new b-school building

[hilltopper2000]

I hadn't seen this posed yet, but it looks like ground will be broken soon on the new b-school building. Any thoughts on the location or building style? I wish they had chosen a more uniformly classical style, but I'm impressed with the bold design and the whole concept of linking Leavey with the rest of campus. It is hard for me to envision the whole quad, with the science building(s) and new bridge to Reiss. (The destruction of which has to be the next priority after the new science center is built.)

www.msb.edu/alumni/new_building/

[hoya4ever]

Loving it. Too bad its going to be finished only after I graduate but still awesome looking. And who knows, maybe I am going to get my IEMBA here. Does anyone know whether it is also going to host grad classes?

[RBHoya]

Ya I really like the building. It most likely won't open until after I've graduated, but even still, when you combine this great new facility with our new Dean, I really think MSB is moving up in the world. And that's good for the value of my degree, whether I'm here to experience it or not. Plus, I may end up coming back here for grad school as well, who knows? So yea, I'm really happy with it.

Can't wait to visit campus and find it looking like this www.thehoya.com/images/042004/enlarge_msb.jpg

[Deleted]

Design is GREAT when you consider the grand staircase they are PLANNING on building up to the airport lounge in Leavey. Hopefully that'll get done, and the science center takes shape in the next few years. Once we get that done, the whole of campus is connected. No wasted space (except for that useless little gym on the southwest side of campus)...

[Deleted]

This pic of the atrium is new... and looks amazing!!!

www.msb.edu/alumni/new_building/status/

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

Once the science center is done and campus is connected there are some interesting questions that need to be answered. What does the school do with the Med School and its campus? - The med school is sort of our black sheep - it doesn't do well in the rankings although Georgetown does a very good job turning out Pre-Med students. In addition - what happens with Reiss - the drawings have a bridge going over to it - will it still be necessary on campus? Should it be rennovated?

Also the sketch includes some interesting additions which could be just wrong or be heralds of things to come:

1) The Yard is listed as "Future Soccer Stadium".

2) The drawing shows a track and stadium on top of Kehoe.

3) There is an amorphous "future building" between The Yard and the Science center.

[hilltopper2000]

I think, StPete, the answers to those questions lies in how much of a push GU makes with regard to the sciences. The "future building" should also probably be dedicated to science. And, as was recommended by the Mid-Atlantic Accredication committee, Reiss should be torn down and replaced with a proper science facility. It is horribly designed and ancient, not to mention an asthetic blight. And, truth be told, a new building could utilize that section of campus much better. If GU wants to be univerally viewed as a top school it needs to become competitive in the sciences--physics, biology, and chemistry, in particular. (It would also help greatly if it offered PhDs in theology or english -- why don't we?)

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

We didn't offer a PhD in theology because of a dispute that we had with the Vatican a long time ago. The story is purely anecdotal - but does come from Rabbi White, so I'm going to guess he knows something about the school (having spent nearly 40 years here). The Vatican wanted Georgetown to close down so that there could only be one Catholic national university - Catholic University of America. The Jesuits refused. The Pope got mad and took away Georgetown's right to offer a PhD in Theology and took away the Jesuit cloisters - which are today still called The Cloisters - but offer high end apartments. However, the Jesuits did get back at The Vatican subtley. The same architect was hired to build Healy that was hired to build the main building at CUA. The Jesuits demanded that the clock tower spire of Healy be 10 feet higher than the one at CUA - and hence Healy has been described as a large middle finger pointed at Rome.

EDIT: Tense of verb changed to reflect the fact that the Theology Department clearly knows more than I do about the current degree options within that department.

[Theo Dept]

Starting this fall GU is offering a Ph.D. in Theology.

[Deleted]

Here's why Reiss will still be needed:

"The proposed building would house the main campus chemistry and biology departments, and about one-third of it would be devoted to joint programs between Medical Center professors and undergraduate professors, according to David Lightfoot, dean of the School of Graduate Arts and Sciences. Lightfoot has been devoting time to the science center plans since coming to Georgetown three years ago."[/b]

Seems like physics will need a place to go, not to mention where you're going to put labs, lecture halls, etc. That said, between the new science building and the "future building" just southeast of it I'm sure they could not only fit the current "science department" but expand their space immensely.

[Deleted]

Best part about all of this, I personally think we all finally have the leadership where it counts to get these things done.

[TigerHoya]

I think the only time I set foot in Reiss was for ROTC leadership labs. Anybody else on the boards who was in the Hoya Battalion in '92-'93?

[TBird41]

They use the big lecture rooms in Reiss for all the big freshman classes--econ, US Political Systems, bio, etc... If they got rid of Reiss, they'd have to find a place for all those classes, and lecture halls are in short supply

[Nevada Hoya]

hilltopper2000 said:

If GU wants to be univerally viewed as a top school it needs to become competitive in the sciences--physics, biology, and chemistry, in particular.

AMEN!

[DFW HOYA]

hilltopper2000 said:

If GU wants to be univerally viewed as a top school it needs to become competitive in the sciences--physics, biology, and chemistry, in particular.

Agreed, but to GU those are the only sciences.

Where are the information sciences? The Computer Science major reads like it's 1970.

www.georgetown.edu/undergrad/bulletin/collegedepts8.html#comput

[dairishhoya]

dfw said:

Agreed, but to GU those are the only sciences.

Where are the information sciences? The Computer Science major reads like it's 1970.

www.georgetown.edu/undergrad/bulletin/collegedepts8.html#comput

Hate to disagree DFW. The College Bulletin is probably the one out of date, but the Department of Computer Science is moving in the right direction.

Brian Blake, Clay Shields, Mark Maloof and Lisa Singh are a great crop of young scholars and provide a strong foundation to build upon. They're doing some great research and are connecting well with students. Their recent publications definitely show that they're not stuck in the 1970s:

computerscience.georgetown.edu/publications/

In particular, Brian Blake is one of the most promising computer scientists in the nation. Not to mention, it's great to see a young African American scholar in the sciences get tenure at Georgetown. Here's a profile of him that appeared on the University's homepage:

explore.georgetown.edu/news/?ID=757

The move of the Computer Science department into St. Mary's should provide more space and a stronger technical infrastructure for their work (former UIS space).

Also, I think it's important to remember that scholarship regarding technology is occurring in other spaces around the University. Biotechnology/bioinformatics and STIA are two good examples. In fact, the Institute for International Law and Politics has the former National Cyber Security Czar on its board.

[reformation]

DFW, I think the CS dept does in fact have some young + good scholars, though it and all the science depts are pretty small-basically don't have enough critical mass to be considered major on a natl or intl scale--hopefully there will be some new faculty hiring to go along with the new facilities. I would not however have an issue if GU decided to disproportionately allocate resources to a few depts, if they could really make those depts elite.


One ironic pt worth noting is that the science programs at GU actually seem to have a much better track record of students applying and getting into top PHD programs than Gu's social science type programs--GU's social science depts. which supposedly have a good external rep actually have a pretty mediocre track record of students applying and getting accepted to top grad programs(I don't mean law school)

[CTHoya08]

What are their track records for getting kids into top law schools though? If most of the top students are applying to law school, they probably aren't also applying to masters programs, right? It seems that there are many more students here interested in law and medical programs than other types of grad programs, although I could be mistaken about that.

[reformation]

CTHoya, you are definitely right about students interests, but the point I was trying to make was about various GU academic dept's external academic reputations.

Graduate program admissions committees actually have pretty specific views about the quality of specific undergrad academic programs in their respective subject areas, and it matters a lot more in the admit process than say law school where your prior training is less relevant to the course that you'll be taking. Law shools pretty much look at the broad stats, i.e., lsat, gpa, school. Given the above, I thought it was kind of ironic that a lot of the programs for which GU is generally well known in the social sciences have relatively poor application and acceptance rates to grad programs vs some of the sciences, where Gu's general rep is not as strong but seem to produce more and more successful applicants.

This is not a thorough analysis obviously(I am not a science grad either), but I thought that the point was sufficiently interesting and surprising that it merited a mention.

[SoCalHoya]

We seem to do particularly well in law-school and med-school placement.