art acoustics.

The final touch will be an outdoor terrace, currently under construction.

St. John’s offers personalized, professional-grade career coaching that is free of charge to not only undergraduate students and recent graduates but also to graduate students and alumni who are navigating career transitions later in life. The college can help with self-assessments, networking, interview prep, resume reviews, and strategies for negotiating an offer—without the high cost of a private coach.

Your gifts not only established the Office of Personal and Professional Development in Santa Fe but also improved the career planning experience on both campuses, with additional staffing, more strategically located offices, and an expanded array of programming.

Over the years, students and alumni have spoken of their deep love for the Program, our tutors, and the lasting rewards of the St. John’s experience—but they have also shared the difficulties they faced when they felt they were falling behind and sought guidance. Surveys reveal that more than half of all graduating seniors have, at some point, given serious thought to leaving St. John’s.

As a result of your advocacy and support, all freshmen are now paired with a faculty mentor, who can offer feedback, provide direction, and lend a listening ear.

By providing tutors with the time and space for in-depth exploration of a work or subject, faculty summer study groups build community and broaden perspectives. Although study groups are optional and extracurricular, our tutors say they benefit from deepening their understanding of issues that are often raised in the classroom —and, ultimately, so will our students.

Last summer, the college offered nine summer study groups, along with stipends that make them a financially feasible alternative to summer employment. A newly endowed fund, established during the Freeing Minds campaign by friends of the college, will further support and expand these opportunities.

Too many alumni say they felt thrown into the Program, with only a brief introduction to college life and the rigors of the St. John’s classroom. Your gifts are changing things for students. Incoming freshmen now enjoy a more thorough welcome, with activities designed to lay a proper foundation for the journey ahead.

Over the course of a full week, students engage in practice seminars, learn about supportive resources on campus, share and discuss their concerns around the college’s expectations, and receive advice from upperclassmen on how to manage their time—and stress.