St. John’s College Seniors to Ring Bell in Annual Tradition 2026
ANNAPOLIS, MD [January 28, 2026] — The bell of St. John’s College’s McDowell Hall will ring overnight Saturday into Sunday, February 1, between midnight and 1:30 a.m., as more than 100 students at the third-oldest college in the country continue an annual tradition that marks a senior rite of passage. Each of this year’s seniors will be allowed one celebratory peal, marking the completion of the senior essay that is due that evening. The Mayor’s Office grants the college a special exemption to the city of Annapolis’ noise ordinance, allowing the long-standing tradition to continue.
Seniors will turn in their essays on Saturday, January 31, at the president’s house. They then return to campus to ring the bell in McDowell Hall’s cupola (done with the push of a button).
“The senior essay is often thought of as the culmination of a student’s career at St. John’s,” says Dean of the College Joe Macfarland. “Students focus exclusively on writing during the month of January, pursuing a question of their own in dialogue with the author. Unlike a research paper, the senior essay is based solely on the book in question and is less concerned with the history or context in which the author is writing and more with investigating the ideas themselves.”
In the first semester, each senior selects a book (or, a play, piece of music, or poetry), a question, and a faculty advisor. The student and advisor meet periodically in the first semester to discuss the work and define the project. In the first four weeks of the second semester, senior classes are suspended for essay writing. Later this spring, seniors will participate in formal, hour-long oral exams on their essays. Some of this year’s essay topics include Lobachevsky’s Theory of Parallels, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, Platonic dialogues, Wagner’s operas, and quantum mechanics.
ABOUT ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
In an age of political division and digital distraction, St. John’s College offers the education America needs. Through close reading of 200 great books across 3,000 years—from Plato to Toni Morrison, Augustine to Charles Darwin, Euclid to Albert Einstein—students wrestle with the deepest questions of law, justice, freedom, and human good. At a time when many institutions chase trends, St. John’s returns to first principles. The third-oldest college in America, with campuses in Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, St. John’s is a refuge for civic renewal, civil discourse, and intellectual courage. Learn more about our undergraduate, graduate, and lifelong learning programs at sjc.edu.