Paul H. Nitze Program Description

Introduction | What the program offers | Participants' Obligations
 Who teaches in the program? | Selection Process

Paul H. Nitze Program Description

What does the Paul H. Nitze Scholars Program offer to participants?

FIRST YEAR

First semester:

All Nitze Scholars enroll in a Leadership Seminar. This seminar is the introduction to the program. Although its topic varies from year to year depending on the professor who teaches it, the underlying concerns remain the same. Students study how people create worldviews to make sense of their experiences and to gain control of their lives, and how these worldviews are modified and replaced by others. They investigate how leaders arise, how they interact with their communities, and how forms of leadership differ in different times, cultures, and disciplines of study.

Second Semester:

The leadership seminar is followed by a 2-credit Tutorial.

This tutorial, led by the Director or Assistant Director of the Scholars Program, is organized around a series of visits by Paul H. Nitze Senior Fellows. Nitze Senior Fellows may be researchers whose work, because of its real-life implications or ethical stance, has found resonance in the public domain, or they may be public figures such as judges or political figures, who use their knowledge of society as leaders in national or international service. When Nitze Senior Fellows visit St. Mary's College, students in the program have opportunities to interact with them in both formal and informal settings, so that mentorship relations can develop.

SECOND YEAR

First Semester:

Nitze Scholars take a Seminar Linked to a Study-Tour Abroad. They will use the insights and skills they acquired in the Leadership Seminar to study political, social, or environmental issues in a particular region of the world. The professor who teaches the seminar will focus on the relationship between that region and the US, invite comparisons, and encourage students to discuss local issues from a global perspective.

Semester Break:

Students will participate in a two-week study-tour to the region they studied during the semester. This study-tour is provided without additional fees as a part of the Nitze Scholars Program.