September 1, 2022 | By Luis Sanchez (AGI23)

Across both campuses, St. John’s College welcomed 246 undergraduate freshmen for the fall 2022 semester: 142 in Annapolis and 104 in Santa Fe. With those numbers, Santa Fe surpassed the threshold of more than 100 admitted freshmen for a second time in a row, something that had only happened once before in 2011. Annapolis held the number of new admissions in line with its expectations. With the goal of 25 additional freshmen in the Santa Fe January class, the college expects to have 270 total freshmen over this next year.

Once again, St. John’s College in Annapolis and Santa Fe welcomed new classes of incoming undergraduate and Graduate Institute Johnnies to its campuses with the convocation ceremony, one of the most cherished traditions at the college. Sophomores joined in the ceremony alongside transfer, readmitted, and graduate institute students as relatives and friends looked on.

In Annapolis, faculty led St. John’s first-year students from McDowell Hall, past throngs of cheering students and parents, to the Library Plaza. There each Johnnie was officially welcomed to the college community by Dean Joseph C. Macfarland and President Nora Demleitner before signing the college register. After walking up front, each student also received a book—Euclid’s Elements—before President Demleitner delivered her convocation address, telling the assembly:

“You are much more than ‘a desired guest,’ you are now a member of our community. You are today’s students and tomorrow’s alumni, lifelong members of the Johnnie community … You are joining a special place, one steeped in history and tradition but also one that is cutting-edge modern. And you join an illustrious line of alumni … [Our] curriculum continues to make us one of the most cutting-edge colleges: interdisciplinarity and an integrated curriculum are our hallmarks. Our pedagogy is what others strive to create: student-driven class discussion, the flipped classroom, the self-driven, learner—education catchphrases that we have long implemented. You and your classmates are in charge of your own learning. To quote another college’s learned provost, ‘Education is not given, it is earned.’ And nowhere is that truer than here.”

In Santa Fe, incoming first-year students joined the St. John’s community for an outdoor ceremony at the Weigle and ESL Placita. On that sunny morning, President Mark Roosevelt and Dean J. Walter Sterling invited undergraduate and graduate students to officially begin their studies at St. John’s as they processed across the field and the stage to shake hands and sign the college register. Each freshman claimed a copy of the Elements, while the students of the Master of Arts in Eastern Classics received a copy of Confucius’s Analects. President Roosevelt concluded the ceremony with a convocation address of his own, reflecting to students and their guests:

“You have joined a community of learners who wrestle with bold and radical ideas. We are searchers. We do our work with honesty, tempered by civility. These values, honesty, a commitment to rigorous searching, civility, respect for and openness to the ideas of others, are largely lost in America. Certainly, in our public dialogue and they are certainly missing for most of higher education. But they still have a home at St. John’s and now you have a home here, as well … At St. John’s you will be required to confront ideas and ways of looking at the world that are markedly different from your own. You will be uncomfortable, not occasionally, but often.”

The Class of 2026, By the Numbers

This year, St. John’s had the largest applicant pool in its history, with 1,470 applicants, of which 54 percent were admitted. Both campuses hit their enrollment goals.

Across both campuses, St. John’s College welcomed 246 undergraduate freshmen for the fall 2022 semester: 142 in Annapolis and 104 in Santa Fe. With those numbers, Santa Fe surpassed the threshold of more than 100 admitted freshmen for a second time in a row, something that had only happened once before in 2011. Annapolis held the number of new admissions in line with its expectations. With the goal of 25 additional freshmen in the Santa Fe January class, the college expects to have 270 total freshmen over this next year.

The numbers tell a success story, as St. John’s strives forward in its mission to make the college a place for all who seek it. Perhaps even more compelling, though, is the composition of the student body itself—a group of students from various backgrounds bonded together by their shared search for the beautiful and the true. Of the new Johnnies:

• 28 percent are students of color
• 23 percent are Pell Grant recipients
• 17 percent attended Summer Academy or Summer Seminars
• 11 percent are first generation to college
• 10 percent are international students
• 9 percent are children or grandchildren of St. John’s alumni

In addition, freshmen hail from 34 different states in the U.S., the District of Columbia, and Guam, with the largest groups coming from California, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia; 19 countries are represented, including Austria, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Norway, Peru, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Tanzania, Turkey, and Vietnam.

The days since convocation haven’t been idle for new or returning students: freshmen on both campuses immediately began discussing Homer’s Iliad, while sophomores, juniors, and seniors delved into the Bible, Don Quixote, and War and Peace, respectively. As conversation fills the air surrounding the quad in Annapolis and the koi pond in Santa Fe, one thing is certain: Johnnies are home. Convocatum Est!