Novak Fellowship

The late Ambassador Michael Novak (1933-2016) spent a career thinking and writing about all that pertains to the human spirit and the moral foundations undergirding America’s economic and political systems. When first published in 1982, his seminal work The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism caught the attention of his friend Pope St. John Paul II.

Perhaps as important as his specific ideas was his approach. He was interdisciplinary, open-minded, and supremely realistic, and therefore able to bring fresh insights to old problems, examining everything afresh. 

The Ciocca Center is proud that Mr. Novak finished his extraordinary career teaching for us, and it is with an eye to our friend and mentor’s generous and open approach to human problems that the Novak Undergraduate Fellowship endeavors to create an interdisciplinary community of Catholic University scholars where the next generation of public intellectuals committed to a free and virtuous America can be formed.

Applications open in May for the 2025-26 cohort.