The Foundation established the Alumni of the Year Award within our Graduate Fellowship Program in 2022. The Award recognizes an alum who has demonstrated a commitment to public service, has contributed to the broader public good and who personifies the leadership qualities that Secretary Rumsfeld aspired to encourage in the development of the program. (Read more about our inaugural awardee here.)
This fall, the Foundation was pleased to recognize an alumnus who embodies these qualities and represents the next generation of civic-minded leaders. We were delighted to award the 2023 Alumni of the Year Award to Dr. Ben Judge!
Meet Ben:
Ben was nominated for his selflessness, a love of country and a passion for helping others – traits that have shone through in his many contributions to our nation across both his personal and professional life.
Ben’s achievements are as wide-ranging as they are impressive. He is the President and co-founder of The America Fund, a foundation supporting organizations and individuals committed to preserving the American way of life. In addition, he is the co-editor of United and Independent: John Quincy Adams on American Foreign Policy and a forthcoming edition of Samuel Flagg Bemis’ Diplomacy of the American Revolution. Ben is also the creator and executive producer of the 2020 documentary Right Makes Might: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The Rumsfeld Foundation sponsored Ben’s graduate studies at Claremont Graduate University where he received his PhD in Political Philosophy and American Government. Ben has also served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, recently completing an 11-month deployment to the Horn of Africa and multiple deployments in support of Carrier Air Wings and Joint Special Operations Task Forces.
Ben’s nominator wrote, “Nothing better sums up Ben’s candidacy for Alumni of the Year than Secretary Rumsfeld’s rule that, ‘Many people have the ability to review something and make it better. Few are able to identify what is missing.’ Ben is one of those special people that will make a difference in the world.”
At the recent 2023 Graduate Fellowship Conference, held over September 21st-22nd in Washington, D.C., the Foundation celebrated the 15th academic year of the Graduate Fellowship Program and the milestone of supporting over 200 Graduate Fellows across the country since 2009. During the award presentation at the conference’s closing dinner, attendees heard remarks from Ben as well as the program Adviser that originally nominated him for a Fellowship during his studies at Claremont Graduate University.
In his congratulatory remarks, Ben’s Adviser noted, “He [Ben] has been climbing new heights of both scholarship and public service for many years now … Ben is not short of further practical ideas and how to do good for his country… showing how seriously I think Ben takes the Rumsfeld model of political and intellectual excellence.”
While accepting the award, Ben paid tribute to Secretary Rumsfeld, “If someone designed a cursus honorum for the United States, it would look pretty close to Don Rumsfeld’s career. But he never took a job for the sake of getting the next one. He took jobs that allowed him to do something. And to do something, he had to risk something. He risked a lot. He risked his reputation. His credibility. His future professional prospects. There is always a danger, and it is heightened in a great nation, that talented, principled individuals will gravitate towards holding an office for the sake of that office’s perpetuation. The antidote for that natural inclination is studying Don Rumsfeld. And in being here I am reminded of something that Lincoln said in eulogizing Henry Clay, ‘Such a man the times have demanded, and such, in the providence of God was given us. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve, as much as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that, in future national emergencies, he will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.’
Instruments of safety and security. He is talking about the people in this room. Don Rumsfeld believed that too, so much so that he used his own money to support our education. And it is an honor to be associated with so many people who are proving his belief correct.”
