Jonathan Deemer has a very clear goal to impact foreign policy and peacemaking efforts by practicing law in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence.
The senior international relations and business finance major took one step closer to that goal this week when Stanford University named him a Knight-Hennessy Scholar. Deemer will attend Stanford Law School to pursue a law degree while also earning a master’s in in public policy at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences on a full ride scholarship.
After graduate school, his first stop will be the U.S. Marines. “I have a law contract with the Marine Corps; that means, once I graduate law school, I will become a Judge Advocate,” said Deemer. “My plan is to do that for four years. Then I’d like to work in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser for law enforcement and intelligence working on things like treaty negotiations, international terrorism laws, and criminal proceedings with foreign policy implications.”
Deemer made the most of his time in Union’s international relations program to prepare for his calling. In addition to the coursework that focuses on global history and current affairs, he took advantage of a variety of internships that gave him valuable foreign policy experience. He interned at the White House in the Office of the Vice President, the Department of Defense at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., the Hudson Institute’s Center for Political-Military Analysis, and for U.S. Senator Ben Sasse.
As a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford, Deemer will have access to additional experience learning through the King Global Leadership Program, which provides a collection of community experiences, workshops, meetings with leaders, global study trips and personal development opportunities.
For Deemer, his experience studying international relations helped him learn to make sense of the world he saw through the news—“being able to understand headlines and being able to understand why things happen, especially on a global scale.”
Learn more about Union’s international relations program at ucollege.edu/international-relations