The Early Years
You're currently standing in The Quadrangle. For the first century of Georgetown's history, campus was mostly confined to this area.The earliest documentation of Georgetown's founding came in 1786 when John Carroll, the first Catholic Archbishop in the United States and who is considered the father of the American Catholic Church, wrote his Prospectus. In it, he described his desire for a college open to students of different religious traditions and social classes. After considering the future site of the US Capitol Building, Carroll settled on Georgetown's current location to build the school. Construction of the college's first building, the South Building, began in 1788. For decades, the college used 1788 as its founding year until a typographical error altered it to 1789. However, the year 1789 also held special significance for Georgetown as the year that John Carroll raised enough money to officially buy the deed to the land. Due to this and the patriotic symbolism of the date, the college decided to keep 1789 as its founding year.The South Building first opened for classes in 1792 and with about 10 rooms, it housed nearly everything for the university during its first decade. The North Building was built on the other side of The Quadrangle in the mid-1790s. Modeled after Princeton's Nassau Hall, it was one of the grandest buildings in the area at the time measuring three times larger than the South Building. Eventually, these buildings became known as "Old South" and "Old North." The top rooms of the Old North were used for detention and some students even used a pulley system to provide their punished classmates with food. In 1797, President George Washington spoke on the top step of Old North during a trip to visit his grandnephews. Since then, thirteen other US presidents have given speeches on that step. Today, Old North is home to Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy.The Georgian architecture of Old South and Old North was typical of the area in the colonial period. As the first Catholic school in America, Georgetown did not want to raise any red flags and so its leaders used architecture to blend in. Wary of meddling with the government, John Carroll did not seek a Charter for the university at its founding. But in 1815, a federal charter was granted to Georgetown with the help of its first student, William Gaston, who was then a member of Congress.In the early years, Georgetown was a strict all-male boarding school. Boys as young as six years old came to Georgetown which consisted of elementary, preparatory, and college divisions at the time. Each day was highly regimented and began with a wash at the famous Georgetown pump. A commemorative replica of the pump was placed in its exact location in 1989 for Georgetown's bicentennial.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about Georgetown's founding mission here.Learn more about the McCourt School of Public Policy here.Learn more about the McCourt School's Institute of Politics and Public Service here.
Expansion and the Civil War
Old South and Old North were the only significant buildings on campus until the 1830s. It was at that time that Georgetown desperately needed more space to accommodate its rising enrollment. While building, the university ran into severe financial distress and faced the possibility of bankruptcy. The way Georgetown dealt with this crisis highlights one of the darkest parts of its history.Maryland Jesuits had been involved in the slave trade since the seventeenth century. In 1838, Father Thomas Mulledy, president of Georgetown, sold the university's 272 slaves to a Louisianan slaveowner. Georgetown used the funds from the sale of its slaves to finish the construction of the new building to the west of Old South. The "College Building" was home to a dining room where students ate in silence, a chapel where students worshiped daily, a study hall, and student housing. Barrack-style bunks were common housing accommodations at this time in order to enforce discipline. Eventually became known as Mulledy Hall to memorialize the president who oversaw its construction. However, amidst growing pressure from the Georgetown community in 2016, the university's Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation decided to rename the building in honor of Isaac Hawkins, the first slave listed on the bill of the sale. Descendants of Georgetown's slaves were invited to attend the rededication ceremony and several descendants attend Georgetown today.During the Civil War, Georgetown's enrollment dropped from 313 students to just 17. More than 1,100 students and alumni fought in the War, mostly for the Confederate. Some battles took place near Georgetown's campus and about 1,400 Union soldiers took refuge in Old South, Mulledy, and Maguire, the now classroom building to the left of where Old South used to be. After the Civil War in the 1870s, Georgetown adopted its school colors blue (the uniform color of the North) and gray (the uniform color of the South) to symbolize national reunification. These colors are still the official colors of the university.In 1892, the Quadrangle was lowered in order to construct a new church on the hilltop. Dahlgren Chapel was the first building at Georgetown to be funded by philanthropic donations. Elizabeth Dahlgren funded its construction in memory of her infant son, Joseph Dahlgren. Her husband, John Dahlgren was an alum of the university. The chapel is home to the original cross brought over by the first American Jesuits. In 2015, the cross was blessed by Pope Francis during his trip to the United States. Today, Dahlgren celebrates daily Mass and hosts regular events to promote interreligious dialogue.You are about to leave the Quadrangle through Healy Hall. If you'd like, you can participate in a Georgetown tradition of not stepping on the school seal outside the main doors of Healy.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation here.
The "Second Founding"
The magnificent building in front of you is Healy Hall. The story of Healy Hall is the story of Patrick Healy, president of Georgetown from 1874 to 1882. Patrick Healy was born in 1834 to a white planter father and an enslaved black mother in Georgia where he was legally considered a slave at birth. He went on to become the first African-American to earn a PhD, enter the Society of Jesus, and serve as president of a majority-white university. However, nobody knew he was black at the time. Healy had a light skintone due to his Irish heritage and passed as white for his entire life. His identity remained hidden from the public until it was officially uncovered in the 1960s.Patrick Healy is known as the "Second Founder" of Georgetown. He transformed the university from a small rural southern college to an urban university by modernizing its curriculum and expanding graduate programs. The centerpiece of Georgetown's transformation during this time was to be a mammoth new building symbolizing the greatness and permanence of the institution. Students mocked the idea of such a gigantic buildings on campus and doubted that it could actually happen. But they were soon proven wrong.To complete the project, Georgetown hired architects John Smithmeyer and Paul Pelz who also built the Library of Congress. Until the designing of Healy Hall, the architecture at Georgetown had been rural Georgian colonial. But Smithmeyer and Pelz envisioned a grand Romanesque style for the new building. Unlike the more subtle and rather secular buildings of the Quadrangle, Healy Hall was to be flamboyantly Catholic in its appearance. Healy Hall's orientation is also significant because it altered the school's direction from facing the Potomac River to facing Washington, DC indicating a more urban and national atmosphere than a rural southern one.The top floors of Healy were used for student housing, introducing single dorms instead of the barracks. The lower floors were used for classes and studying and the basement was used for recreation. Just a few decades ago, there was a student pub in the basement. Inside Healy is an elegantly auditorium where many prominent speakers visit the Georgetown community. After sitting vacant for many years, a group of Georgetown alumni decided to donate the necessary funds to finish the project - this was the birth of Georgetown's alumni network. The space was named Gaston Hall after Georgetown's first student, William Gaston, who went on to become a member of Congress from North Carolina.The John Carroll statue outside Healy Hall was unveiled in 1912. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Georgetown alum Edward Douglass White led the dedication ceremony. President William Howard Taft was supposed to lead the service but couldn't due to the sinking of the Titanic. Today, it is a school tradition to sit on John Carroll's lap during a student's four years.GEOREGTOWN TODAYLearn more about the Patrick Healy Fellowship here.
The Greater Georgetown Project
As Georgetown entered the twentieth century, the university sought to physically expand the campus beyond the Quadrangle. The Greater Georgetown Project was a plan to dramatically grow the campus. After decades of stagnation, Father Coleman Nevils, president of Georgetown from 1929-1935 took matters into his own hands. He commissioned the building of a grand quad with neo-gothic buildings resembling those of ancient European universities. Part of the motivation for the quad was to make Georgetown appear older than it actually was in order to firmly establish its national and global standing. Another motivation was to respond to assert the grandeur of Georgetown's Catholicity during a time of nativist sentiment and secularizing schools.Nevils' "Greater Georgetown" also included extending the school's history back three centuries. In 1634, the first American Catholic priests sailed on the boats The Ark and The Dove to settle the first Catholic settlement in America at St. Mary's, Maryland. The Jesuits eventually started schools that indirectly inspired the founding of Georgetown itself. Therefore, Father Nevils considered the first American Jesuits to be the actual founders of Georgetown. He claimed that 1634 was the true founding date of Georgetown, making it the oldest collegiate institution in the country and proving the superiority of Catholic education in America.Nevils planned to use the quad to memorialize these "founders." Copley Hall, finished in 1932, was named after Thomas Copley, who is credited with drafting the Act for the Toleration of Religion. The White-Gravenor Building, finished the following year, was named after Andrew White and John Gravenor. A third building to honor Ferdinand Poulton was planned to be built on the opposite side Copley, but was never started due to the Great Depression. Copley and White-Gravenor were even more explicitly Catholic in their design than Healy Hall. Looking at White-Gravenor, one can see a cross atop the building along with the motto of the Society of Jesus "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam": for the greater glory of God.The construction of these buildings in pursuit of a "Greater Georgetown" started to encroach upon a hallmark of Georgetown's campus throughout the nineteenth century. "The Walks" as they were commonly referred to were paths throughout an expansive forested area beside the built campus. There were bridges, waterfalls, and trails where students would spend their free time. The Walks existed up until the middle of the twentieth century when development gradually eliminated the greenspace.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about the 1634 Society here.
World War II
World War II dramatically changed Georgetown's campus during the presidencies of Fr. O'Leary from 1935 to 1942 and Fr. Gorman from 1942 to 1949. As the United States braced for war, Georgetown was home to some military reserve training sites in the summers of 1940 and 1941. Father O'Leary declared that Georgetown was "eager to render service to our beloved nation to the very best of our ability." As a result, the campus erected an obstacle course and required exercises on Copley lawn to ensure that the student body was physically fit. Georgetown also created an accelerated class schedule so students could graduate before joining the army.However, when the minimum age for the draft was lowered to 18, the campus emptied out. Just like when the student population plummeted during the Civil War, Georgetown went from enrolling 1,300 undergraduates in 1941 to enrolling just 140 in 1943. To compensate for its loss of male students, the Graduate School and School of Foreign Service began allowing women into their programs as a "wartime concession." Remaining students were housed in Copley as social events were cancelled, student government shut down, and campus media scaled back. Over 6,000 Hoyas served in World War II and 168 died in action.Campus effectively became a military compound. The Army, Navy, and Army Air Force all had training programs and facilities on campus. There were more than 1,800 military personnel on campus at the height of the war. After the war, Georgetown's campus came back to life thanks to the G.I. Bill. In 1946, more than half of the 2,600 students at Georgetown were veterans and more than 75% of the School of Foreign Service were attending on the G.I. Bill. This dramatically diversified the demographics and culture of Georgetown's student body. Georgetown continues this legacy today ranked as one of the best colleges in the nation for veterans.Georgetown received several new buildings as a result of post-war legislation like the Lanham Act of 1945 which authorized the Federal Works Agency to transfer surplus military buildings to colleges that needed them for educating veterans. In addition to two barracks placed near Dahlgren Quad, a barn was constructed behind Dahlgren Chapel and named after Fr. O'Gara, a Georgetown theology professor who served as a chaplain in World War II and died in a plane crash to save another person's life. Today, O'Gara Terrace can be found in the spot where the building formerly stood.The government also placed two long and narrow wooden structures at the corner of 37th and P - where you are currently standing. As you can see, these two long buildings were bricked over and connected in the back. The university named the building "Poulton Hall" to recognize the completion of the Greater Georgetown Project's quadrangle - although not exactly as Fr. Nevils had envisioned. Today, Poulton Hall is home to the Center for Social Justice and to a theatre group called Mask & Bauble. Founded in 1852, Mask & Bauble is said to be the nation's longest continuously running student theatre group.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about the Veterans Office here.Learn more about ROTC here.
The School of Foreign Service
One of Georgetown's most prized academic institutions is the School of Foreign Service. Founded in 1919 in response to World War I, the SFS aimed to train students to become experts in international affairs in order to represent the United States well in diplomacy and business on the world stage. Father Edmund Walsh was recruited to run the SFS which was eventually named in his honor.The SFS was headquartered in downtown DC until it was moved to Healy Hall in the early 1930s with the expectation that it would shut down and be merged into the College. However, World War II reinvigorated enthusiasm surrounding the school's purpose. In 1947, the government provided two annexes - similar to those of Poulton Hall - and placed them on the lawn you are currently standing on. The SFS found its new home in these two structures until the construction of the Walsh Building in 1958, which you will see on the next stop. While the annexes continued to house classes, they did not last long. In 1963, nearly 1,000 students took to the streets in protest against a number of the university's policies and burned down one of the two annexes. The other annex was razed in 1971.The brick complex surrounding you is the Alumni Square apartment building. It was constructed in the early 1980s and was intentionally designed to match the look of townhouses as Georgetown's stretched its campus into the residential neighborhood. The School of Foreign Service is now housed in the Intercultural Center (ICC) which you will see later in the tour.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about the School of Foreign Service here.Learn more about the Office of Global Education here.
East Campus
Georgetown's campus has extended past the main gates for over a century. This part of campus, known as East Campus, has historically been the site of experimentation and innovation where Georgetown undertook new ventures to respond to the changing academic needs of the university and the country. East Campus was the geographic birthplace of two of Georgetown's four undergraduate schools and was the site of major growth for the SFS.While the Georgetown Medical School was founded in 1851, it wasn't until the very end of the nineteenth century that a hospital was built in the Georgetown neighborhood at the corner of 35th & N Streets. In 1903, Georgetown opened a training school for nurses as a three-year certification program. While not a typical degree program, this was the first time that women were on campus to take classes.In the 1940s, the government assisted Georgetown in constructing a new hospital on the northern end of campus. Upon its completion, the old hospital was converted into student housing. During this time, Fr. Edward Bunn, president of Georgetown from 1952 to 1964, upgraded the nursing program into a full four-year undergraduate degree program. Today, the School of Nursing and Health Studies, more commonly referred to as the NHS, is housed in St. Mary's Hall which opened in 1956 near the newer hospital.During the Cold War, the U.S. government decided to invest in higher education in order to compete on the global stage. The architecture of East Campus was heavily influenced by the Hill-Burton Act which provided federal funds for construction. In order to receive these funds, religiously affiliated schools had to express their identities in less explicit ways. The plain and dull brick architecture of these government funded buildings became known as the Hill-Burton style. Several buildings on Georgetown's campus were built in "no frills" Hill-Burton style including St. Mary's Hall, New South Hall, the Kober-Cogan Building, and the Walsh Building which is connected to the old hospital.The Walsh Building, opening in 1958, was the home of the SFS for over two decades. Out of the SFS came the Business School which eventually became the McDonough School of Business, now housed on campus in the Hariri Building. The School for Continuing Studies and the now defunct School of Language and Linguistics were also housed in East Campus.The simple brick architecture of the buildings constructed in the 1950s stands in sharp contrast to the ornate buildings of the 1930s and the spectacle of Healy Hall. The university's relationship with the government affected the appearance of its buildings.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about the School of Nursing and Health Studies (NHS) here.Learn more about the School of Medicine here.Learn more about the McDonough School of Business (MSB) here.Learn more about the School of Continuing Studies (SCS) here.
The Tombs and 1789
You are now looking at two iconic restaurants of the Georgetown neighborhood. As a student, Richard McCooey dreamed of founding a dining establishment that was uniquely tied to Georgetown University. In the early 1960s, about a decade after McCooey graduated from Georgetown, he realized his dream here on the corner of 36th and Prospect.He gutted the building to make room for 1789 and dug out a basement to make room for The Tombs. 1789, of course, is named after the popularized founding date of Georgetown. The upscale steakhouse used to have a takeout window at the top of the staircase to the basement.The name "The Tombs" is a reference to T.S. Eliot's poem "Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town." In it, an elegantly dressed cat travels to fine eating clubs around London. The poem states that, "if he looks full of gloom then he's lunched at the Tomb / On cabbage, rice pudding, and mutton." Known for his penchant for fashion, McCooey earned the nickname "Bustopher Cat" in the Air Force. He felt it was only appropriate to name his special underground restaurant "The Tombs."Tombs is home to many Georgetown traditions. Since 1964, the Chimes - an all male barbershop a capella group made up of Georgetown students - have hosted a monthly "Chimes Night" where they sing for customers. When student turn 21, they're known to stop by for their "Tombs Night" and get a Tombs stamp marked on their forehead. Some seniors are even known to go to Tombs each day for their last 99 days before graduation to get their name on a plaque inside.
Becoming a Modern University
The 1960s were a time of cultural change for both the Catholic Church and the United States. As both a Catholic and American university, Georgetown adapted to the changing times in transformative ways.The Second Vatican Council, popularly known as Vatican II, declared that the Catholic Church should be part of the modern world and interact with human culture rather than remain insulated from it. Around the same time, leaders of Catholic colleges around the United States published what became known as the "Land O'Lakes Statement." It urged Catholic colleges to become fully modern research universities. It emphasized interreligious pluralism, inclusion of the laity, and academic autonomy from the Church hierarchy. The first signatory on this rather radical statement was none other than Georgetown president Gerard Campbell.Father Campbell, president of Georgetown from 1964 to 1968, oversaw the implementation of the new post-Vatican II ideology on Georgetown's campus and led a fundamental transformation of the university's governance structure in an effort to modernize the school. With rewritten charter and bylaws, the Board of Directors was permitted to include members from other institutions and the laity. Within a few years, the Board was majority laypeople. Georgetown also declared legal autonomy from the Jesuit Community which helped allow the university to acquire more federal funds. The centuries-old Jesuit curriculum known as Ratio Studiorum was altered to include more electives, flexibility, and interdisciplinary studies. While students were no longer required to attend religious services, they were required to take a new standardized theology course entitled "Problem of God" which most Georgetown students have taken in the last half century.The physical manifestation of this embrace of modernity can be seen in the architecture of Lauinger Library. In the 1940s, preliminary plans for a new library in a classical gothic style. However, when John Carl Warnecke was chosen to design the library, he selected a style that fit the trying times of the sixties. The library is a brutalist interpretation of Healy Hall and represents the emerging radical new ways of grappling with the past. Similar to Healy, it has a dark gray stone, sculpted undulating exterior, and two towers. Opening in 1970, the library was named after Joseph Mark Lauinger, a young Georgetown graduate killed in the Vietnam War. Students now often refer to the library simply as "Lau." The harsh and brutal Lauinger, named after a fallen student, stands in sharp contrast to the grand and ornate White-Gravenor Building. They are, in many respects, monuments to their respective time periods and trace significant change throughout Georgetown's history.Modernizing its Catholic identity allowed Georgetown to adapt to changing cultural attitudes in American life. In the 1960s and 1970s, Georgetown started to see a rise in multiculturalism and diversity among its student body.Historically, black students had been severely underrepresented at Catholic colleges. In the seventies, Georgetown enacted affirmative action policies to create a more racially diverse student body. In 1968, when only 40 black students attended Georgetown, leaders in the newly formed Black Student Alliance established The Black House, a residential space for discussion of race and identity. The Community Scholars Program was also founded as a system of support for students of color navigating different aspects of college life. CSP continues to support students of color over fifty years later.Georgetown's newly reformed Board of Directors also confronted issues of gender equality. In 1968, the College - the most traditional of Georgetown's schools - decided to open 50 slots to women. Not everyone welcomed the introduction of coeducation, though - the front page of the student newspaper read, "Tradition Crumbles: College Adds Girls." Men and women were separated in the early days of coeducation. Men received "G Books" and women received "Ms. G Books" which outlined proper etiquette for a gentleman and a lady. The university constructed two dorms around this time. Harbin Hall, named after a beloved math professor, opened as a men's dorm in the 1960s and housed future U.S. president Bill Clinton soon after. Darnall Hall - named after founder John Carroll's mother, Eleanor Darnall - was intentionally named after a woman as it was to be a women's dorm. Today, both buildings are coed freshmen dorms.The Office of Campus Ministry became Georgetown's epicenter of interreligious dialogue - a key focus of Vatican II. The percentage of students who identified as Catholic dropped from around 90% to around 65% between the sixties and the seventies. Georgetown began hiring Protestant theologians and became the first Catholic university in America to hire a rabbi. In the years since, Georgetown went on to hire the first full-time Muslim and Hindu chaplains at an American university. Georgetown now has the largest campus ministry in the United States.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about Lauinger Library here.Learn more about the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access here.Learn more about the Women's Center here.Learn more about Campus Ministry here.
The Rise of Student Counterculture
The 1960s and 1970s were a time of tremendous cultural upheaval in the United States and it was reflected in student activism at Georgetown. Selected as president of Georgetown in order to rescue the university financially, Fr. Robert Henle, serving from 1969 to 1976, oversaw a breakdown of the more traditional culture of Georgetown's campus.Like many college campuses, Georgetown experienced social unrest that fostered anti-establishment sentiments. A new student newspaper, The Voice, was established because the mainstream student newspaper, The Hoya, was considered to be too conservative in its view of the Vietnam War. In fact, some students burned copies of The Hoya in a 1969 riot. Students also protested the Vietnam War by holding protests including a massive sit-in demonstration on Copley Lawn.In 1971, a May Day riot got so out of hand that final exams were cancelled and the school year was ended prematurely. Fr. Henle made the fateful decision to call the police on the campus radicals and have them sprayed with tear gas. In response, students banded together and formed a separate legal entity known as Students of Georgetown, Incorporated in order to sue the university. It soon became known as "The Corp." The Corp opened a student-run grocery store called Vital Vittles and continued to expand its non-profit business over the next few decades. True to its rebellious roots, it has at times attempted to sell controversial products like condoms and bongs. Today, The Corp has six storefronts and is the largest entirely student-run non-profit business in the world.Students even found some partners in the administration. Pacifist Jesuit priest Richard McSorley protested alongside students who opposed the ROTC program. Executive Vice President for Educational Affairs, Father Edmund Ryan was described as the most popular administrator among the students. He even helped students dump thousands of lemons in the president's office in protest of tuition hikes. His abrupt termination in 1974 caused an uproar on campus and prompted a student vigil where hundreds gathered to express their frustration. This solidified tension between the student body and the administration.While protests at Georgetown were relatively mild compared to many other universities at the time, this behavior was actually quite radical for students at a Catholic school to engage in such behavior. Traditionally, Catholic schools like Georgetown had enforced strict discipline with a paternalistic campus culture known as loco parentis. The erosion of this culture in the sixties and seventies and the rise of student activism led to a new style of housing students on campus. Instead of placing students in dormitories which connoted the strict boarding school mindset, Georgetown began erecting student villages. Thanks to the College Housing Loan Program, the university constructed new communities of apartment-style housing. These communities were intended to feel more like real neighborhoods and grant students more control over their own adult lives. Over the course of a decade, the university constructed four villages: Henle Village in 1976, Village A in 1979, Village B (now named Alumni Square) in 1983, and Village C in 1986.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about the Center for Social Justice here.Learn more about Residential Living here.
Athletics at Georgetown
In the 1980s, Georgetown gained national attention with the success of its men's basketball team after the creation of the Big East Conference. As the Big East became a national sensation, Georgetown quickly developed a heated rivalry with teams like Syracuse. Led by Head Coach John Thompson Jr., the Hoyas appeared in the NCAA tournament every year for over a decade, playing in the Final Four three times, and winning the national championship in 1984. The team's star player, Patrick Ewing, returned to the basketball team in 2017 - this time as Head Coach.But Georgetown's athletic tradition began well before the 1980s. Before organized sports, students enjoyed playing handball on the current site of Village A. The front lawn was where students would play football and baseball in the late 1800s. Around this time, it was popular for schools to have distinctive chants for fans to cheer at sporting events. Georgetown students came up with the chant "Hoya Saxa," which some have translated from Greek and Latin to mean "What Rocks" - a possible reference to the stone wall built alongside the front lawn. After using the name "Hilltoppers" for awhile, Georgetown's sports teams became popularly known as the Georgetown Hoyas by the 1920s and the cheer "Hoya Saxa" is still used commonly at Georgetown today.The name "Hoyas," though, did not lend itself to a natural mascot. After a decades-old tradition of bringing dogs to campus for sporting events, the Student Mascot Committee decided to adopt an English Bulldog as Georgetown's official mascot in the early 1960s. Students tried to name the dog "Hoya," but he would only respond to "Jack" since his previous name was "Royal Jacket." There have been many generations of Jack the Bulldog and you can still find Jack at every basketball game.As organized athletics took hold at Georgetown, Ryan Gymnasium - now the Davis Performing Arts Center - was opened in 1906 as the university's first athletic facility. After outgrowing Ryan, McDonough Arena was constructed in 1951, named after Fr. Vincent McDonough, the long-time Director of Athletics. In the late 1970s, the focus on student space led Georgetown to construct a new indoor general use gym for non-varsity athletes named after longtime Government professor Fr. Gerard Yates. Most recently, in 2016, a state of the art athletics facility for varsity athletes was built and named in honor of legendary basketball coach John Thompson Jr.Today, Georgetown has 29 varsity sports teams and many club sports teams.LEARN MORELearn more about Georgetown athletics here.Learn the fight song and alma mater here.
Becoming a National University
As the emphasis on student empowerment strengthened, Father Tim Healy, president of Georgetown from 1976 to 1989, led a dramatic expansion of campus to match the increasing demands of a modern university. Regarded as a Georgetown legend, Tim Healy - much like Patrick Healy a century prior - aimed to make Georgetown even more prestigious and renowned. Along with the success of its basketball team, many factors contributed to making Georgetown become a truly national university in the 1980s. The university's acceptance rate went from 44% at the beginning of Healy's presidency to 23% by the end. The student body also became more racially diverse with minority enrollment rising from 6% to 19%. The endowment was increased fivefold. One of Healy's lasting legacies was his commitment to making sure that Georgetown instituted a need-blind admissions policy so that any student, regardless of their socioeconomic background, would be considered for acceptance to Georgetown. He also made scholarships a top priority of the university. As a result of these efforts, Georgetown is now both need-blind in its admissions and meets full demonstrated need.During his presidency, Tim Healy oversaw the construction of a dozen buildings on campus. The large complexes built under Healy's tenure reflected the growing and increasingly active student body. In addition to several village-style apartment buildings and Yates Field House, the Bunn Intercultural Center - named after former Georgetown president Edward Bunn, but more popularly known to students as the "ICC," - was erected with the aid of the federal government in 1982. After the Vietnam War, the U.S. government turned to colleges to promote international education. With its School of Foreign Service, Georgetown was well positioned to become a leader in this effort. With what was at the time the world's largest solar roof, the ICC served as a model for what the future of global education could look like.Also responding to the increasing extracurricular needs of college students, Healy oversaw the construction of the much-needed Leavey Student Center. Opening in 1988, the massive Leavey Center served as a tangible symbol of the centrality of students at universities. Today, Leavey houses a student-run grocery store, student-run credit union, student government, campus media, a food court, and the bookstore. Much like Lauinger Library, the Leavey Center was intended to be a modern take on the design of Healy Hall with its dominating presence and iconic tall towers.At its bicentennial in 1989, Georgetown was poised to take its spot among the most elite higher educational institutions in the country. That year, Fr. Healy stepped down to become President of the New York Public Library. Father Leo O'Donovan succeeded Fr. Healy, serving from 1989 to 2001. After building so much under Fr. Healy's watch, Georgetown paused construction to develop a long-term master plan and address deferred maintenance. New laws also made it more difficult for private colleges to receive funds. As a result, no buildings were erected during the 1990s. The nineties were still exciting for Hoyas, though. It was during this time that Bill Clinton was sworn in as the first Georgetown alum to become President of the United States. He was less successful in his bid for President of Student Council at Georgetown in 1967.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about the Center for Student Engagement here.Learn more about Student Centers here.
Into the 21st Century
In 2001, John DeGioia took over as the first lay president of a Jesuit university. After graduating from Georgetown in 1979, DeGioia remained a part of the Georgetown community as a professor and administrator and is now Georgetown's longest serving president. Under his leadership, the university has expressed a more global focus in the last couple decades with partnerships around the world and the establishment of an international campus in Qatar in 2005.The 21st century at Georgetown has also seen efforts to better live up to John Carroll's vision of an exceptionally inclusive Catholic school. The Georgetown Scholarship Program began providing financial assistance and a supportive community for low-income, first generation, and non-traditional students. Today, about 10% of Georgeotwn's undergraduate population is in GSP. In 2008, Georgetown responded to repeated instances of hate crimes against gay students on campus by opening an LGBTQ Resource Center. It is the first and only center of its kind at a Catholic university.On campus, the early years of DeGioia's presidency saw the development of the west side of campus with the construction of a new dorm known as the "Southwest Quad," a new Jesuit residence, and a dining hall named after previous president, Fr. Leo O'Donovan. The McDonough School of Business (MSB) found a new home in the Hariri Building which was funded by Georgetown alum and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. The sciences outgrew their quarters in the Reiss Building and found a new home in 2012 in Regents Hall, designed to be uniquely interdisciplinary and environmentally friendly.One of the most recent additions to Georgetown's campus is Arrupe Hall. Opened in 2016, this residence hall is named after Pedro Arrupe, Superior General of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983. Arrupe reoriented the Jesuits' mission toward the pursuit of social justice. As a result, students at Jesuit schools like Georgetown are urged to use the knowledge they gain in the classroom to become women and men for others. A photograph of Pedro Arrupe's visit to Georgetown's campus can be found inside on a commemorative plaque. The architecture of Arrupe Hall, in many ways, represents a synthesis of Georgetown's history. The gray cobblestone can be seen as a nod to the neo-gothic and romanesque style of Healy, White-Gravenor, and Copley. The brick matches many buildings of the mid to late twentieth century like the Leavey Center and the ICC. And the glass seems to symbolize the future and things to come for Georgetown.The layout and architecture of Georgetown's campus tells many stories - stories about religion, country, slavery, war, peace, money, modernity, diversity, counterculture, tradition, change, and many more. Together, the buildings on Georgetown's campus create a mosaic - a mosaic that uniquely animates the Spirit of Georgetown - and a mosaic that is not finished. While the tour is over, the story does not end here. Georgetown has a vision for the future of its campus and you can learn more about it here.PLAY VIDEOThank you for visiting Georgeotwn University.GEORGETOWN TODAYLearn more about Global Engagement here.Learn more about the Qatar campus here.Learn more about the Georgetown Scholarship Program here.Learn more about the LGBTQ Resource Center here.Learn more about the Campus Plan here.
