St. John’s College Seniors to Ring Bell in Annual Tradition
SANTA FE, NM [February 9, 2026] — The bell of St. John’s College’s Weigle Hall will ring Saturday night, as nearly 100 students continue an annual tradition that marks a senior rite of passage. Each of this year’s graduates will be allowed one celebratory peal, marking the completion of the senior essay that is due that evening. Seniors will ring the bell between 7 and 9 p.m. in Weigle Hall’s bell tower as they turn in their essays on Saturday, February 14, before heading to a reception at the president’s house.
“The senior essay is often thought of as the culmination of a student’s career at St. John’s,” says Dean of the College Sarah Davis. “Students focus exclusively on writing for the first month of the semester, 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 poetic work); a question; and a faculty advisor. The student and advisor meet periodically throughout 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 Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the Biblical book of Genesis, Shakespeare’s plays, Plato’s Republic, Augustine’s Confessions, and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
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 Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Annapolis, Maryland, 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.
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