Originally founded as the “Teachers Institute in Liberal Education,” the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College has grown since its 1967 inception to offer masters programs available on campus in Annapolis and Santa Fe or online through the low-residency program. Lifelong learners from all backgrounds come together to read Great Books; these texts, which span discipline and millennia, are united by a single—but by no means simplistic—inquiry: What does it mean to be human?

Students at St. John’s explore this question through discussion-based classes that empower them to formulate their own answers. Graduate Institute alum Mark Lovell (AGI24) has described these conversations as “a kind of dance in which each participant loses all self-consciousness, thinking only of the ideas at hand.” Hailing from Sydney, Australia, Lovell is an English teacher who came to Annapolis as a Ramsay Postgraduate Scholar. Now back home, he plans on pursuing a career in school leadership—but first, he took the time to reflect on his time at St. John’s and how it transformed him as a reader, thinker, conversationalist, and person.

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When I found out I had been accepted to the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College Annapolis, I sprinted upstairs and embraced my wife in excitement. It was official—we were bound for the U.S.A!

The primary source of my delight was not my appetite for adventure, nor was it the sense of accomplishment brought with a notification of acceptance. No, when I received this news, my first thought was of the St. John’s classroom—that sacred space into which I would soon have the privilege of stepping.

Months prior, when I had first learned about this unique liberal arts education through the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation’s Postgraduate Scholars program, I knew right away that St. John’s was the place for me. For all the strengths of the education I had received in Australia, in the lead-up to applying to St. John’s I had begun hungering for something different. I carried around this nagging sense that I had coasted through university without really thinking for myself—and that, as a result, I hadn’t really grown as a person. I had instead become  adept at constructing essays just so, knowing I could meet academic criteria and please professors.

Not only that, but I had also seldom encountered original ideas firsthand; most of our university readings were research papers on great texts instead of the great texts themselves. I had a tertiary education in secondary sources. As an English teacher by trade, I keenly felt this scholastic void.

St. John’s professed to offer something different. Long readings of primary texts, an exclusively dialectical pedagogy, oral examinations, discursive written assignments. A rigorous liberal education with nowhere to hide; a formative experience designed to shape the souls and characters of those who receive it; an education in free thinking. I had to go.

Two years on, now having completed my Master of Arts in Liberal Arts, I am a different man. Let me tell you how.

An Education of the Intellect

St. John’s has changed me as a thinker. Just being exposed to Western civilisation’s greatest works and most brilliant minds leaves a mark. Coming face to face with Homer, Plato, Kant, et al. stretched my capacity for comprehension, forcing me to think carefully about the words on a page simply to gain a superficial handle on their meaning.

Although it took some time—and a healthy dose of humility—to read texts of such difficulty, I have come to love the act. Great Books reward effort, and they contain enough depth to delight even the most experienced reader. They are an august foil for our era of instant gratification. Indeed, in the months since leaving St. John’s following my December 2024 graduation, I’ve found it hard to read anything other than “Great Books.” Once you’ve tasted fine wine, it’s hard to settle for less.

Perhaps that feeling will settle in time, but for now I am so glad to have encountered what is possible for the human mind to accomplish. The assiduity of Aristotle, the elegance of Shakespeare, the acuity of Nietzsche all cast long shadows over anything else I read.

Not only has St. John’s changed me as a reader, but it has sharpened me as a thinker and communicator. The seminar table taught me how to ask precise and sincere questions. My peers taught me how to listen with understanding. And our conversations taught me how to argue a point with conviction while maintaining the humility to change my mind.

Writing St. John’s-style papers also taught me to organise my thinking and express complex ideas with clarity, freeing me to pursue an answer instead of proving a point at which I had already arrived. This kind of writing is the deepest form of thinking.

An Education of the Heart

The goal of the liberal arts education offered at St. John’s is teleological; it is to shape the souls and characters of the people who receive it. I think this moral formation happens in three ways: through books, tutors, and conversation.

Reading the classical works from whose seeds Western civilisation sprung gives us a cultural and moral vocabulary. It helps us see with fresh eyes the water in which we swim. It allows us to understand ourselves more deeply. Homer’s Odyssey is a story about a universal pull towards home. Augustine’s Confessions is a vivid and frank self-examination that resonates within each of us, if we let it. Machiavelli’s The Prince explains why political expediency is so prevalent today. And Goethe’s Faust represents the tension between our fundamental human limitations and the necessity of striving for greater.

To study these books is to become conversant in the writers who know us more intimately than we know ourselves. They hold up a mirror and shine a light on our assumptions and prejudices. They portray what we know deep down but have never had the wherewithal to express. They provide us with that moment of sweet relief when we realize, “Ah, I’m not the only one.”

St. John’s shapes its students not merely through books but through tutors. One of the most powerful factors in a person’s formation is not just what they are taught, but by whom. In other words, the knowledge an educator imparts is only part of what they give. What matters most is who they are—the example they set.

St. John’s is full of tutors whose approach to scholarship could be its own curriculum. One such person is Ms. Gisela Berns, who is 86 years old and led my class through German dramas Nathan the Wise, Don Carlos, and Faust with the kind of sparkle one usually sees in the face of children.

Ms. Berns encounters Program texts with a purposeful delight, leading classes not as a haughty expert but as the first among equals. She allows the text to take pride of place in her classroom, encouraging her students to look ever more closely into its richness and subtlety for themselves rather than telling them what it means. She teaches students how—not what—to think.

Finally, St. John’s shapes its students by teaching them how to converse. Each class is two hours long, during which time students must together tease out the meaning of a text. When done properly, these conversations become a kind of dance in which each participant loses all self-consciousness, thinking only of the ideas at hand. This means careful listening, asking thoughtful questions, giving generous attention to one another, and having the humility to change one’s mind. These are the building blocks of deep relationships; these are the ingredients for a meaningful life.

In my time at St. John’s, I participated in over 500 hours of such conversations. Not all went well, but every seminar nudged me closer towards the kind of person I want to be—considered, inquisitive, humble, amicable. The curriculum and pedagogy of St. John’s have made me more human and planted seeds which are already germinating into what I know will be a life of free thinking, ceaseless learning and, I hope, wisdom. For this education I am forever grateful—both to St. John’s and to the Ramsay Centre for supporting me in my studies.

—Mark K. T. Lovell