Political and Social Thought Program Celebrates 50th Anniversary

The College’s Program in Political and Social Thought celebrated its 50^th anniversary last weekend, bringing together alumni, current students and faculty for two days of panel discussions, receptions and a Rotunda Dome Room dinner. 

The weekend served as a reunion for generations of PST graduates who went on to careers in a wide variety of professional fields, including finance, groundbreaking technology companies like Apple, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other media outlets, and academia. 

“The intergenerational interactions this weekend have been pretty great,” PST program director Isaac Ariail Reed said last weekend. “PST has fostered this intense culture of debate for 50 years, and what's amazing is seeing people from different generations recognize that culture in each other. There have been changes in the program, but its excellence, and Socratic seminar format, have been remarkably consistent.”  

“It's also remarkable to think about the next 50 years of PST … and what this program can be for UVA going forward.” 

Riley Fay, a 2025 graduate of the program who also majored in Jewish Studies, shared some of the research she has unearthed for an official history of PST commissioned by the program. 

A pioneer of interdisciplinary academic coursework at the University of Virginia, the PST Program dates back to the efforts of a small group of A&S faculty from across various departments that first met in the spring of 1974 to form what was called the Committee on Political and Social Thought. The committee was chaired by Department of Government and Foreign Affairs political theorist Dante Germino, who went on to serve as founding director for PST program debuting in 1975. 

Bringing together faculty from the Departments of Government, Philosophy, History, Religious Studies and other disciplines, the new program was designed to allow students to explore the great perennial questions concerning man’s social and historical existence, Fay said.  

“Political and Social Thought was created explicitly to address both the perils of hyper specialization within the academy and the problems that arise from a lack of cross-departmental community,” she said.  

'Twenty people in a class is magic'

Events at the anniversary celebration included a journalism panel discussion featuring three PST alums: New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie (PST ’09); Amy Argetsinger (PST ’90), Washington Post editor and author of There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America; and Zaakir Tameez (PST ’19), former Fulbright Scholar, Yale Law graduate and author of Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation. 

Another alumni panel, moderated by Will Cook (PST’ 95), featured Matt Fischer (PST ’95), the former head of Apple’s global App Store; David Buckley (PST ’04), an associate professor of political science at the University of Louisville; Nick Jordan(PST ’08), owner of a consulting firm, a direct investment and advisory firm, and co-owner of a Fauquier County vineyard; and Mythili Rao (PST and English, ’05), a London-based managing editor and producer of news and narrative podcasts. 

“Twenty people in a class is magic,” Fischer said as the panelists swapped stories about the debates and classroom discussions that characterized their shared PST experiences.  

The program admits a small cohort of 20 to 24 third-year students each year, with admitted students fashioning a course of study — with the advice of associated faculty — reflecting their intellectual interests and goals. A year-long, third-year seminar helps PST majors develop the skills of disciplined discussion and persuasive writing on various issues of social and political thought through weekly essays and focused discussions.  

 PST students devise an interdisciplinary set of classes geared to their broader interests and to the completion of a thesis. The thesis, completed in their fourth year, is typically 80 to 110 pages long.  

Many of the PST alums at least week’s celebration sought out former PST program director Michael J. Smith, UVA’s emeritus Thomas C. Sorensen Professor of Politics and Social Thought to catch up and update their former professor on their lives after UVA. During his remarkable tenure, PST students won three Rhodes Scholarships, four Marshall Scholarships, four Mitchell scholarships for travel to Ireland, one Schwarzman scholarship for travel to China, and at least a dozen Fulbright scholarships. 

“I feel extraordinarily privileged to have been part of this program,” said Smith, who led the PST program for 23 years. “To see my former students and to see the kinds of work they're doing, it's just been enormously gratifying to experience the range of things they've done in the world. I am full of gratitude for my time here and for the University in making this program possible.”