Jul 25, 2015 3 min read

WAYNESBURG – A program tailored to Waynesburg University students who are interested in politics is pairing them up with today’s national political leaders and grooming them to become the policy-makers of tomorrow.

The Stover Center for Constitutional Studies and Moral Leadership was implemented seven years ago and has brought select students together each school year to discuss the law, review U.S. Supreme Court cases and have in-depth discussions with the lawyers and justices who litigated them.

“It gives them added insights,” said Lawrence Stratton, the political science professor who oversees the program. “It complements the political science courses so they can hit the road running in law school. The conversations are to give them a leadership opportunity.”

Not all of the students involved in the program each year are political science majors, Stratton said. In fact, he said the students and their majors range “across the curriculum spectrum” that adds diverse opinions and viewpoints to their studies.

That was the case for Daniel Czajkowski, 24, of Frederick, Md., who studied both political science and criminology before graduating in 2014. He considered the program that he spent four years in “almost like a third major” with the amount of work and studying involved.

“What it does is it provides students a good foundation on how their faith intersects their professional calling, whether it’s politics, the medical profession or the private sector,” Czajkowski said, adding that it allowed him to discuss how his Christian faith was intertwined with policy decisions. “It’s up to the students on how to put those ideas into practice”

It was worth it, as he and other members spent time discussing constitutional legal opinions with several Supreme Court justices, including his favorite justice, Antonin Scalia.

“What really attracted me to it is the nitty-gritty of constitutional issues and matters of constitutional law,” he said. “Really looking at the Supreme Court cases, whether they decided rightly or wrongly, looking at those discussion and exploring those ideas further.” Czajkowski, who considers himself somewhat of a “policy wonk” on certain issues, was the university’s Student Senate president. He also worked after graduation in Washington, D.C.,, for Congressman Keith Rothfus, a Republican lawmaker whose district snakes from Johnstown to Beaver County.

“It was a good experience to have a start on the Hill, and I could see myself returning there sometime in the future,” he said. “It’s good to see how policy is made and the give and take about legislation.”

He has worked in Waynesburg’s admissions office this past summer before he returned to his Maryland home Friday as he prepares to begin Officer Candidate School after enlisting in the U.S. Navy earlier this month.

“My desire to serve has been as long as I can remember,” he said. “I can’t describe it any other way than it is a calling, and I think we have a duty to answer it.”

That leadership ambition is one of the biggest goals of the Stover program, Stratton said, that rubs off on other students.

“They become leaders elsewhere,” Stratton said. “We’re spreading our sense of public awareness across campus.”