Georgetown University is a
JesuitThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic religious order of clerks regular whose members are called Jesuits.Jesuits are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, with 18,815 members—13,305 priests, 2,295 scholastic students, 1,758 brothers and 827 novices—as of January 2008, although the...
private universityPrivate universities are not operated by governments though they may or may not receive funding . Depending on the region, private universities may be subject to government regulation...
located in
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.Georgetown is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River waterfront. Founded in 1751, the city of Georgetown substantially predated the establishment of the city of Washington and the District of Columbia. Georgetown retained its separate...
Father
John CarrollJohn Carroll, was the first Roman Catholic bishop and archbishop in the United States — serving as the ordinary of the Archdiocese of Baltimore...
founded the school in 1789, though its roots extend back to 1634. While the school struggled financially in its early years, Georgetown expanded into a branched university after the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
under the leadership of university president
Patrick Francis HealyFather Patrick Francis Healy was born in Macon, Georgia to Irish-American plantation owner Michael Healy and bi-racial slave Mary Eliza....
. Georgetown is the oldest
Roman Catholic universityThere are several hundred Roman Catholic universities and colleges in the United States. Most of these were originally sponsored by a religious order who continues to support them to this day.- Augustinian :...
in the United States, and its religious heritage is used to define the institution. The university's endorsement of Catholic viewpoints has caused controversy at times.
Georgetown's three urban campuses feature traditional collegiate architecture and layout, but prize their green spaces and
environmentalThe natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a term that encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof....
commitment. The main campus is known for
Healy HallHealy Hall is the historic flagship building at the main campus of Georgetown University. The building was listed on DC Inventory of Historic Sites in 1964, on the National Register of Historic Places on May 25, 1971, and as a National Historic Landmark on December 23, 1987.-History:The building...
, a designated
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance. All NHLs are listed in the National Register of Historic Places...
. Academically, Georgetown is divided into four
undergraduateUndergraduate education is education taken prior to gaining a first degree, hence in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is known as...
schools and four
graduatePostgraduate education involves studying for degrees or other qualifications for which a first or Bachelor's degree generally is required, and is normally considered to be part of tertiary or higher education...
schools, with nationally recognized programs and faculty in
international relationsInternational relations or International studies represents the study of foreign affairs and global issues among states within the international system, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , non-governmental organizations , and multinational corporations...
,
governmentPolitical science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the pragmatic application of the art and science of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how",...
,
lawLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
,
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, and
businessA business is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, most being privately owned and formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners and grow the business itself...
.
The student body is noted for its pluralism and political activism, as well as its sizable international contingent. Campus groups include the nation's oldest student dramatic society and the largest student-run business. Georgetown's most notable alumni have served in various levels of government in the United States and abroad, such as current Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scaliais an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan having previously served on the D.C. Circuit and in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and teaching law at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago...
and former
U.S. PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president; only Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were younger when entering office...
. The Georgetown athletics teams are named "
the HoyasThe Georgetown Hoyas are the athletics teams that officially represent Georgetown University in college sports. The school is located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. and was founded in 1789...
", made famous by their men's basketball team, which leads the
Big East ConferenceThe Big East Conference is a collegiate athletics conference consisting of sixteen universities in the northeastern, southeastern and midwestern United States. The conference's 17 members participate in 23 NCAA sports...
with seven
tournament championshipsThe Big East Men's Basketball Tournament determines the Big East Conference champion and the winner of the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Since 1983 the tournament has been held in Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York. In 2009, the Tournament will showcase all 16 teams...
.
Founding
JesuitThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic religious order of clerks regular whose members are called Jesuits.Jesuits are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, with 18,815 members—13,305 priests, 2,295 scholastic students, 1,758 brothers and 827 novices—as of January 2008, although the...
settlers from
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
founded the
Province of MarylandThe Province of Maryland was an English colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen colonies in rebellion against Great Britain which established the United States and became the U.S...
in 1634. However, the 1646 defeat of the
RoyalistsCavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I during the English Civil War . Prince Rupert, commander of much of Charles I's cavalry, is often considered an archetypical Cavalier.-Early usage:...
in the
English Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw fighting between supporters of...
led to stringent laws against Catholic education and the extradition of known Jesuits from the colony, including
Andrew WhiteAndrew White, S.J. was an English Jesuit missionary who was involved in the founding of the Maryland colony. He was a chronicler of the early colony, and his writings are a primary source on the land, the Native Americans of the area, and the Jesuit mission in North America...
, and the destruction of their school at Calverton Manor. During the greater part of the Maryland colonial period, Jesuits continued to conduct Catholic schools clandestinely. It was not until after the
American RevolutionThe American Revolution is the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America at first rejected the governance of the Parliament of Great Britain, and later the British monarchy itself, to become the sovereign United States of...
in 1776 that long-term plans to establish a permanent Catholic institution for education in America were realized.
Following the revolution,
Pope Pius VIPope Pius VI , born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, Pope from 1775 to 1799, was born at Cesena.-Early years:...
appointed
John CarrollJohn Carroll, was the first Roman Catholic bishop and archbishop in the United States — serving as the ordinary of the Archdiocese of Baltimore...
of Maryland, a former Jesuit, as the first
head of the Catholic Church in AmericaThe Metropolitan Archdiocese of Baltimore is a particular church of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The archdiocese comprises the City of Baltimore as well as Allegany, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, and Washington Counties in Maryland...
, although the papal suppression of the Jesuit order was still in effect. Carroll orchestrated the early development of a new university, and on January 23, 1789 obtained the property on which Dahlgren Quadrangle was built. Instruction at the school began on November 22, 1791 with future Congressman
William GastonWilliam J. Gaston was a jurist and United States Representative from North Carolina. Gaston was born in New Bern, North Carolina. He entered Georgetown College in Washington, D.C., at the age of thirteen, becoming its first student...
as its first student.
In its early years, Georgetown College suffered from considerable financial strain, relying on private sources of funding and the limited profits from local Jesuit-owned lands. The Maryland Society of Jesus was restored in 1805 and given supervision of the school, which bolstered confidence in the college. The
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election....
issued Georgetown the first federal
university charterUniversity Charter redirects here. For the middle school in California, see University Charter School .University charter is a charter given by provincial, state, regional, and sometimes national governments to legitimize the university's existence.-Canada:In most Canadian province's university...
in 1815, which allowed it to confer degrees. The college's first two graduates were awarded the degree of
bachelor of artsBachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences or both....
two years later in 1817. In 1844, the school received a
corporateA corporation is a legal entity separate from the shareholders and employees. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate...
charter, under the name "The President and Directors of Georgetown College", affording the growing school additional legal rights. In response to the demand for a local option for Catholic students, the
Medical SchoolGeorgetown University School of Medicine is a medical school, one of Georgetown University's five graduate schools. It is located on Reservoir Road in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, adjacent to the University's main campus...
was founded in 1851.
Civil War
The
U.S. Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
greatly affected Georgetown as 1,141 students and alumni enlisted and the
Union ArmyThe Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
commandeered university buildings. By the time of President
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery...
's May 1861 visit to campus, 1,400 troops were stationed in temporary quarters there. Due to the number of lives lost, enrollment levels remained low until well after the war was over. Only seven students graduated in 1869, down from over 300 in the previous decade. At its founding in 1876, the Georgetown College Boat Club, the school's
rowingRowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
team, adopted blue, used for Union uniforms, and gray, used for
ConfederateThe Confederate States of America was a separatist political entity existing between 1861 to 1865, established by eleven southern slave states of the United States of America, each of which had previously declared their secession from the United States...
uniforms, as its colors to signify the peaceful unity among students. Subsequently, the school adopted these as its official colors.
Enrollment did not recover from the war until the presidency of
Patrick Francis HealyFather Patrick Francis Healy was born in Macon, Georgia to Irish-American plantation owner Michael Healy and bi-racial slave Mary Eliza....
from 1873 to 1881. The first acknowledged head of an American university of
African descentAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry...
, Healy is credited with reforming the undergraduate
curriculumIn formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, lengthening the medical and law programs, and creating the
Alumni AssociationAn alumni association is an association of graduates or, more broadly, of former students. In the United Kingdom and the United States, alumni of universities, colleges, schools , fraternities, and sororities often form groups with alumni from the same organization...
. For his work, Healy is known as the school's "second founder."
Expansion
After the founding of the Law Department in 1870, Healy and his successors sought to bind the professional schools into a university, and focus on
higher educationHigher education refers to a level of education that is provided by universities, vocational universities, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, institutes of technology and other collegiate level institutions, such as vocational schools, trade schools and career colleges, that award academic...
. The School of Medicine added a dental school in 1901 and the undergraduate
School of NursingThe Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies is one of the four undergraduate schools of Georgetown University. Founded in 1903 as the School of Nursing, it added three other health related majors in 1999 and appended its name to become the School of Nursing and Health Studies...
in 1903.
Georgetown Preparatory SchoolGeorgetown Preparatory School is an American Jesuit college preparatory school for grades 9 through 12, and is the oldest all boys school in America and the only Jesuit boarding school in the country...
relocated from campus in 1919 and fully separated from the University in 1927. The
School of Foreign ServiceThe Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
(SFS) was founded in 1919 by
Edmund A. WalshFr. Edmund Aloysius Walsh, S.J. was an American Jesuit Catholic priest, professor of geopolitics and founder of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, which he founded in 1919–six years before the U.S...
, to prepare students for leadership in foreign commerce and diplomacy. The School of Business was created out of the SFS in 1957, and in 1999 was renamed the
McDonough School of BusinessThe McDonough School of Business is one of four undergraduate and one of five graduate schools at Georgetown University. Named for alumnus Robert Emmett McDonough, Georgetown's McDonough School of Business is committed to developing leaders capable of making complex business decisions in a global...
in honor of alumnus Robert E. McDonough. These new schools have called for new construction, and since completion of
Healy HallHealy Hall is the historic flagship building at the main campus of Georgetown University. The building was listed on DC Inventory of Historic Sites in 1964, on the National Register of Historic Places on May 25, 1971, and as a National Historic Landmark on December 23, 1987.-History:The building...
in 1879, Georgetown has added fifty-four buildings on its main campus.
Besides expansion of the University, Georgetown also aimed to expand their resources and their student body. The School of Nursing has admitted female students since its founding, and most of the university was made available on a limited basis by 1952. With the College of Arts and Sciences welcoming its first female students in the 1969–1970 academic year, Georgetown became fully
coeducationMixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education...
al. Georgetown ended its bicentennial year of 1989 by electing
Leo J. O'DonovanRev. Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J. was the 47th President of Georgetown University. A [1952] of Iona Preparatory School, and a1956 graduate of Georgetown, he studied at the Universite de Lyon on a Fulbright scholarship and received a doctorate in 1961 from Fordham University...
as president. He subsequently launched the Third Century Campaign to build the school's endowment. In December 2003, Georgetown completed the campaign after raising over $1 billion for financial aid, academic chair endowment, and new capital projects.
John J. DeGioiaJohn J. "Jack" DeGioia became the 48th and current President of Georgetown University on July 1, 2001. For nearly a quarter century, DeGioia has helped to define and strengthen Georgetown University as a premier institution for education and research. Since graduating from the university in 1979,...
, Georgetown's first non-Jesuit president, has led the school since 2001, and has continued its financial modernization and sought to "expand opportunities for intercultural and interreligious dialogue".
Jesuit tradition
Georgetown University was founded by Jesuits in the tradition of
Ignatius of LoyolaSaint Ignatius of Loyola , was a Spanish knight, who became a hermit and priest, founding the Society of Jesus and becoming its first Superior General. Ignatius and the Jesuits became major figures in the Counter-Reformation, where the Catholic Church worked to reform itself from within and...
. Three of the forty members of Georgetown's Board of Directors are Jesuits. The institution is a member of the
Association of Jesuit Colleges and UniversitiesThe Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities is a consortium of the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities and two theological centers in the United States committed to advancing academic excellence by promoting and coordinating collaborative activities, sharing resources, and advocating and...
, and home to fifty-nine members of the
Society of JesusThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic religious order of clerks regular whose members are called Jesuits.Jesuits are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, with 18,815 members—13,305 priests, 2,295 scholastic students, 1,758 brothers and 827 novices—as of January 2008, although the...
. Most are employed by Georgetown as professors or administrators. While most live in the Wolfington Hall Jesuit Residence on the main campus, some serve as
chaplainA chaplain is typically a priest, pastor, ordained deacon, rabbi, imam or other member of the clergy serving a group of people who are not organised as a mission or church, or who are unable to attend church for various reasons; such as health, confinement, or military or civil duties; lay...
s-in-residence and live in the undergraduate dormitories. Jesuit Heritage Week has been held every year since 2001 to celebrate the contributions of Jesuits to the Georgetown tradition.
The role that Georgetown's Jesuit Catholic heritage has played in its policies has been controversial at times. For instance, stores in University-owned buildings are not allowed to sell or distribute
birth controlBirth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, sexual practices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of pregnancy or childbirth...
products.
Georgetown University HospitalGeorgetown University Hospital is one of the national capital area's oldest academic teaching hospitals and is affiliated with Georgetown University School of Medicine. GUH is a not-for-profit, acute-care teaching and research facility located in Northwest Washington, DC...
, operated by
MedStar HealthMedStar Health is a $3.5 billion not-for-profit healthcare organization. It operates 20 plus businesses, including eight hospitals in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region of the United States...
, and
Georgetown University Medical CenterGeorgetown University Medical Center is the medical campus at Georgetown University. It is also a $225 million biomedical research and educational organization. The Medical Center contains over 80% of Georgetown University's sponsored research funding and is led by Howard J...
operate under the
Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services, which prohibits abortions from being performed on the premises. The hospital does perform research using embryonic stem cells. In 2007,
Georgetown University Law CenterGeorgetown University Law Center, also called Georgetown Law or GULC, is Georgetown University's law school, located in Washington, D.C. Georgetown Law is considered one of the elite law schools in the nation making job placement nationally portable...
students protested the University's decision to cease funding for a student's internship at
Planned ParenthoodPlanned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA provides reproductive health and maternal and child health services. Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc. ...
's litigation department despite funding it previous years. Georgetown has also been criticized by groups including the
Cardinal Newman SocietyThe Cardinal Newman Society is an organization founded in 1993 and dedicated to what it calls the renewal of Catholic identity on the campuses of colleges and universities in the United States. The organization is guided by its particular interpretations of John Henry Cardinal Newman's The Idea of...
and protested against for hosting
pro-choicePro-choice describes the political and ethical view that a woman should have complete control over her fertility and the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy. This entails the guarantee of reproductive rights, which includes access to sexual education; access to safe and legal abortion,...
speakers on campus, such as
John KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, and is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee....
and
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
.
Between 1996 and 1999,
crucifixA crucifix is a cross with a representation of Jesus' body, or corpus. It is a principal symbol of the Christian religion...
es were added to many classroom walls, attracting national attention. Before 1996, crucifixes had hung only in hospital rooms and historic classrooms. Some of these crucifixes are historic works of art, and are noted as such. Pressure to remove the crucifixes comes, however, from within the Catholic community, while campus leaders of other faiths have defended their placement. The Intercultural Center is an exception to this controversy, rotating displays of various faith symbols in the lobby.
Academics
As of Fall 2008, the University has 7,092 undergraduate students, 5,330 graduate students on the main campus, 2,083 students at the
Law CenterGeorgetown University Law Center, also called Georgetown Law or GULC, is Georgetown University's law school, located in Washington, D.C. Georgetown Law is considered one of the elite law schools in the nation making job placement nationally portable...
, 813 students in the
School of MedicineGeorgetown University School of Medicine is a medical school, one of Georgetown University's five graduate schools. It is located on Reservoir Road in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, adjacent to the University's main campus...
, and 145 at the School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
Bachelor'sA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for four years, but can range from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
programs are offered through
Georgetown CollegeGeorgetown College, infrequently Georgetown College of Arts and Sciences, is the oldest school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The College is the largest undergraduate school at Georgetown, and until the founding of the Medical School in 1850, was the only higher education division...
, the
School of Nursing and Health StudiesThe Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies is one of the four undergraduate schools of Georgetown University. Founded in 1903 as the School of Nursing, it added three other health related majors in 1999 and appended its name to become the School of Nursing and Health Studies...
, the
Robert Emmett McDonough School of BusinessThe McDonough School of Business is one of four undergraduate and one of five graduate schools at Georgetown University. Named for alumnus Robert Emmett McDonough, Georgetown's McDonough School of Business is committed to developing leaders capable of making complex business decisions in a global...
, the
School of Continuing StudiesThe Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies , is a school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. SCS provides a Georgetown education to students at every stage of learning, including high school programs for adolescents, summer school programs for college students,...
, and the
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign ServiceThe Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
, which includes the Qatar campus. Some high school students from
Georgetown VisitationGeorgetown Visitation Preparatory School was founded in Washington, DC in 1799 as the Georgetown Academy for Young Ladies. It was also formally referred to as the Convent and Academy of the Visitation. Since 1799, the school has continued for over 200 years as a college preparatory school for women...
are permitted to attend classes for
Advanced PlacementThe Advanced Placement program offers college level courses at high schools across the United States and Canada. According to the Good Schools Guide International, it is "usually much more rigorous than the general course offerings." The most taken AP exam in 2008 was AP United States History with...
credit.
Georgetown University offers undergraduate degrees in forty-eight
majorsAn academic major, major concentration, concentration, or simply major is mainly a U.S. and Canadian term for a college or university student's main field of specialization during his or her undergraduate studies which would be in addition to, and may incorporate portions of, a core curriculum...
in the four undergraduate schools, as well as the opportunity for students to design their own individualized courses of study. All majors in the College are open as minors to students in the College, the School of Nursing and Health Studies, and the School of Business. Students in the School of Foreign Service cannot receive minors, but can complete certificates instead. All courses are on a
credit hourThe Carnegie Unit and the Student Hour are strictly time-based references for measuring educational attainment used by American universities and colleges; the Carnegie Unit assesses secondary school attainment, and the Student Hour, derived from the Carnegie Unit, assesses collegiate...
system. Georgetown offers many opportunities to
study abroadStudying abroad is the act of a student pursuing educational opportunities in another country.Typically, classes taken while studying abroad award credits transferable to higher education institutions in the home country...
, and 58.7% of the undergraduate student body spends time at an institution overseas.
Master'sA master's degree is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
and
doctoralDoctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD , for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", or alternatively, DPhil, for the equivalent , is an advanced academic degree awarded by universities...
programs are offered through the
Graduate School of Arts and SciencesThe Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is the oldest graduate school in the United States, and is one of four graduate schools at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. The graduate program first was founded in 1820, when Georgetown College graduates expressed the desire for...
, the Law Center, the School of Medicine, and the School of Continuing Studies. The McDonough School of Business and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service both offer masters programs. The
Center for Contemporary Arab StudiesThe Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. is a notable academic center and "the only academic center in the United States focusing essentially on the Arab world."-Funding:...
and the
Public Policy InstituteGeorgetown Public Policy Institute is a leading U.S. public policy school affiliated with Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.. GPPI offers both Master of Public Policy and Master of Policy Management degrees and boasts five affiliated research institutes, 17 full time faculty, 30 research...
are both research centers which also offer masters degrees. Masters students occasionally share some advanced
seminarSeminar is, generally, a form of academic instruction, either at a university or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some particular subject, in which everyone present is requested...
s with undergraduates, and most undergraduate schools offer abbreviated bachelors and masters programs following completion of the undergraduate degree. Each graduate school offers at least one
double degreeA double degree program, sometimes called a conjoint degree, dual degree, or simultaneous degree program, involves a student working for two different university degrees in parallel, either at the same institution or at different institutions , completing them in less time than it would take to...
with another graduate school. Additionally, the Law Center offers a joint degree with the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public HealthThe Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. As the oldest and largest public health training facility in the world, the Bloomberg School is a leading international authority on the improvement of health and...
. The School of Continuing Studies includes the Center for Continuing and Professional Education, and operates four types of degree programs, over thirty professional certificates and non-degree courses, undergraduate and
graduate degrees in Liberal StudiesThe Master of Arts in Liberal Studies is a graduate degree that aims to provide both depth and breadth of study in the liberal arts. It is by nature an interdisciplinary program, generally pulling together coursework from a number of the humanities and social sciences...
, as well as summer courses for graduates, undergraduates, and high school students.
| Current Schools of Georgetown University |
| Undergraduate |
Georgetown CollegeGeorgetown College, infrequently Georgetown College of Arts and Sciences, is the oldest school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The College is the largest undergraduate school at Georgetown, and until the founding of the Medical School in 1850, was the only higher education division...
1789 |
School of Nursing and Health StudiesThe Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies is one of the four undergraduate schools of Georgetown University. Founded in 1903 as the School of Nursing, it added three other health related majors in 1999 and appended its name to become the School of Nursing and Health Studies...
1903 |
Walsh School of Foreign ServiceThe Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
1919 |
School of Foreign Service in Qatar
2005 |
School of Continuing Studies The Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies , is a school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. SCS provides a Georgetown education to students at every stage of learning, including high school programs for adolescents, summer school programs for college students,...
1956 |
McDonough School of BusinessThe McDonough School of Business is one of four undergraduate and one of five graduate schools at Georgetown University. Named for alumnus Robert Emmett McDonough, Georgetown's McDonough School of Business is committed to developing leaders capable of making complex business decisions in a global...
1957 |
|
| Graduate |
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is the oldest graduate school in the United States, and is one of four graduate schools at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. The graduate program first was founded in 1820, when Georgetown College graduates expressed the desire for...
1820 |
|
School of MedicineGeorgetown University School of Medicine is a medical school, one of Georgetown University's five graduate schools. It is located on Reservoir Road in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, adjacent to the University's main campus...
1850 |
Law CenterGeorgetown University Law Center, also called Georgetown Law or GULC, is Georgetown University's law school, located in Washington, D.C. Georgetown Law is considered one of the elite law schools in the nation making job placement nationally portable...
1870 |
| Arab Studies Center The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. is a notable academic center and "the only academic center in the United States focusing essentially on the Arab world."-Funding:...
1975 |
Public Policy InstituteGeorgetown Public Policy Institute is a leading U.S. public policy school affiliated with Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.. GPPI offers both Master of Public Policy and Master of Policy Management degrees and boasts five affiliated research institutes, 17 full time faculty, 30 research...
1980 |
Faculty
As of 2008, Georgetown University employs approximately 1,268 full-time and 689 part-time faculty members across its three
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
campuses, with an additional thirty-two at SFS-Qatar. The faculty comprises leading academics and notable political and business leaders, and are predominantly male by a two-to-one margin. Politically, Georgetown University's faculty members give more support to liberal candidates, and while their donation patterns are generally consistent with those of other American university faculties, they gave more than average to
Barack Obama's presidential campaignBarack Obama, then junior United States Senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007. On August 27, 2008 he was declared nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2008 presidential election...
.
The current faculty includes scholars such as the former President of the
American Philological AssociationThe American Philological Association , founded in 1869, is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization...
James J. O'DonnellJames Joseph O'Donnell is a classical scholar and the Provost of Georgetown University. O'Donnell previously served as Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing at the University of Pennsylvania...
, theologian
John HaughtDr. John F. Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian and Senior Research Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. His area of expertise is systematic theology, with a special interest in issues of science, cosmology, ecology, and reconciling evolution and religion.Haught...
, political theorist
James V. SchallJames V. Schall, S.J. is Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Government at Georgetown University....
, and social activists Sam Marullo and
Colman McCarthyColman McCarthy, born in 1938, is an American journalist, teacher, lecturer, pacifist, an anarchist and long-time peace activist. From 1969 to 1997, he wrote columns for The Washington Post. His topics ranged from politics, religion, health, and sports to education, poverty, and peacemaking...
. Many former politicians choose to teach at Georgetown, including
U.S. Agency for International DevelopmentThe United States Agency for International Development is the United States federal government organization responsible for most non-military foreign aid...
administrator
Andrew NatsiosAndrew S. Natsios is an American civil servant who has served in a number of Massachusetts and high level federal government positions. From 2001 to 2005 he served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was appointed as Special Coordinator for International Disaster...
, National Security Advisor
Anthony LakeAnthony Lake, or William Anthony Kirsopp Lake is a retired American diplomat, political figure, and academic. He has been a foreign policy advisor to many Democratic U.S. presidents and presidential candidates, and served as National Security Advisor under U.S. President Bill Clinton from 1993 to...
, U.S. Senator
Chuck HagelCharles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel is a former United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002. On 10 February 2009, he was elected as Chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States, succeeding General James L...
, and CIA director
George TenetGeorge John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University...
. Internationally, the school attracts numerous former
ambassadorAn ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents their country. They are usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization, to serve as the official representative of their country....
s and
heads of stateHead of state is the generic term for the individual or collective office that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state...
, such as Secretary of State
Madeleine AlbrightMadeleine Korbel Albright is the first woman to become a United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99-0...
, Ambassador-at-Large
Robert GallucciRobert L. Gallucci is an American academic and diplomat, who currently works as President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He previously served as Dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 1996 to June 2009...
, Prime Minister of Spain
José María Aznarserved as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is currently on the board of directors of News Corporation.-Early life:...
, and President of Poland
Aleksander KwaśniewskiAleksander Kwaśniewski is a post-communist Polish socialist politician who served as the President of Poland from 1995 to 2005...
.
Research
Georgetown University is a self-described "student-centered research university" considered by the
Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher EducationThe Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education is a framework for classifying, or grouping, colleges and universities in the United States. The primary purpose of the framework is for educational research and analysis, where it is often important to identify groups of roughly...
to have "very high research activity". As of 2004, Georgetown's libraries hold 2,435,298 items and 31,196
serialsThe term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a series – namely, its order. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication.More generally, "serial" is applied...
in seven buildings, with most in
Lauinger LibraryThe Joseph Mark Lauinger Library is the main library of Georgetown University and the center of a seven-library system that includes 2.8 million volumes. It holds 1.7 million volumes on six floors and has accommodations for individual and group study on all levels.Opened on April 6, 1970, the...
. Additionally, the Law School campus includes the nation's fifth largest law library. Georgetown faculty conduct research in hundreds of subjects, but have priorities in the fields of religion, ethics, science, public policy, and cancer medicine. Cross-institutional research is performed with
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
and Virginia Tech.
In 2008, Georgetown spent $143 million on research, ranking it 111th nationwide. In 2007, it received about $14.8 million in federal funds for research, with sixty-four percent from the
National Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
,
National Institutes of HealthThe National Institutes of Health is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. It consists of 27 separate institutes and centers which includes the Office...
, the
United States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
, and the
Department of DefenseThe United States Department of Defense is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to national security and the military...
.
Georgetown University Medical CenterGeorgetown University Medical Center is the medical campus at Georgetown University. It is also a $225 million biomedical research and educational organization. The Medical Center contains over 80% of Georgetown University's sponsored research funding and is led by Howard J...
received an additional $118.4 million from these and other government sources. Georgetown's Vincent Lombardi Cancer Center is one of 41 research-intensive comprehensive cancer centers in the United States, and developed the breakthrough
HPV vaccineHumanicla papillomavirus vaccine is a vaccine that prevents infection with certain species of human papillomavirus associated with the development of cervical cancer, genital warts, and some less common cancers. Two HPV vaccines are currently on the market: Gardasil and Cervarix...
for cervical cancer in 2006.
Centers which conduct and sponsor research at Georgetown include the
Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World AffairsThe Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs is an interdisciplinary academic center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. considered a global leader in the study of religion and world affairs...
, the
Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian UnderstandingThe Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding was founded in 1993 at Georgetown University in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., United States. Following a $20 million dollar gift in 2005 from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal to the school's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, the center was...
and the
Woodstock Theological CenterThe Woodstock Theological Center is an independent, nonprofit Catholic theological research institute in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1974, the center takes its name from Woodstock College, a former Jesuit seminary located in Maryland. The center is an affiliate member of the Washington Theological...
. Regular publications include the
Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and PolicyThe Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy is a student-edited law review published at Georgetown University Law Center in the United States.The Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy is the "nation's premier law journal on poverty" issues...
, the
Kennedy Institute of Ethics JournalThe Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal is an academic journal founded in 1991. It focuses on questions of bioethics such as those relating to the research of and therapeutic use of human embryonic stem cells, organ donation, and genetic manipulation. Each issue includes a section describing...
, the
Georgetown Law JournalThe Georgetown Law Journal is a student-edited scholarly journal published at Georgetown University Law Center.-Overview:The Journal publishes six issues each year. It also publishes the Annual Review of Criminal Procedure, a comprehensive practitioner's guide to criminal procedure.The first volume...
, the
Georgetown Law WeeklyThe Georgetown Law Weekly is a weekly newspaper published by students at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.The Law Weekly has a circulation of 1,500 and is printed each Tuesday of the school year. In total, twenty-two issues are printed over the course of the Fall and Spring...
, the
Georgetown Journal of International AffairsThe Georgetown Journal of International Affairs is the semi-annual publication of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Started in 1998, the first issue was published in the spring of 2000...
, and the
Georgetown Public Policy ReviewThe Georgetown Public Policy Review is a twice-yearly nonpartisan journal published by the Georgetown Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University that investigates public policy issues and promotes discourse among members of the policymaking community...
.
Admissions
With 18,700 applications and 3,371 admitted for the class of 2012, Georgetown has an overall undergraduate acceptance rate of eighteen percent. As
The Fiske Guide to Colleges states, "only
StanfordThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States...
and a handful of
Ivy LeagueThe Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The term is most commonly used to refer to those eight schools considered as a group...
schools are tougher to get into than Georgetown." As of 2008, Georgetown's graduate schools have acceptance rates of twenty-nine percent to the
MBA programThe McDonough School of Business is one of four undergraduate and one of five graduate schools at Georgetown University. Named for alumnus Robert Emmett McDonough, Georgetown's McDonough School of Business is committed to developing leaders capable of making complex business decisions in a global...
, twenty-three percent to the
Law CenterGeorgetown University Law Center, also called Georgetown Law or GULC, is Georgetown University's law school, located in Washington, D.C. Georgetown Law is considered one of the elite law schools in the nation making job placement nationally portable...
, and only three percent to the
School of MedicineGeorgetown University School of Medicine is a medical school, one of Georgetown University's five graduate schools. It is located on Reservoir Road in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, adjacent to the University's main campus...
. A
National Bureau of Economic ResearchThe National Bureau of Economic Research is a US private, nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying the science and empirics of economics, especially the American economy. It is "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business...
study on revealed preference of U.S. colleges showed that Georgetown is the 16th most-preferred choice. In 2008, Georgetown University was ranked 110th in the THE–QS World University Rankings, and twenty-third in the United States by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek, it was for many years a leading news weekly, although it focused more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
.
The undergraduate schools maintain a restrictive
Early ActionEarly action is a type of early admission process for admission to colleges and universities in the United States. Unlike the regular admissions process, early action usually requires students to submit an application by November 1 of their senior year of high school instead of January 1...
admissions program, as students who have applied through an
Early DecisionEarly decision is a common early admission policy used in college admissions in the United States for admitting freshmen to undergraduate programs. It is used to indicate to the University or College that the candidate considers that institution to be his or her top choice...
process at another school are not permitted to apply early to Georgetown. Ninety-five percent of accepted applicants were in the top ten percent of their graduating class, and about fifty-six percent of accepted applicants were first, second, or third in their class in terms of
class rankClass rank is a measure of how a student's performance compares to other students in his or her class. It is commonly also expressed as a percentile. For instance, a student may have a GPA better than 750 of his or her classmates in a graduating class of 800...
. The middle fifty percent of accepted students had
SATThe SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a non-profit organization in the United States, and was once developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service...
scores ranging from 680–760 in Critical Reading, and 670–760 in Math. Georgetown does not consider the writing portion of the SAT in admissions. Over fifty-five percent of undergraduates receive financial aid, and the university meets one-hundred percent of demonstrated need, with an average financial aid package of $22,000 and about seventy percent of aid distributed in the forms of grants or scholarships.
Campuses
Georgetown University has three campuses in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
: the undergraduate campus, the
Medical CenterGeorgetown University Medical Center is the medical campus at Georgetown University. It is also a $225 million biomedical research and educational organization. The Medical Center contains over 80% of Georgetown University's sponsored research funding and is led by Howard J...
, and the Law Center. The undergraduate campus and Medical Center are together in the
Georgetown neighborhoodGeorgetown is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River waterfront. Founded in 1751, the city of Georgetown substantially predated the establishment of the city of Washington and the District of Columbia. Georgetown retained its separate...
and form the main campus. Georgetown also operates a facility in
DohaDoha is the capital city of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it has a population of 400,051 according to the 2005 census,, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
,
QatarQatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally ', is an Arab emirate in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the larger Arabian Peninsula...
, and villas in
AlanyaAlanya , formerly Alaiye, is a seaside resort city and district of Antalya Province in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey, from the city of Antalya. On the southern coast of Turkey, the municipal district, including the city center, has close to 400,000 inhabitants...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
and
FiesoleFiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. Other centers are located around Washington, D.C., including the Center for Continuing and Professional Education at Clarendon in Arlington, Virginia. In their campus layout, Georgetown's administrators consistently used the traditional
quadrangleIn architecture, a quadrangle is a space or courtyard, usually rectangular in plan, the sides of which are entirely or mainly occupied by parts of a large building. The word is probably most closely associated with college or university campus architecture, but quadrangles may be found in other...
design.
Main campus
Georgetown University's undergraduate campus and medical school campus are situated on an elevated site above the
Potomac RiverThe Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately 383 statute miles long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles . In terms of area, this makes the Potomac River the fourth largest river along the...
, overlooking
Northern VirginiaNorthern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the U.S. state of Virginia in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
. The main gates, known as the
Healy Gates, are located at the intersection of 37th and O Streets, NW.
Georgetown University Medical CenterGeorgetown University Medical Center is the medical campus at Georgetown University. It is also a $225 million biomedical research and educational organization. The Medical Center contains over 80% of Georgetown University's sponsored research funding and is led by Howard J...
is on a property adjacent to the northwestern part of the undergraduate campus on Reservoir Road, and is integrated with
Georgetown University HospitalGeorgetown University Hospital is one of the national capital area's oldest academic teaching hospitals and is affiliated with Georgetown University School of Medicine. GUH is a not-for-profit, acute-care teaching and research facility located in Northwest Washington, DC...
, which is operated by
MedStar HealthMedStar Health is a $3.5 billion not-for-profit healthcare organization. It operates 20 plus businesses, including eight hospitals in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region of the United States...
.
Georgetown VisitationGeorgetown Visitation Preparatory School was founded in Washington, DC in 1799 as the Georgetown Academy for Young Ladies. It was also formally referred to as the Convent and Academy of the Visitation. Since 1799, the school has continued for over 200 years as a college preparatory school for women...
, a private Roman Catholic girls
high schoolAs part of education in the United States, secondary education usually covers grades 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 through 12.-Historical Impact of Secondary Education in the United States:...
, is on land adjoining the main campus.
The main campus is just over in area and includes sixty-three buildings, student residences capable of accommodating eighty percent of undergraduates, and various athletic facilities. Most buildings employ collegiate Gothic architecture and
Georgian brick architectureGeorgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the...
. Campus green areas include fountains, a cemetery, large clusters of flowers, groves of trees, and open quadrangles. The main campus has traditionally centered on Dahlgren Quadrangle, although Red Square has replaced it as the focus of student life.
Healy HallHealy Hall is the historic flagship building at the main campus of Georgetown University. The building was listed on DC Inventory of Historic Sites in 1964, on the National Register of Historic Places on May 25, 1971, and as a National Historic Landmark on December 23, 1987.-History:The building...
, built in
Flemish RomanesqueRomanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe, characterised by semi-circular arches, and evolving into the Gothic style, characterised by pointed arches, beginning in the 12th century...
style from 1877 to 1879, is the architectural gem of Georgetown's campus, and is a
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance. All NHLs are listed in the National Register of Historic Places...
. Both Healy Hall and the Georgetown University Astronomical Observatory, built in 1844, are listed on the
National Register of Historic PlacesThe National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
In late 2003, the school completed the Southwest Quadrangle Project, and brought a new 907-bed student dorm, an expansive dining hall, an underground parking facility, and new Jesuit Residence to the campus. The school's first
performing arts centerPerforming arts center, often abbreviated PAC, is used to refer toeither:* a multi-use performance space that is intended for use by various types of the performing arts, including dance, music and theatre.or...
, named for
Royden B. DavisRoyden B. Davis, S.J. served as Dean of Georgetown College at Georgetown University from 1966 to 1989.Born in Ventnor City, New Jersey, Davis served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945 as a gunner in an anti-aircraft battery. He earned a bachelor of science degree in economics in 1947 and a law...
, was completed in November 2005, and the new business school building, named for
Rafik HaririRafik Bahaa El Deen Al-Hariri — , , a self-made billionaire and business tycoon, was the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation, 20 October 2004. He headed five cabinets during his tenure...
, opened in Fall 2009. Future construction plans include a unified sciences center and expanded athletic facilities. As a location,
GeorgetownGeorgetown is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River waterfront. Founded in 1751, the city of Georgetown substantially predated the establishment of the city of Washington and the District of Columbia. Georgetown retained its separate...
is ranked nationally in the ten best college towns by the Princeton Review. Despite this, main campus "
town and gownTown and gown are two distinct communities of a university town; "town" being the non-academic population and "gown" metonymically being the university community, especially in ancient seats of learning such as Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews, though also in more modern university towns such as...
" relations are often strained by facilities construction, enlargement of the student body, as well as noise and alcohol violations. Crime is also a persistent issue, with campus security responding to 257 crimes in 2008.
Law Center campus
The Law Center campus is located in the
Capitol Hill neighborhoodCapitol Hill, aside from being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues...
on New Jersey Avenue, near Union Station. First-year students at the Law Center can live in the single on-campus dormitory, the Gewirz Student Center. Most second- and third-year students, as well as some first-year students, live off-campus. As there is little housing near the Law Center, most are spread throughout the Washington metropolitan area. The "Campus Completion Project", finished in 2005, saw the addition of the Hotung International Building and the Sport and Fitness Center. G Street and F Street are closed off between 1st and 2nd Streets to create open lawns flanking McDonough Hall, the main building on the campus.
Facilities abroad
In December 1979, the
Marquesa Margaret Rockefeller de LarrainMargaret Rockefeller Strong Cuevas, Marquesa de Piedra Blanca de Huana de Cuevas was an American activist.Cuevas was the daughter of Elizabeth Rockefeller Strong and her husband Dr. Charles Augustus Strong . Her maternal grandfather was Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller...
, granddaughter of
John D. RockefellerJohn Davison Rockefeller was an American industrialist. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897. Standard Oil began as an Ohio...
, gave the
Villa Le BalzeVilla Le Balze is a garden villa at Vecchia Fiesolana 26, Fiesole, Italy. The Villa is owned by Georgetown University and hosts year round study abroad students. Planned in 1911 by Cecil Pinsent for American Charles Augustus Strong, it was built in a tight space along the Tuscan hills overlooking...
to Georgetown University. The Villa is in
FiesoleFiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, on a hill above the city of
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
. The Villa is used year-round for study abroad programs focused on specialized interdisciplinary study of
Italian cultureItaly did not exist as a state until the country's unification in 1861. Due to this comparatively late unification, and the historical autonomy of the regions that comprise the Italian Peninsula, many traditions and customs that are now recognized as distinctly Italian can be identified by their...
and civilization. The main facility for the
McGhee Center for Eastern Mediterranean StudiesThe McGhee Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies is an overseas academic center operated by Georgetown University in Alanya, Turkey. The McGhee Center was founded in 1989 after Ambassador George Crews McGhee, former U.S...
was donated to Georgetown in 1989 by alumnus and former
United States Ambassador to TurkeyThe United States of America has maintained many high level contacts with Turkey since the nineteenth century.-Chargé d'Affaires:*George W. Erving *David Porter -Minister Resident:*David Porter *Dabney S. Carr...
George C. McGheeGeorge Crews McGhee was a career diplomat in the United States foreign service.He served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey in 1952-1953 and U.S. Ambassador to West Germany in 1963-1968....
. The school is in the town of
AlanyaAlanya , formerly Alaiye, is a seaside resort city and district of Antalya Province in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey, from the city of Antalya. On the southern coast of Turkey, the municipal district, including the city center, has close to 400,000 inhabitants...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
within the
SeljuqThe Seljuq were a Turco-Persian Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to 14th centuries...
-era
Alanya CastleAlanya Castle is a medieval castle in the southern Turkish city of Alanya. Most of the castle was built in the 13th century under the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm following the city's conquest in 1220 by Alaeddin Keykubad I as part of a building campaign that included the Kızıl Kule...
, on the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
. The Center operates study abroad programs one semester each year, concentrating on
Turkish languageTurkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
,
architectural historyArchitectural History is the main journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain .The journal is published each autumn. The architecture of the British Isles is a major theme of the journal, although it includes more general papers on the history of architecture. Member of...
, and
Islamic studiesIslamic studies is an ambiguous term. In a Muslim context, "Islamic studies" can be an umbrella term for all virtually all of academia, both originally researched and as defined by the Islamization of knowledge. As such it includes all the traditional forms of religious thought, such as Islamic...
.
In 2002, the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development presented the
School of Foreign ServiceThe Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
with the resources and space to open a facility in the new
Education CityEducation City is an initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Located on the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar, Education City covers 14 square kilometers and houses educational facilities from school age to research level and branch campuses of some of...
in
DohaDoha is the capital city of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it has a population of 400,051 according to the 2005 census,, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
,
QatarQatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally ', is an Arab emirate in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the larger Arabian Peninsula...
. SFS-Qatar opened in 2005 as a liberal arts and international affairs undergraduate school for regional students. In December 2007, Georgetown opened a liaison office in
ShanghaiShanghai is the largest city in China, and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with over 20 million people. Located on China's central eastern coast at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the city is administered as a municipality of the People's Republic of China with province-level...
,
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
to coordinate with
Fudan UniversityFudan University , located in Shanghai, China, is one of the oldest, most prestigious and most selectiveuniversities in the People's Republic of China. Its institutional predecessor was founded in 1905, shortly before the end of China's imperial Qing dynasty. Fudan University is composed of four...
and others. In 2008, the
Georgetown University Law CenterGeorgetown University Law Center, also called Georgetown Law or GULC, is Georgetown University's law school, located in Washington, D.C. Georgetown Law is considered one of the elite law schools in the nation making job placement nationally portable...
in conjunction with an international consortium of law schools established the
Center for Transnational Legal StudiesThe Center for Transnational Legal Studies is an global educational center for the study of transnational law. The Center was founded in London in October 2008 as a joint venture between ten leading law schools from around the world, each contributing faculty and students to the center...
in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Student life
The Georgetown undergraduate student body is composed primarily of students from outside the
District of ColumbiaWashington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
, with one-third from
Mid-Atlantic StatesThe Mid-Atlantic States form a region of the United States generally located between New England and the South...
. As of fall 2007, the racial diversity of the undergraduate student body was 64.4%
whiteWhite people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, 8.7%
AsianAsian people or Asiatic people is a demonym for people from Asia. However, the use of the term varies by country and person, often referring to people from a particular region or subregion of Asia...
, 6.7%
blackThe term black people usually refers to a racial group of humans with skin colors that range from light brown to nearly black. It also has been used to categorize a number of diverse populations into a common group. Some definitions of the term include only people of relatively recent Sub Saharan...
, and 6.4%
HispanicHispanic is a term that historically denoted a relationship to the ancient Hispania . During the modern era, it took on a more limited meaning, relating to the contemporary nation of Spain....
; Additionally, 54.5% of undergraduates are female. The largest minority, with twelve percent of the full-time student body, is
internationalInternational or internationally most often describes interaction between nations, or encompassing two or more nations, constituting a group or association having members in two or more nations, or generally reaching beyond national boundaries...
, representing 120 countries. Of undergraduates, 7.8% are classified as non-resident
aliensIn law, an alien is a person in a country who is not a citizen of that country.-Categorization:Types of "alien" persons are:* An alien who is legally permitted to remain in a country which is foreign to him or her. On specified terms, this kind of alien may be called a legal alien of that country...
. Over three-hundred international undergraduates annually choose to come to Georgetown as a
study abroadStudying abroad is the act of a student pursuing educational opportunities in another country.Typically, classes taken while studying abroad award credits transferable to higher education institutions in the home country...
destination.
Although it is a Jesuit university, only 41.2% percent of the student body identify as Roman Catholic, while 22.2% identify as Protestant as of 2009. Georgetown hosts a
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
clergyman and a full-time
rabbiRabbi is the term in Judaism for a religious teacher. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ‘great’ in many senses, including "revered." The word comes from the Semitic root R-B-B, and is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning "lord" Rabbi ' onMouseout='HidePop("34179")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Jew">Jew
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish. It was the first U.S. college to have a full-time
imamAn imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the leader of a mosque and the community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads the prayer during Islamic gatherings. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have an Islamic question...
, to serve the over four-hundred
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
s on campus. The student body is generally religious and volunteer minded, and more than four-hundred
freshmenFirst year, or freshman, is a term, in an educational setting, often used to describe a student's status during their first year at an educational institution. It can also be used as a noun, to describe the students themselves First year, or freshman, is a term, in an educational setting, often...
and transfer students attend a nonreligious
IgnatianThe Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, are a brief set of meditations, prayers and mental exercises, divided in four thematic 'weeks' of variable length, designed to be carried out over a period of 28 to 30 days...
retreat annually. A survey of the student body also suggests that the campus is 62.8% sexually active, while 6.2% identify as LGBTQ. Discrimination can be a issue on campus, and three-fourths of a 2009 survey considered
homophobiaHomophobia is defined as an "irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals", or individuals perceived to be homosexual; it is also defined as "unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality", "fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay...
a campus problem.
Almost all undergraduates attend full-time. A majority of undergraduates, seventy-two percent, live on-campus in several dormitories and apartment complexes. The remainder live off-campus, mostly in the
GeorgetownGeorgetown is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River waterfront. Founded in 1751, the city of Georgetown substantially predated the establishment of the city of Washington and the District of Columbia. Georgetown retained its separate...
,
BurleithBurleith is a moderately upscale neighborhood in Washington, D.C. It is bordered by Wisconsin Avenue to the East, Reservoir Road and the Georgetown University campus to the south, Whitehaven Park to the North and Glover Archbold Park to the West. The neighborhood is home to some Georgetown...
, and
FoxhallFoxhall is an affluent neighborhood in Washington, D.C., bordered by Reservoir Road on the north side and Foxhall Road on the west and south sides. Glover-Archibold Park makes up the eastern border....
neighborhoods. On-campus housing is not available for main campus graduate students, although many of the University's hall directors and area coordinators attend graduate level courses. All students in the Medical School live off-campus, most in the surrounding neighborhoods, with some in
Northern VirginiaNorthern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the U.S. state of Virginia in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
and elsewhere through the region.
Student groups
Georgetown University has 172 registered student organizations that cover a variety of interests: student government, club sports, media and publications, performing arts, religion, and volunteer and service. Students also operate campus stores, banks, and medical services. Students often find their interests at the Student Activities Commission Club Fair, where both official and unofficial organizations set up tables. The Georgetown University Student Association is the student government organization for undergraduates. There are also student representatives within the schools, to the Board of Directors, and, since 1996, to the Georgetown
Advisory Neighborhood Commissionalign="right"| |}Advisory Neighborhood Commissions are bodies of local government in Washington, D.C. Created in 1974 through a District referendum, ANCs consider a wide range of policies and programs affecting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, liquor...
.
Georgetown's student organizations include one of the nation's oldest debating clubs, the
Philodemic SocietyThe Philodemic Society is a student debating club at Georgetown University. It was founded in 1830 by Father Ryder, in whose honor an award is given every Spring at the Merrick Debate. The Philodemic is among the oldest such societies in the United States, and the oldest secular student...
, founded in 1830, and the oldest university theater group, the
Mask and Bauble Dramatic SocietyThe Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society of Georgetown University is the oldest continuously running collegiate theatre troupe in the United States. Today, the Society is one of five theatre groups on the Georgetown campus and is entirely student-run...
. Nomadic Theatre, founded in 1982 as an alternative troupe without an on-campus home, produces musicals, and small-scale comedies and dramas. There are a total of seven
a cappellaA cappella music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato style...
groups on campus, including the Phantoms, Superfood, The Gracenotes, The Chimes, Harmony, the service-oriented Saxatones, and the newest group, the Capitol G's. These groups perform annually at the "D.C. A Cappella Festival," held since 1991, and the "Cherry Tree Massacre" concert, held since 1974. The Georgetown University Band is composed of the Georgetown Pep Band and the Georgetown Wind Ensemble, and performs on campus, in Washington, D.C., and at post-season basketball tournaments.
In addition to student organizations and clubs, Georgetown University is home to the nation’s largest entirely student-owned and -operated corporation,
Students of Georgetown, Inc.Students of Georgetown, Inc., or "The Corp", as it is commonly known , is a 5013 non-profit public charitable organization at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and maintains the largest entirely student-run corporation in the world, with seven subsidiary companies generating annual revenues...
Known as "The Corp", the business has an annual gross revenue of over $3.8 million. The Corp's profits are directly re-invested into the Georgetown student body through Corp Philanthropy, which gave out over $36,000 in scholarships and donations to Georgetown groups. Founded in 1972, The Corp operates three
coffee shopsA coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages...
and two grocery stores. It also runs biannual book sales, box storage, and airport shuttles for students. Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union is the largest student-run financial institution, with $10.4 million in assets.
Another student-run group, the
Georgetown Emergency Response Medical ServiceThe Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Service, or GERMS as it is also known, is a student-run, all-volunteer ambulance service, serving Georgetown University and the local community, including the main campus and the neighborhoods of West Georgetown, Burleith, and Foxhall, since 1982...
, "GERMS", is an all-volunteer ambulance service founded in 1982 that serves campus and the surrounding communities. GUGS, the Georgetown University Grilling Society, has been a Georgetown tradition since 2002, selling half-pound hamburgers in Red Square on most Fridays. The
Georgetown University Student Investment FundGeorgetown University Student Investment Fund is a professional money managing fund, which serves two clients: Georgetown University and the Georgetown University Alumni Association...
is one of a few undergraduate-run investment funds in the United States, and hosted CNBC's Jim Cramer to tape
Mad MoneyMad Money is an American finance television program hosted by Jim Cramer that began airing on CNBC on March 16, 2005. Its main focus is investment and speculation, particularly in publicly traded stocks...
in September 2006. Georgetown's
ArmyThe United States Army is the branch of the United States Military responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military and is one of seven uniformed services...
ROTC unit, the Hoya Battalion, is the oldest military unit native to the District of Columbia. The proportion of ROTC students at Georgetown is also the eleventh highest among all universities in the United States as of 2007.
Media
Georgetown University has several student-run newspapers.
The HoyaThe Hoya is one of Georgetown University's campus newspapers that prints an edition every Tuesday and Friday, with a circulation of about 10,000. The newspaper has four main editorial sections -- news, opinion, sports, and The Guide, a weekly arts and lifestyle magazine.Students founded The Hoya in...
is the University's oldest newspaper. It has been in print since 1920, and since 1987, is published twice weekly.
The Georgetown VoiceThe Georgetown Voice is the student-run weekly campus newsmagazine at Georgetown University. It has a circulation of approximately 8,500 and prints an edition every Thursday....
, known for its weekly cover stories, is a
newsmagazineA newsmagazine, also spelled news magazine, is usually a weekly magazine featuring articles or segments on current events. News magazines generally go more in-depth into stories than newspapers or television news, trying to give the reader an understanding of the context surrounding important...
that split from
The Hoya to focus more attention on citywide and national issues.
The Georgetown Independent is a monthly "journal of news, commentary and the arts."
The Georgetown Academy, restarted in 2008 after a hiatus, targets traditionalist
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
readers, and the
Georgetown Federalist, founded in 2006, purports to bring a conservative and
libertarianLibertarianism is a term adopted by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which advocate the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state...
viewpoint to campus.
The Fire This Time is Georgetown's only minority newssource.
The Georgetown Heckler is a humor magazine founded on the Internet in 2003 by Georgetown students, releasing its first print issue in 2007.
The GonzoThe Gonzo is an undergraduate satire/humor publication founded in 1993 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.Published on an irregular basis between 1993 and 1998, The Gonzo was inspired by both the philosophy and writing of Hunter S. Thompson and on other college humor publications like The...
was a former student humor magazine, published from 1993 to 1998.
The University has a campus-wide television station, GUTV, which began broadcasting in 1999. The station hosts an annual student
film festivalA film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. The films may be of recent date and, depending upon the focus of the individual festival, can include international releases as well as films produced by...
in April for campus filmmakers.
WGTBWGTB is a student-run internet radio station at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The station was originally founded as an AM station in 1946 by Rev. Francis Layden, SJ, moving to FM in 1960. In the late 1960s and through the 1970s, the station attracted attention in the Washington, DC area...
, Georgetown's radio station, is available as a
webcastA webcast is a media file distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
and on 92.3 FM in certain dormitories. The station was founded in 1946, and broadcast on 90.1 FM from 1960 to 1979, when university president
Timothy S. HealyRev. Timothy S. Healy, S.J. was a Jesuit priest who straddled the religious and secular life in a career that included the presidency of Georgetown University and finally leadership of the New York Public Library...
gave away the frequency and broadcast capabilities to the
University of the District of ColumbiaThe University of the District of Columbia is a historically black, public university located in Washington, D.C. UDC is the only urban land-grant university in the country and a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund.-History:...
because of WGTB's
far leftFar left and extreme left are terms used to discuss the position a group or person occupies within the political spectrum. The terms far left and far right are often used to imply that someone is an extremist....
political orientation.
Activism
Georgetown University student organizations include a diverse array of groups focused on social justice issues, including organizations run through both Student Affairs and the Center for Social Justice. Oriented against gender violence,
Take Back the NightTake Back the Night is an internationally held march and rally intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of violence against women, originated by the feminist movement.-History:...
coordinates an annual rally and march to protest against rape and other forms of violence against women.
Georgetown Solidarity CommitteeGeorgetown Solidarity Committee is a student organization at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, that takes action to support the struggles of service workers on the Georgetown campus as well as workers around the world...
is a workers' rights organization whose successes include ending use of sweatshops in producing Georgetown-logoed apparel, and garnering pay raises for both university cleaning staff and police. Georgetown Students for
Fair TradeFair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of...
successfully advocated for all coffee in campus cafeterias to be Fair Trade Certified. Student political organizations are active on campus and engage their many members in local and national politics. The Georgetown University College Republicans represent the political right and, on the left, the Georgetown University College Democrats was the largest student organization on campus in 2008.
Georgetown has many additional groups representing national, ethnic, and linguistic interests. In 2006,
MEChAM.E.Ch.A. is an organization that seeks to promote Chicano unity and empowerment through education and political action. The acronym of the organization's name is the Spanish word mecha, which means "fuse"...
de Georgetown, which works to improve Chicano recruitment and involvement, brought together a broad coalition of groups as "GU Students United Against Racism" to protest the perceived racism during a paid speaking event by
Chris SimcoxChris Simcox is the American co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the project's main spokesperson. He was formerly a kindergarten teacher at the Wildwood School in Los Angeles, California, where he taught for thirteen years...
, leader of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. Georgetown's student body is particularly active in politics; groups based on local, national, and international issues are popular, and free speech is generally respected. The
reproductive rightsReproductive rights are a series of legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The World Health Organisation defines reproductive rights as follows:...
organization H*yas for Choice is not officially recognized by the University as its positions on
abortionAn abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced, in humans and other species...
are in opposition to University policy, prompting the asterisk in "hoyas". While not financially supported by the school, the organization is permitted to meet and table in university spaces. The issue contributes to Georgetown's 'red light' status on free speech under the
Foundation for Individual Rights in EducationThe Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is a non-profit group founded in 1999 and focused on civil liberties in academia in the United States...
rating system.
Greek life
Although Jesuit schools are not obliged to disassociate from Greek systems, many do, and Georgetown University does not officially recognize or fund
fraternities, sororitiesFraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In English, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in North America, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
, or
secret societiesSecret society is a term used to describe a variety of organizations. Although the exact meaning of the term is disputed, several of the definitions advanced indicate a degree of secrecy and secret knowledge, which might include denying membership or knowledge of the group, negative consequences...
among the student body. Despite this, Greek organizations persist on campus, although none require members to live in fraternal housing. Additionally, Georgetown University students are affiliated, in some cases, with fraternities at other nearby universities and colleges.
Active fraternities at Georgetown include
Delta Phi EpsilonDelta Phi Epsilon is the only national professional foreign service fraternity and sorority. Founded at Georgetown University on January 25, 1920, the fraternity's mission is to promote good fellowship among persons studying or engaged in foreign service...
, a professional foreign service fraternity;
Alpha Kappa PsiΑΚΨ is the oldest and largest professional business fraternity. The Alpha Kappa Psi Fraternity was founded on October 5, 1904 at New York University, and was incorporated on May 20, 1905...
, a professional business fraternity;
Alpha Phi OmegaAlpha Phi Omega is the largest collegiate fraternity in the United States, with chapters at over 350 campuses, an active membership of approximately 17,000 students, and over 350,000 alumni members...
, a national co-ed community service fraternity;
Alpha Epsilon PiAlpha Epsilon Pi , the Jewish college fraternity, has 140 active chapters in the United States and Canada, and a membership of over 8,000 undergraduates. Alpha Epsilon Pi is a Jewish fraternity, though non-discriminatory and open to all who are willing to espouse its purpose and values...
, a Jewish social fraternity; and social fraternities
Sigma Phi EpsilonΣΦΕ , commonly nicknamed SigEp or SPE, is a secret letter, social college fraternity for male college students in the United States. It was founded on November 1, 1901, at Richmond College and its national headquarters remains in Richmond, Virginia. It was founded on three principles: Virtue,...
and
Zeta PsiThe Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America was founded June 1, 1847 as a social college fraternity. The organization now comprises about fifty active chapters and twenty-five inactive chapters, encompassing roughly twenty thousand brothers, and is a founding member of the North-American...
. Delta Phi Epsilon was founded at Georgetown in 1920, and members of their Alpha Chapter include Jesuits and several deans of the
School of Foreign ServiceThe Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
. The Delta Phi Epsilon foreign service sorority, founded in 1973, is the only sorority active at Georgetown. Georgetown's chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, affiliated with the
campus HillelHillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world...
, was established in 2002. Sigma Phi Epsilon chartered its chapter as a general social fraternity in 2007. The Omega Lambda chapter of professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi replaced
Delta Sigma PiΔΣΠ ' is a co-ed professional business fraternity in the United States of America. It was founded on November 7, 1907 at the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, New York University, New York, New York and is currently headquartered in Oxford, Ohio...
, which lost its charter in 2006. The Zeta Psi chapter, named Gamma Epsilon, was chartered in March 2009 after a year as a colony.
Events
Annual events on campus celebrate Georgetown traditions, culture, alumni, sports, and politics. In late April, Georgetown University celebrates
Georgetown Day. Besides the full-day carnival, the day rewards the best professor of the year with the Dorothy Brown Award, as voted by students.
HalloweenHalloween is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Gaelic pagan festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints. It is largely a secular celebration but some have expressed strong feelings about perceived religious overtones...
is celebrated with public viewings of alumnus
William Peter BlattyWilliam Peter Blatty is an American writer and filmmaker. He wrote the novel The Exorcist and the subsequent screenplay version for which he won an Academy Award.- Early life :...
's film
The ExorcistThe Exorcist is a 1973 U.S. horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl, and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests....
, which takes place in the neighborhood surrounding the university.
HomecomingHomecoming is the tradition of welcoming back of former residents and alumni of an institution. It most commonly refers to a tradition in many universities, colleges and high schools in North America. It usually includes activities for students and alumni, such as sports and culture events and a...
coincides with a home football game, and festivities such as tailgating and a formal dance are sponsored by the Alumni Association to draw past graduates back to campus. The largest planned sports related celebration is the first basketball practice of the season. Dubbed
Midnight Madness, this event introduces the men's and women's basketball teams shortly after midnight on the first day the teams are allowed by NCAA rules to formally practice together. In 2008, Georgetown again played host to a first round division of the
NCAA Men's Basketball TournamentThe 2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2007–08 basketball season...
.
Georgetown University hosts notable speakers each year, largely because of the success of the Georgetown Lecture Fund and the Office of Communications. These are frequently important
heads of stateHead of state is the generic term for the individual or collective office that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state...
who visit Georgetown while in the capital, as well as scholars, authors, U.S. politicians, and religious leaders. The Office of the President hosts numerous symposia on religious topics, such as
Nostra ÆtateNostra Aetate is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.The first draft, entitled "Decree on the Jews"...
,
Pacem in TerrisPacem in Terris was a papal encyclical issued by Pope John XXIII on 11 April 1963. It remains one of the most famous of 20th century encyclicals and established principles that featured in some of the documents of the Second Vatican Council and of later popes...
, and the Building Bridges Seminar.
Athletics
Georgetown fields 27 varsity teams and 20 club teams. The varsity teams participate in the
NCAAThe National Collegiate Athletic Association is a voluntary association of about 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada...
's
Division IDivision I is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States....
. The school generally competes in the
Big East ConferenceThe Big East Conference is a collegiate athletics conference consisting of sixteen universities in the northeastern, southeastern and midwestern United States. The conference's 17 members participate in 23 NCAA sports...
, although the
footballAmerican football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, and often as Gridiron or Tackle football outside North America, is a competitive team sport known for combining strategy with physical play. The objective of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the...
team competes in the Division I FCS
Patriot LeagueThe Patriot League is a college athletic conference which operates in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; in football, it participates in the Football Championship Subdivision . There are seven football members and eight members for basketball...
, the men's lacrosse team in
Eastern College Athletic ConferenceThe Eastern College Athletic Conference is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 35 men's and women's sports...
, and the rowing teams in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges. Georgetown University graduates over ninety percent of its student athletes.
U.S. News and World Report listed Georgetown's athletics program among the 20 best in the nation.
The school's teams are called "Hoyas", a name whose origin is uncertain. Sometime after 1866, students well versed in classical languages invented the mixed
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
and
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
chant of "hoya saxa", translating roughly as "what (or such) rocks". The school's baseball team, then called the Stonewalls, began in 1870, and football in 1874, and the chant likely refers to one of these teams. In 1926 the football team replaced
Sergeant StubbySergeant Stubby , was the most decorated war dog of World War I and the only dog to be promoted to sergeant through combat.Stubby was found on the Yale campus in 1917 by John Robert Conroy...
as mascot with a
Bull TerrierThe Bull Terrier or English Bull Terrier is a breed of dog in the terrier family.-Appearance:The Bull Terrier's most recognizable feature is its head, described as 'egg shaped' when viewed from the front, almost flat at the top, with a Roman muzzle sloping evenly down to the end of the nose with...
they nicknamed "Hoya" because of the cheer, and by 1928, campus sports writers began to refer to teams as "Hoyas" rather than "Hilltoppers". The name was picked up in the local publications, and became official shortly after. The modern mascot of Georgetown athletics programs is
Jack the BulldogJack the Bulldog is the official mascot of the Georgetown University Hoyas athletics teams. Jack has been the name of at least four live Bulldogs since 1962, when the name first came into use. The current incarnation of Jack is an English Bulldog born in 2003 whose full name is John S. Carroll....
and the school
fight songA fight song is primarily an American and Canadian sports term, referring to a song associated with a team. In both professional and amateur sports, fight songs are a popular way for fans to cheer for their team...
is
There Goes Old Georgetown"There Goes Old Georgetown" is the unofficial name of the Georgetown University sports teams' fight song. It is also known as simply "Georgetown Fight Song". It is actually an amalgamation of three songs, only the oldest of which, 1913's "The Touchdown Song", contains the lyric "here goes old...
.
The men's basketball team is particularly noteworthy as it won the
NCAA championshipThe NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single elimination tournament held each spring featuring 65 college basketball teams. college basketball teams in the United States...
in
1984The 1984 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 53 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 2, 1984, and ended with the championship game on April 2 in Seattle, Washington...
under coach
John ThompsonJohn R. Thompson, Jr. is an American former basketball coach for the Georgetown University Hoyas. He is now a professional radio and TV sports commentator...
. The current coach is his son,
John Thompson IIIJohn Thompson III is the current head coach of the men's basketball team at Georgetown University. He grew up in Washington, D.C. and was named first team All-Metro by The Washington Post while playing for Gonzaga College High School in 1984. Thompson was hired on April 20, 2004 to replace Craig...
, who coached the team to the
Final FourThis is a list of NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament Final Four appearances by school. Schools whose names are italicized are no longer in Division I and can no longer be included in the tournament. Several teams have vacated Final Four appearances and are marked with an * with...
in the
2007 NCAA tournamentThe 2007 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 NCAA schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2006–07 basketball season...
. The team leads the Big East with seven
conference tournamentThe Big East Men's Basketball Tournament determines the Big East Conference champion and the winner of the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Since 1983 the tournament has been held in Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York. In 2009, the Tournament will showcase all 16 teams...
titles, and has made twenty-four
NCAA tournament appearancesThis is a list of NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament bids by school . Schools whose names are listed in the last table are no longer in NCAA Division I Men's Basketball, and can no longer be included in the tournament.The years listed are the last tournament year a school has reached a...
. Well-known team alumni include
Sleepy FloydEric Augustus "Sleepy" Floyd is a retired American professional basketball player.A 6'3" guard, Floyd played competitively at Hunter Huss High School in Gastonia, and starred at Georgetown University before being drafted by the New Jersey Nets with the 13th pick of the 1982 NBA Draft...
,
Patrick EwingPatrick Aloysius Ewing is an American retired Hall of Fame basketball player and current assistant coach for the National Basketball Association's Orlando Magic. He played most of his career with the NBA's New York Knicks as their starting center and played briefly with the Seattle SuperSonics...
,
Dikembe MutomboDikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo , commonly referred to as Dikembe Mutombo, is a retired Congolese American professional basketball player last playing for the Houston Rockets of the NBA. He was the oldest player in the NBA at the time of his most recent season...
,
Alonzo MourningAlonzo Harding Mourning, Jr. is a retired American professional basketball player, who played most of his 16-year NBA career for the Miami Heat....
,
Allen IversonAllen Ezail Iverson is an American professional basketball player who plays for the Memphis Grizzlies....
,
Jeff GreenJeffrey Lynn Green is an American professional basketball player for the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder and a former college basketball player in the NCAA. He attended Georgetown University until his junior year, before deciding to enter the 2007 NBA Draft...
, and
Roy HibbertRoy Denzil Hibbert is an American professional basketball player who currently plays for the Indiana Pacers of the NBA. He plays the center position, and graduated from Georgetown University in 2008. He was drafted 17th overall in the 2008 NBA Draft by the Toronto Raptors.-Background:Roy Hibbert...
. In all over one-hundred student athletes have gone on to professional careers. Besides
basketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of 5 players try to score points against one another by placing a ball through a
10 foot high hoop under organized rules...
, Georgetown is nationally successful in
rowingRowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
,
sailingSailing is the art of controlling a boat with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to change the direction and speed of a boat...
,
lacrosseLacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin that is played using a small solid rubber ball and a long-handled racquet called a crosse or lacrosse stick. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose netting that is designed to hold the lacrosse ball...
, and
track and fieldTrack and field athletics is a collection of sports events that involve running, throwing, jumping and walking. Organised athletics are traced back to the Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC, and most modern events are conducted by the member clubs of the International Association of Athletics...
.
Alumni
As of 2008, between fifty-four and sixty-one percent of alumni enter the workforce immediately after graduation, while others go on to additional education. Georgetown alumni have a median starting salary of $55,000 with a median mid-career salary of $110,000. Georgetown is one of the top ten producers of
Peace CorpsThe Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a governmental agency of the same name. Each program participant, or Peace Corps Volunteer, is an American citizen who commits to working abroad in an assignment for the organization for a period of...
volunteers as of 2009. Just over three percent of Georgetown's 97,384 living alumni are listed in
Marquis Who's WhoMarquis Who's Who, a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc., is the American publisher of a number of directories containing short biographies of influential persons...
, the 14th highest percentage and eighth highest raw number among American universities as of 2000.
NNDBThe Notable Names Database , produced by Soylent Communications, is an online database of biographical details of over 36,000 people of note...
, the Notable Names Database, lists 289 notable alumni.
Many alumni are politically active. Six alumni serve in the United States Senate, and sixteen in the House of Representatives. The current Secretary of Defense,
Robert GatesRobert Michael Gates is currently serving as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense. He took office on December 18, 2006. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W. Bush as Director of...
, as well as the current
National Security AdvisorThe Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief adviser to the President of the United States on national security issues...
,
General James L. JonesJames Logan Jones Jr. is the current United States National Security Advisor and a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general....
, are both alumni, as are the current Senate majority whip, Dick Durbin, the House majority leader,
Steny HoyerSteny Hamilton Hoyer is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Maryland's 5th congressional district since 1981...
, and the current Chairman of the
Republican National CommitteeThe Republican National Committee provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is also responsible for organizing and...
, Michael Steele. In the legal profession, alumni include a current Associate Justice of the
U.S. Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
,
Antonin Scaliais an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan having previously served on the D.C. Circuit and in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and teaching law at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago...
, and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
Edward Douglass WhiteEdward Douglass White, Jr. , American politician and jurist, was a United States senator, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and the ninth Chief Justice of the United States. He was best known for formulating the Rule of Reason standard of antitrust law...
.
Besides numerous members of the senior diplomatic corps, eleven current or former heads of state are alumni. Current alumni heads of state include and
Gloria Macapagal-ArroyoMaria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the fourteenth and current president of the Philippines. Arroyo is the country's second female president, and the daughter of late former Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal....
,
President of the PhilippinesThe President of the Philippines is the head of state and government of the Republic of the Philippines. The President of the Philippines in Filipino is referred to as Ang Pangulo or Pangulo...
, and
Saad HaririSaad ed Deen Rafiq al-Hariri , is a Lebanese-Saudi businessman and politician, and the second son of Rafiq Hariri, the assassinated former Prime Minister of Lebanon...
, Prime Minister of Lebanon, while former
President of the United StatesThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president; only Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were younger when entering office...
graduated from the School of Foreign Service in 1968. Crown Prince
Felipe of SpainFelipe, Prince of Asturias , is the third child and only son of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía of Spain...
and King
Abdullah II of JordanAbdullah II bin al-Hussein is the current King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He ascended the throne on 7 February 1999 after the death of his father King Hussein. King Abdullah is a member of the Hashemite family and is reportedly a 43rd-generation direct descendant of Muhammad...
are among the royalty who attended the school. Georgetown graduates have served at the head of diverse institutions, such as
Patricia RussoPatricia F. Russo is an American businessperson most widely known for having served as chief executive officer of Lucent Technologies and its successor, Alcatel-Lucent, a large communications equipment manufacturer....
of
Alcatel-LucentAlcatel-Lucent is a global telecommunications corporation, headquartered in Paris, France. It provides telecommunications solutions to service providers, enterprises and governments around the world, enabling these customers to deliver voice, data and video services...
and
Susan HockfieldSusan Hockfield is the sixteenth and current president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hockfield's appointment was publicly announced on August 26, 2004, and she formally took office December 6, 2004, succeeding Charles M. Vest. Hockfield's official inauguration celebrations took...
of the
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research...
, both in the public and private sector, and have headed military organizations on both the domestic and international level. Notable alumni in business include
Ted LeonsisTheodore "Ted" J. Leonsis is a long-time AOL executive and owner of the NHL's Washington Capitals....
, owner of the Washington Capitals National Hockey League franchise and former America Online Executive; and Paul T. Cappuccio, Chief Legal Officer at Time Warner, Inc., the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate.
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