Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA)—In an era where military personnel and US college students rarely interact, Amy Zegart, the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, saw an opportunity to build stronger connections between those two demographics at Stanford.
Within Hoover’s existing Robert and Marion Oster National Security Affairs Fellows (NSAF) Program, where serving US military, law enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence professionals spend a year at Hoover sharing and learning with the fellowship, she saw an opportunity to get Stanford undergraduate students involved.
“I remember a couple years ago, one of our fellows came and he told me this was the very first time he had ever set foot on a civilian university campus,” Zegart said of what inspired the NSAF program. “[It] really spoke to how unusual this experience was and so I wanted these two communities who don’t usually interact with each other to understand one another.”
Out of the wider NSAF program came the National Security Affairs Fellows Mentorship Program. The program selects approximately thirty students, and each NSAF is paired with two to three students for the full academic year. Under the guidance of Amy Zegart, the full cohort of NSAFs teach an undergraduate seminar to the students that meets every other week. The seminar session topics range from deployment and family life to the structure of the US national security apparatus.
In the intervening weeks between seminar sessions, each NSAF and student pairing meets as a small group. Mentees seek guidance from mentors on their coursework and career paths as well as exchange insights and ideas about national security and geopolitics. Beyond academic life, bridges are built through recreational activities from Stanford club events and Bay Area spectator sports to out-of-the-box field trips like visits to military installations, which are meant to foster and strengthen civil-military relations.
Participating undergrads write quarterly reflection papers about their experiences in the program.
Priority for participation in the mentee program is given to students who demonstrate academic excellence, plan to be in residence for the entire academic year, and have no prior or current exposure to the military, diplomatic corps, the intelligence community, or law enforcement.
According to Zegart, the pairings are intended for the NSAFs to impart knowledge from their careers in public service as well as inspire and cultivate interest in US national security policy among students.
“The idea isn't just to have that one hour of seminar time together,” Zegart said of the seminar sessions the NSAFs themselves lead, “It's to build a community of students across all different majors [and] all different class years with varying exposure to US foreign policy but who are all interested in learning more about US foreign policy and engaging in this community.”
For the NSAFs themselves, they gain a deeper understanding of academic life from students who study at one of the world’s leading universities. Further, Zegart explains that the NSAFs also profit from engaging with students by learning from their perspectives about America’s role in the world and the best ways to attract young people to careers in national security.
Students who participate come with a wide variety of political views, and the mentorship program is designed to foster meaningful and civil discourse on a wide range of topics.
Ana Agarwal (’25), an international relations student who was mentored by Col. Jerome C. Greco this year, said she appreciated the opportunity to hear from him about topics such as his deployments to the Middle East and the stories of sacrifice that emerge from participating in combat. But he was also able to propel her own research to new heights with his experience and connections.
“I'm researching why the United States has been so slow to integrate small, attritable drones into the military, and when I mentioned my project to Col. Greco offhand, he really became super excited about helping me,” she said.
Greco introduced Agarwal to several contacts he had at the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) an agency at the Pentagon focused on accelerating the adoption of commercial and dual-use technologies to solve its operational challenges at speed and scale. DIU is currently working to develop and obtain small drones for frontline units in the US military.
Mentors sometimes shared more unorthodox efforts they embarked on throughout the course of their careers to illustrate to Stanford students that service, duty, and commitment don’t always take conventional paths.
Cayden Gu (’27), a computer science student at Stanford, said his mentor, State Department Diplomat Stephen P. Goldrup, raised the importance of outside-the-box thinking he employed when organizing travel and events for President George W. Bush in 2008.
As part of a tour of the People’s Republic of China that coincided with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Goldrup organized a time for the president to attend a church service in the city, knowing that Christians practice their faith in China sometimes at their peril.
Gu explained how Goldrup thought the president’s church appearance would send a strong message to the Chinese about religious freedom.
“Even though this wasn't something that needed to happen, he thought that this would be something that would be good for developing our relationship with China,” Gu said. “I think that how he went through that process even though it took so much turmoil, it took so much coordination, he was willing and dedicated to do it to achieve a greater mission.”
For Piper Holland, who just graduated with an international relations degree from Stanford in June, discussions with her mentor Col. Jerome Greco led to a realization that there was an entire career path in international relations she hadn’t yet considered.
The NSAF program offered her internship and entry-level career opportunities for work in foreign relations, either with the US government or think tanks abroad.
“Every single thing I've ever done at Stanford all leads to a career in public policy, and I had no idea,” Holland said. “I didn't even consider going into a career in international relations until I took this course.”
Mentee Anika Yadav (’28) said her mentor, Col. Thomas N. Garner (US Army), took her under his wing and helped her feel more comfortable in new surroundings at Stanford, far from her home in Iowa.
“The relationship really transformed into something that felt almost like a second family,” she said.
“Both [he] and his wife took us into their family. Throughout this year we got to spend time at dinners and going to movies together. We were able to better appreciate what day-to-day life looks like for military families but most importantly the perspectives that are shaped by their experiences,” Yadav said.
She said her discussions with Garner have even included her future at Stanford and her career.
For other mentors, like Col. Melinda Acuña (US Army), the year at Hoover as an NSAF was a way to recharge her batteries after two decades of service in the US Army but also a means to realize the younger generations really do respect and look up to people like her.
“I realize our youth [are] not who we think,” Acuña said. “I see youth who are eager to learn.”
“[The youth] do respect us; we just have to ensure we continue to communicate effectively with them and listen to them.”
One student who shared that Col. Acuña had a profound impact on her was Soraya Johnson (’28).
She originally applied to join the mentorship program because of her interest in Middle Eastern politics.
She said Col. Acuña invited her to regular lunches with experts who discussed the volatile region and other geopolitical flashpoints throughout the year. Johnson explained that these encounters allowed her to build her confidence and pose questions she might not have been comfortable asking before her mentorship began.
“[The lunches] foster curiosity and encourage us to ask questions that in other contexts might be seen as inflammatory or result in very politicized responses,” Johnson said. “Here they are met as genuine,” Johnson said.
She said studying alongside Col. Acuña also helped her stay positive in her view of public service.
“Right now, it’s a difficult time to stay motivated in the public service,” Johnson said, “because of the layoffs and the polarization of elements of the bureaucracy . . . but seeing the genuineness in our mentors inspires me to keep at that and understand that the mission and value of public service is still valuable and still worth fighting for.”
In an era of great societal divides, the NSAF Mentorship Program continues to draw military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement leaders closer to America’s bright young minds. And each group departs from their year together with new understanding and a new friend.
