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Post by WilsonBlvdHoya on Aug 18, 2022 15:22:21 GMT -5
All good points but I wonder if it comes down to sheer capacity. Had the campus been twice as large, maybe the Law School never goes downtown; conversely, had the hospital been constructed at 10th and E instead of 35th and O, it might be a downtown campus too. College was not a commodity until the 1970's and schools didn't see the need to compete for students and amenities as they do today. At an undergraduate level, Georgetown was a place for young men, nearly all Catholic, who either lived along the Northeast Corridor, or was recommended by a teacher or a priest to go there. (There's a 1957 admissions application out on eBay that says an applicant must be recommended by their high school principal and advises a letter of recommendation from a pastor.) If Main Campus was the center of academic and spiritual life, building elsewhere would have been counterproductive, anymore if Villanova had built a campus in center city Philadelphia. Education is certainly changing. The level to which a future college education is seen not as a communal exercise but as an externship of sorts may drive some of the future utility of a downtown campus. But having some land wouldn't hurt either. In the world of ifs, how (and this is to anyone) might have things changed had we acquired the mount vernon campus before GW did? AND/OR - the Visitation campus in late 70s and early 80s when it seemed GV was tottering financially.....
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Aug 19, 2022 8:18:47 GMT -5
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Post by RusskyHoya on Aug 20, 2022 11:53:17 GMT -5
All good points but I wonder if it comes down to sheer capacity. Had the campus been twice as large, maybe the Law School never goes downtown; conversely, had the hospital been constructed at 10th and E instead of 35th and O, it might be a downtown campus too. I’m not following your logic here. Why would it have required more “sheer capacity” to build the Law School on Main Campus – a Main Campus that had no shortage of empty/buildable space on it when the Law School was started in 1870 in rented space or when the school moved to its own building at 506 E Street NW in 1891 or even when they broke ground on the current GULC location in 1968 – than it did to set up shop downtown? The primary rationale I’ve heard for the location is the same one given in the article I quoted: “The law school has been in Downtown since its inception in 1870 to be near the courts…”College was not a commodity until the 1970's and schools didn't see the need to compete for students and amenities as they do today. The term gets applied very loosely these days, especially by certain people (often on the left) bemoaning the “commodification” of this or that, such as housing… but I am a stickler for this, so please forgive my pedantry here. College is very far from being a commodity, the standard econ definition of which is “an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.” The college experience is very much not fungible – that’s the whole point of the rise of the modern competitive market, that everyone is trying to differentiate themselves. What you’re really getting at, if I can put words in your mouth, is that there was not the same sort of national market for undergraduate education as an ‘experiential luxury lifestyle service’ until roughly that timeframe. That’s true enough if one focuses on a specific layer. I would argue that the most elite handful of schools have had that sort of national brand and associated national competition for students for longe, stretching back into the 19th century. But the contemporary dynamic of hundreds of selective schools with more-or-less national reach does really get its start in that era. Georgetown mostly fits in that category, although the SFS was a bit of a wildcard in that regard and had a broader pool earlier. If Main Campus was the center of academic and spiritual life, building elsewhere would have been counterproductive, anymore if Villanova had built a campus in center city Philadelphia. For undergraduates specifically, yes, having a more or less single residential campus became one of the distinguishing features of the nationally competitive schools and aspirants. GW’s Mount Vernon experiment is quite an outlier in this regard, although they needed a place to put athletics fields anyway, so it served several needs. At most, there would be some highly specialized facilities for certain programs, but these were as a rule either small or non-residential, not too different from study abroad (which was also really catching on during this same time). Having said that… Georgetown is much closer to downtown DC than Villanova is to Center City. The mental distance between Hilltop and downtown DC, however, was quite significant due to the general urban dynamics I described originally. That distance has shrunk tremendously. If you’re an undergrad living in 55 H Street NW, you’re just an Uber ride away from the party scene on or near campus – door to door, it’s not much different than if you were going to walk back to a place up on T Street. Education is certainly changing. The level to which a future college education is seen not as a communal exercise but as an externship of sorts may drive some of the future utility of a downtown campus. But having some land wouldn't hurt either. The demand for the aforementioned “undergraduate education as an ‘experiential luxury lifestyle service” remains strong, and some forms of communal experience are absolutely central to that. Some adults may have enjoyed the Covid Work-from-Home Revolution, but with very few exceptions, undergrads and below haaaaaaate ‘Zoom School.’ But you’re right that expectations around exactly what it looks like continue to evolve. That connects directly to my narrative of urban development and perceptions over the last ~70 years – many undergrads now want greater experience of/integration into their surrounding community, especially if it is a major urban center and not, like, Hanover or Durham, NH. Last point: what constitutes “some land” has to be viewed within the context of its location. Downtown land is very expensive… but you have the ability to create more usable square footage vertically in a way that you generally do not in the Georgetown Historic District.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Aug 20, 2022 14:02:36 GMT -5
A good conversation here. I’m not following your logic here. Why would it have required more “sheer capacity” to build the Law School on Main Campus – a Main Campus that had no shortage of empty/buildable space on it when the Law School was started in 1870 in rented space or when the school moved to its own building at 506 E Street NW in 1891 or even when they broke ground on the current GULC location in 1968 – than it did to set up shop downtown? The primary rationale I’ve heard for the location is the same one given in the article I quoted: “The law school has been in Downtown since its inception in 1870 to be near the courts…”The Robert Curran book notes the location of the law school as such: "The Georgetown law department, like its medical counterpart, was an evening school for part-time students already working in the area and was taught exclusively by part time faculty [as late as] 1921." I think my point was less about the natural confluence of GULC as a downtown program and more that, had the size and resources of the campus supported it, a full time law program on the main campus would not have been dismissed out of hand, particularly in comparison to spend $2.4 million to buy an entire city block along New Jersey Avenue and spend $4 million to build McDonough Hall in an era when the University endowment was approximately $11 million. For undergraduates specifically, yes, having a more or less single residential campus became one of the distinguishing features of the nationally competitive schools and aspirants. GW’s Mount Vernon experiment is quite an outlier in this regard, although they needed a place to put athletics fields anyway, so it served several needs. At most, there would be some highly specialized facilities for certain programs, but these were as a rule either small or non-residential, not too different from study abroad (which was also really catching on during this same time). Mt. Vernon is still a raw subject for many because of the negligence exhibited by senior leadership in failing to secure that property. GW has done relatively little with the campus in the intervening two decades but unless things get really bad and they divest it, they can afford to take the long view with what to do with it. The demand for the aforementioned “undergraduate education as an ‘experiential luxury lifestyle service” remains strong, and some forms of communal experience are absolutely central to that. Some adults may have enjoyed the Covid Work-from-Home Revolution, but with very few exceptions, undergrads and below haaaaaaate ‘Zoom School.’ But you’re right that expectations around exactly what it looks like continue to evolve. That connects directly to my narrative of urban development and perceptions over the last ~70 years – many undergrads now want greater experience of/integration into their surrounding community, especially if it is a major urban center and not, like, Hanover or Durham, NH. Last point: what constitutes “some land” has to be viewed within the context of its location. Downtown land is very expensive… but you have the ability to create more usable square footage vertically in a way that you generally do not in the Georgetown Historic District. Good points all and Georgetown's recent moves have been positive ones.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Aug 23, 2022 21:03:25 GMT -5
Seriously, has GW done *anything* with Mt Vernon except make space for two sports that the school could cut and no one would bat an eye at?
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Aug 23, 2022 22:44:54 GMT -5
The Robert Curran book notes the location of the law school as such: "The Georgetown law department, like its medical counterpart, was an evening school for part-time students already working in the area and was taught exclusively by part time faculty [as late as] 1921." I think my point was less about the natural confluence of GULC as a downtown program and more that, had the size and resources of the campus supported it, a full time law program on the main campus would not have been dismissed out of hand, particularly in comparison to spend $2.4 million to buy an entire city block along New Jersey Avenue and spend $4 million to build McDonough Hall in an era when the University endowment was approximately $11 million. So your argument is that the University did not have the resources for a law program with full-time faculty on Main Campus when it first started up, but did have the resources for a program with part-time faculty in (presumably not cheap) rented space downtown... which was considered to be preferable to a part-time program on Main Campus, which was the route the medical school took? That's plausible... but do we have any evidence that a much more robust law program was ever mooted during its nascent years? How many universities even had such a thing at the time? An interesting parallel here is Fordham Law, which also got its start in downtown, rather than on that university's main campus in the Bronx, and had an even more itinerant existence in its early years. Mt. Vernon is still a raw subject for many because of the negligence exhibited by senior leadership in failing to secure that property. GW has done relatively little with the campus in the intervening two decades but unless things get really bad and they divest it, they can afford to take the long view with what to do with it. Seriously, has GW done *anything* with Mt Vernon except make space for two sports that the school could cut and no one would bat an eye at? I'm sympathetic to the idea that the University would've taken a lot of heat from various constituencies for effectively buying Mt. Vernon College in order to euthanize it (Catholics are opposed to euthenasia, remember!), something that was not an obstacle for the non-Catholic and ever-hardnosed in real estate matters GW. My firm has its fair share of interns and alums from GW, and they say that the undergrads that choose to live on "The Vern" (~700 total) seem to like it, although the appeal is necessarily limited - most students come to GW for the urban experience. There are 6 varsity teams whose home facilities are there - men's and women's soccer, men's and women's tennis, softball, and women's lacrosse. That plus the pool there also provides extra capacity for club sports, and that's one of the other main benefits: annex space. Could GW do a lot more with the campus? Perhaps. But Foxhall is not where most GW students want to be, and the neighbors in that area would no doubt mobilize the full force of their wealth and influence to prevent any significant intensification of development and use on that footprint.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Aug 24, 2022 10:52:50 GMT -5
So your argument is that the University did not have the resources for a law program with full-time faculty on Main Campus when it first started up, but did have the resources for a program with part-time faculty in (presumably not cheap) rented space downtown... which was considered to be preferable to a part-time program on Main Campus, which was the route the medical school took? That's plausible... but do we have any evidence that a much more robust law program was ever mooted during its nascent years? How many universities even had such a thing at the time? In a matter of speaking, yes. The Curran book noted that the medical school was founded in a warehouse downtown (12th and F) that was all but independent for its first thirty years. Nearly all the coursework was lectures, and lacking any clinical facilities before GU Hospital arrived in the 1890s, actual experience was gained later, via apprenticeship. Similarly, the law school was an evening school of lecturers for working men--a 19th Century ancestor to the SCS, perhaps. The Law School was conceived as early as 1859, according to the book, but could not secure interest among local attorneys to participate as lecturers. In 1870 there were about 25 law schools nationally, many in flagship state schools. Columbian College (GW) opened up a school in 1865, Howard in 1869. Both were also transitory in their early years and decidedly disengaged from their colleges--the Howard law students met in the homes of faculty, perhaps as much a safety measure in the South as one of cost. This kind of legal education was a world removed from the College. In 1870, the campus still had just five buildings. The Hilltop housed between 100 and 150 boys, most under the age of 16. Only nine Jesuits even taught at the college level--the College graduating class of 1870 numbered four. Those that proceeded through the program followed the Ratio Studiorum and since all the Jesuits had followed the same program in their own studies - Latin, mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy, etc., that was the sole focus. Studies in law and medicine were outside the bounds of a college education. The concept of Jesuits pursuing graduate degrees to teach medicine or law was still a few decades off--Catholics weren't welcome at many colleges and Jesuits were especially feared. Left unsaid in these accounts is Rome. The mid-1800's was a period of rapid expansion of the Jesuits in America (ten new colleges between 1851 and 1877) and it's unlikely Rome wanted to spend any extra money on building out Georgetown at the expense of these other efforts, especially given Georgetown's past issues of financial mismanagement. Educating young men was all about the Ratio Studiorum and the vagaries of American law wasn't a part of it. That said, there was little cost needed to set up the evening schools, some revenue potential, and it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission if Rome told them to get out of the evening school business. It wasn't until Patrick Healy got approval from Rome to travel the nation to fundraise for his new building project that the campus had any capacity to add new programs, and by then the law school had found a home among the working men of Washington.
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Aug 24, 2022 11:43:19 GMT -5
So your argument is that the University did not have the resources for a law program with full-time faculty on Main Campus when it first started up, but did have the resources for a program with part-time faculty in (presumably not cheap) rented space downtown... which was considered to be preferable to a part-time program on Main Campus, which was the route the medical school took? That's plausible... but do we have any evidence that a much more robust law program was ever mooted during its nascent years? How many universities even had such a thing at the time? In a matter of speaking, yes. The Curran book noted that the medical school was founded in a warehouse downtown (12th and F) that was all but independent for its first thirty years. Nearly all the coursework was lectures, and lacking any clinical facilities before GU Hospital arrived in the 1890s, actual experience was gained later, via apprenticeship. Similarly, the law school was an evening school of lecturers for working men--a 19th Century ancestor to the SCS, perhaps. The Law School was conceived as early as 1859, according to the book, but could not secure interest among local attorneys to participate as lecturers. In 1870 there were about 25 law schools nationally, many in flagship state schools. Columbian College (GW) opened up a school in 1865, Howard in 1869. Both were also transitory in their early years and decidedly disengaged from their colleges--the Howard law students met in the homes of faculty, perhaps as much a safety measure in the South as one of cost. This kind of legal education was a world removed from the College. In 1870, the campus still had just five buildings. The Hilltop housed between 100 and 150 boys, most under the age of 16. Only nine Jesuits even taught at the college level--the College graduating class of 1870 numbered four. Those that proceeded through the program followed the Ratio Studiorum and since all the Jesuits had followed the same program in their own studies - Latin, mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy, etc., that was the sole focus. Studies in law and medicine were outside the bounds of a college education. The concept of Jesuits pursuing graduate degrees to teach medicine or law was still a few decades off--Catholics weren't welcome at many colleges and Jesuits were especially feared. Left unsaid in these accounts is Rome. The mid-1800's was a period of rapid expansion of the Jesuits in America (ten new colleges between 1851 and 1877) and it's unlikely Rome wanted to spend any extra money on building out Georgetown at the expense of these other efforts, especially given Georgetown's past issues of financial mismanagement. Educating young men was all about the Ratio Studiorum and the vagaries of American law wasn't a part of it. That said, there was little cost needed to set up the evening schools, some revenue potential, and it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission if Rome told them to get out of the evening school business. It wasn't until Patrick Healy got approval from Rome to travel the nation to fundraise for his new building project that the campus had any capacity to add new programs, and by then the law school had found a home among the working men of Washington. I'm an alum of The Catholic University Columbus School of Law (I had too much fun at Georgetown to gain admission to GULC until the guaranteed tuition from the Navy paid my way into the LLM program!!!). Catholic University of America began offering instruction in law in 1895 as part of its decision to open "faculties for the laity." The department was turned into an official school in 1898. In 1919, the Knights of Columbus founded an educational program known as Columbus University which provided an evening education program for Catholic war veterans returning from World War I. This institution was closely affiliated with Catholic University and shared faculty at both institutions' Washington, D.C. locations. In 1954, Columbus University (then consisting only of an evening law school) merged with Catholic University's law school to form the Columbus School of Law. SOURCE: Wikipedia
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Aug 27, 2022 21:05:55 GMT -5
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Post by RusskyHoya on Sept 14, 2022 22:56:46 GMT -5
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Post by TrueHoyaBlue on Sept 15, 2022 5:35:03 GMT -5
While I enjoyed teaching at the 640 Mass Ave SCS building in pre-COVID times, it definitely makes sense to move it down the street to co-locate with the other parts of the growing downtown campus.
And very interesting to hear what else they’re thinking about putting into the Darth Vader building. It’s got a ton of square footage, so I imagine this is just the beginning.
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Post by RusskyHoya on Sept 16, 2022 22:23:19 GMT -5
I did get the chance to attend the Zoom call with the community providing an overview of the Henle Rebuild project. Here are the bullets from the top two slides: Project Overview- New Henle will replace ~470 beds with ~730 beds
- Fulfills Campus Plan requirement to add 244 on-campus beds by 2030 (5 years early)
- Combined with past projects, the Henle reconstruction will result in:
- 720+ new on-campus beds added since 2012 - $75M invested to renovate existing on-campus beds since 2020 - Project expected to begin with demolition in May 2023 and conclude in time for Fall 2025
- Campus Plan requires Georgetown to offer no fewer than 5,438 on-campus beds
- During construction, campus hotel will be repurposed (~300) and existing capacity optimized (~70) to create ~370 replacement beds
- Commitment to address the ~100 student bed "gap" has been developed - and supported by the Georgetown Community Partnership - based on increasing campus occupancy such that an equal or greater number of undergrads will be housed on campus as in a typical semester before Henle is demolished
Timeline and Next Steps- Preliminary presentations made to ANC 2E and 3D on May 31 and June 1, respectively
- Campus Plan Amendment and Further Processing Application filed with the Zoning Commission in June
- Design filed with OGB in May and Concept Approval Secured on September 1
- Scheduled to present again to ANC 2E and 3D on October 3 and 12, respectively
- Zoning Commission hearing scheduled for November 3 - approval sought for:
- Campus Plan Amendment and Further Processing Application
- Variance relief from height setback requirement to accommodate top floor near boundary with Visitation
- Special exception relief for multiple penthouses
- Special exception relief from loading requirements to allow shared loading
- Demolition to begin in May 2023 and construction to conclude by Fall 2025
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Post by DFW HOYA on Sept 16, 2022 23:06:45 GMT -5
I did get the chance to attend the Zoom call with the community providing an overview of the Henle Rebuild project. Here are the bullets from the top two slides: If a naming gift is out there, might be a good time for a rename.
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Post by RusskyHoya on Sept 17, 2022 17:47:06 GMT -5
I did get the chance to attend the Zoom call with the community providing an overview of the Henle Rebuild project. Here are the bullets from the top two slides: If a naming gift is out there, might be a good time for a rename. In most cases, there is no interest in putting your name on a renovation, even if it is a total teardown and new build-up, as is the case here. Heck, we couldn't find a naming donor for Arupe, and that was the first construction on that footprint. Given the noted dearth of buildings named after women on campus, my vote would be to name it after Sister Mary E. Markham O.S.F., who was the first woman to ever receive a John Carroll award back in 1957: You've got something for everyone - an accomplished professional woman those for whom gender diversity is a priority, but also a Woman Religious for the more conservative and Catholic crowd. And it's right next to St. Mary's and the hospital, so it even makes sense spatially! That said, they'll probably just stick with Henle to avoid any negative reaction to removing the name of a president who has not (yet) been cancelled.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Sept 17, 2022 19:51:30 GMT -5
Arrupe's name, especially for someone with no connection whatsoever to Georgetown beyond his tenure as the Superior General, speaks to the arcane and seemingly random methods of naming of University property.
For a school whose buildings of its first half century were named the "North Building", "South Building" and "The Infirmary", building names have long been a mixed bag. Georgetown's founder has no building, but a statue; its first president has neither. Most presidents got nothing and are forgotten as a result.
Some buildings were named for Jesuits, some for gifts (Dahlgren, Lauinger, Leavey, Hariri), some for relatives of Jesuits (Darnall), while Rev. Yates had nothing to do with athletics, Bunn had little to do with the ICC, and George Harbin was a math professor who got a building named after a $77,000 bequest. Village A was nothing more than a temporary placeholder that has been temporary for 43 years. There is no Clinton Hall, no Scalia Hall, but there is now a dorm named 55 H Street. There is a building in the medical center called "Building D", and someone actually signed off on that, too.
Henle is a fine name but he got the name largely as a going away present--the original plan was allegedly a Bicentennial theme with each of the buildings named after the 13 states. ("New Jersey" would have been a popular choice in the housing lottery.) It just speaks to a completely haphazard approach, one which the current trend of retrofitting building names of people who have nothing to do with GU are no better.
As for Therese Markham, she received the John Carroll Award in no small part because it was held in Wilmington that year and recipients from the local area were popular choices to draw alumni attendance from that area. Had it been in Cleveland or Richmond that year, she may not have been selected.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Sept 17, 2022 20:10:18 GMT -5
It just speaks to a completely haphazard approach, one which the current trend of retrofitting building names of people who have nothing to do with GU are no better. One name (Arrupe) does not make a trend... unless you want to argue that Anne Marie Becraft and Isaac Hawkins have "nothing to do with GU," which... is not an argument I think you want to make.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Sept 17, 2022 20:47:06 GMT -5
One name (Arrupe) does not make a trend... unless you want to argue that Anne Marie Becraft and Isaac Hawkins have "nothing to do with GU," which... is not an argument I think you want to make. Arrupe is not a trend but a sign of the bureaucracy at work. Were there no other candidates?
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Sept 17, 2022 21:40:32 GMT -5
One name (Arrupe) does not make a trend... unless you want to argue that Anne Marie Becraft and Isaac Hawkins have "nothing to do with GU," which... is not an argument I think you want to make. Arrupe is not a trend but a sign of the bureaucracy at work. Were there no other candidates? Isn't being "at work" what bureaucracies are supposed to do? The alternative is that they... not work? I would submit that Father Arrupe arguably had a more direct impact on Georgetown than Loyola and Xavier... and, if you take a broad view, Ryder as well.
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Post by DFW HOYA on Sept 17, 2022 22:00:36 GMT -5
I would submit that Father Arrupe arguably had a more direct impact on Georgetown than Loyola and Xavier... and, if you take a broad view, Ryder as well. James Ryder is an underrated figure in Georgetown lore and probably deserves more recognition than that nondescript building on East Campus. In no particular order he eliminated the University debt of the 1830's, was a founding member of the Corporation, built the Observatory, founded the Medical School, allowed Holy Cross students to get their degrees from Georgetown, was a president at Holy Cross, and later help found St. Joseph's in Philadelphia and was its second president. And, if it counts for anything, he's a Georgetown alumnus. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Ryder
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Sept 18, 2022 14:37:46 GMT -5
I would submit that Father Arrupe arguably had a more direct impact on Georgetown than Loyola and Xavier... and, if you take a broad view, Ryder as well. James Ryder is an underrated figure in Georgetown lore and probably deserves more recognition than that nondescript building on East Campus. In no particular order he eliminated the University debt of the 1830's, was a founding member of the Corporation, built the Observatory, founded the Medical School, allowed Holy Cross students to get their degrees from Georgetown, was a president at Holy Cross, and later help found St. Joseph's in Philadelphia and was its second president. And, if it counts for anything, he's a Georgetown alumnus. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._RyderThis is all well and good and true. And considering how unremarkable and forgotten most Georgetown presidents are (if they're lucky, as opposed to being consigned to ignominy like Mulledy and McSherry), having his name on a building alongside the two architects of the Society... well, that's pretty good company for a Jesuit! Having said that, Georgetown was a small, regional institution when he started and a small, regional institution when be departed. Enrollment remained south of 200 (though it did rise afterwards, undoubtedly thanks in some part to his efforts) and the stage was set for near-extinction during the Civil War due to the heavily Southern pool from which the student body was drawn. Meanwhile, modern Georgetown's emergence is heavily shaped by Arrupe and the Jesuits' response to Vatican II. Whatever philosophical disagreements Henle, Healy, and O'Donovan (and, for that matter, DeGioia) may have had with Arrupe, they were clearly both influenced by the direction in which he took the Society and the beneficiaries of the permission structure he created for transforming GU into a Top 25, global institution. Back to the original point, though... it's true that the approach to naming has been rather scattershot, and things like "Village C" and "Building D" are an embarrassment. But naming, and monuments generally, has long been a complicated endeavor, and it's one that is only getting more fraught. A considered and deliberate - if inevitably bureaucratic - approach seems preferable to the deprioritized treatment of years past.
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