Presidential Fellows Track
Presidential Fellows Track – The Institute of Religion, Politics and Culture at Washington College
Student Fellows
IRPC Student Fellows are dedicated, high achieving undergraduates committed to participating in the life of the Institute. Student Fellows benefit from an intensive and highly interactive mentoring environment. In fact, each IRPC Student Fellow is assigned an external mentor who is a distinguished and highly accomplished professional.
Presidential Fellows Track
About the Track
The track is inspired by two classic approaches to higher learning found at the University of Oxford: its famous program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and its curriculum known worldwide as the study of the ‘Greats’ - the great thinkers who have enriched the human experience.
Students engage such questions as the meaning of happiness, knowledge and freedom, the first principles of a just regime, the value of the rule of law, and the founding principles of the United States Constitution; the role and function of free markets and of economic activity; and questions concerning humanity’s ultimate purpose.
This track also encourages students to exercise leadership to forge a humane society by working toward the attainment of what classical thinkers called phronesis - the wisdom to enact the principles discovered in theoretical inquiry. To achieve these goals students meet twice monthly for conversation over food, are invited to special events on and off campus, are encouraged and assisted to obtain internships, are connected with leaders in their field whose education in these areas during their own undergraduate years was critical to their current professional success, are invited to participate in the activities of IRPC, and, ultimately, have the option to enroll in a study abroad program at the University of Oxford.