Political Studies & Summer Courses

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?

This year, the Hertog Foundation is offering a suite of online and in-person programs. Our residential Political Studies Program 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. Our in-person and online Summer Courses offer the same high-quality instruction and seminar experience, but with the flexibility and convenience needed to accomodate your professional and academic commitments.

Original card image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Watch this video to learn more

Political Studies Program

Summer Residential Program / $2,500 Stipend + Housing

This highly competitive residential fellowship spans six weeks and reflects the breadth of the Hertog Foundation curriculum, with courses on political philosophy, the American political tradition, and domestic and foreign policy. Fellows participate in morning seminars, and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 36 fellows will be selected.

Summer Courses

Online & In-Person Seminars / Course Materials + Stipend

Our Summer Courses are ideal for students who have internships, independent research work, or other commitments during the summer. Seminars meet in-person or via Zoom. Choose the seminar that best fits your interests and schedule. Up to 75 fellows will be selected.

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.

Applicants will be accepted on a rolling basis. Applicants may apply by our early deadline on Monday, December 20 to receive notification by March 1. The final deadline is Tuesday, March 1, 2022.

Faculty & Speakers

Faculty
Speaker

Robert C. Bartlett

Boston College

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Robert C. Bartlett

Boston College
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.

Featured Publication

2016
Sophistry and Political Philosophy: Protagorus’ Challenge to Socrates

Robert C. Bartlett
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Peter Berkowitz

Hoover Institution

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Peter Berkowitz

Hoover Institution
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in America, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.

Featured Publication

2018
Anti-Liberal Zealotry Part I: Our Immoderation

Peter Berkowitz
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Matthew Continetti

AEI

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Matthew Continetti

AEI
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.

Featured Publication

2018
Jonathan Swift in a White Suit

Matthew Continetti
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Sen. Tom Cotton

U.S. Senate

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Sen. Tom Cotton

U.S. Senate
Tom Cotton is a United States Senator from Arkansas. His committees include the Banking Committee, where he chairs the Economic Policy Subcommittee, the Intelligence Committee, and the Armed Services Committee, where he chairs the Air Land Power Subcommittee. He served nearly five years on active duty in the U.S. Army as an Infantry Officer.
Daniel DiSalvo

CUNY

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Daniel DiSalvo

CUNY
Daniel DiSalvo is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for State and Local Leadership and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York-CUNY. His scholarship focuses on American political parties, elections, labor unions, state government, and public policy.

Featured Publication

2019
Too Much Democracy?

Daniel DiSalvo
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Bryan Garsten

Yale University

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Bryan Garsten

Yale University
Bryan Garsten is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He writes on questions about political rhetoric and deliberation, the meaning of representative government, the relationship of politics and religion, and the place of emotions in political life.

Featured Publication

2009
Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment

Bryan Garsten
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Leon R. Kass

AEI

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Leon R. Kass

AEI
Leon R. Kass, M.D., is the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago and Emeritus Scholar at AEI. He was the chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005.

Featured Publication

2011
What So Proudly We Hail

Diana Schaub, Amy Kass, and Leon Kass
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Yuval Levin

National Affairs

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Yuval Levin

National Affairs
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.

Featured Publication

2014
Taking the Long Way: Disciplines of the Soul are the Basis of a Liberal Society

Yuval Levin
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Harvey Mansfield

Harvard University

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Harvey Mansfield

Harvard University
Harvey C. Mansfield is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at Harvard University. He was Chairman of the Government Department from 1973–1977, has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, and has been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center.

Featured Publication

2016
Tocqueville on Religion and Liberty

Harvey Mansfield
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H. R. McMaster

Hoover Institution

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H. R. McMaster

Hoover Institution
H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Previously, he served as the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for 34 years before retiring as a Lieutenant General. He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.

Featured Publication

2020
Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World

H.R. McMaster
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Thomas Merrill

American University

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Thomas Merrill

American University
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.

Featured Publication

2015
Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment

Thomas Merrill
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Diana Schaub

Loyola University

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Diana Schaub

Loyola University
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.

Featured Publication

2014
Lincoln at Gettysburg

Diana Schaub
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Vance Serchuk

KKR Global Institute

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Vance Serchuk

KKR Global Institute
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).

Featured Publication

2019
Russia’s Middle East Power Play

Vance Serchuk
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Darren Staloff

City College

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Darren Staloff

City College
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.

Featured Publication

2007
Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding

Darren Staloff
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Jenna Silber Storey

Furman University

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Jenna Silber Storey

Furman University
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.

Featured Publication

2021
Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment

Benjamin Storey & Jenna Silber Storey
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Vickie Sullivan

Tufts University

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Vickie Sullivan

Tufts University
Vickie Sullivan is the Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science and teaches and studies political thought and philosophy. She also maintains teaching and research interests in politics and literature. She has published extensively on Montesquieu and Machiavelli and is the co-editor of Shakespeare’s Political Pageant.

Featured Publication

1996
Shakespeare’s Political Pageant

Vickie Sullivan
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Flagg Taylor

Skidmore College

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Flagg Taylor

Skidmore College
Flagg Taylor is an Associate Professor of Government at Skidmore College. He is editor most recently of The Long Night of the Watchman: Essays by Václav Benda, 1977–1989. He is currently writing a book on Czech dissent in the 1970s and 1980s.

Featured Publication

2020
Understanding Dictatorship

Flagg Taylor
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Adam J. White

AEI

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Adam J. White

AEI
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.

Featured Publication

2017
Antonin Scalia, Legal Educator

Adam J. White
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WHO SHOULD APPLY?

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.

Undergraduates, gap-year students, young professionals, and graduate students are all eligible to apply to the Summer Courses.

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:

An undergraduate GPA > 3.5
A statement of purpose that tells us how the applicant’s interests and ambitions relate to the preferred program. The statement of purpose is very important and deserves careful attention.
An academic writing sample that demonstrates the applicant’s powers of analysis and independent thought, and not only their ability to do scholarly research or comment on a text.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

CV or résumé
Personal Statement

Describe the political questions you find most interesting, your future ambitions, and how these relate to your preferred program(s). (1,000 words or less)
A college transcript

Unofficial
An academic writing sample

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.
Academic Reference & Letter

Provide the name and contact information of a professor, mentor, or supervisor. (Letter not required for nominated applicants.)

Apply Now

Alumni Spotlight

Kate Havard Rozansky

Current Position:

Director, Maimonides Scholars Program
Past:

Researcher to Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Tikvah Fellow
Education:

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.

HOW DID YOU FIRST HEAR ABOUT POLITICAL STUDIES?

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.

WHAT STICKS OUT IN YOUR MEMORY ABOUT YOUR EDUCATION EXPERIENCE WITH POLITICAL STUDIES?

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.

TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR CAREER PATH.

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.

OVERALL, WHAT IS YOUR IMPRESSION OF POLITICAL STUDIES?

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.

DO YOU THINK POLITICAL STUDIES IS BENEFICIAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE INTERESTED IN PUBLIC POLICY?

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.

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS?

I’d still like to be involved in politics and still writing in whatever capacity I can make a living at.

Kate Havard Rozansky

“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.”