Alumnus receives award at Homecoming in Santa Fe
Where can a St. John’s education take you?
For Seth Cropsey (SF72), a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Hudson Institute, St. John’s prepared him for a career in government and international diplomacy. “St. John’s gave me a solid beginning in understanding the intellectual foundations that support our form of government. For example, I had a better idea of what [our nation’s] founders meant by ‘rights’ than is often demonstrated in the statements and policy prescriptions of many politicians,” says Cropsey. “The political thinkers in the Program made me aware that the political issues we face [today] have been faced in the past with consequences that remain meaningful.” The Hudson Institute is a nonpartisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.
At this year’s Homecoming celebration in Santa Fe (September 14-16), Cropsey will receive an Alumni Award of Merit, along with alumni Susan Otto (SF77) and Christopher Isham (SF77), for his many contributions to the college. Cropsey began his career in government as assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. In 1984 he was appointed deputy undersecretary of the Navy where he advised the secretary on strategy, special operations, defense organization, and Naval education. Cropsey later served in the George H. W. Bush administration as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. In 1994, he joined the George W. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where he administered the Department of National Security Planning, developed curriculum, lectured, and led seminars. His articles have been published in such journals and newspapers as Foreign Affairs, World Affairs, the American Interest, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Harper’s, Commentary, and the Weekly Standard.
At Homecoming, Cropsey, who recently completed a book on the decline of American seapower (scheduled for publication in early 2013), looks forward to sharing his love of books. “I attended St. John’s because I was more interested in reading the books in the Program than books about them,” says Cropsey. “Euclid and Apollonius shaped the way I try to reason. Thucydides remains a source of understanding about the relations between states as seen by a clear-eyed observer.”