No proposal to spend the $3.4 million Student Activities Fee Endowment has received as much attention as the “Bring Back Healy Pub” movement, and for good reason. The proposal is well thought-out and shows great promise for the University’s campus culture. Both the endowment commission and the Georgetown community should embrace this historic opportunity and bring back the Healy Pub.
The plan to bring the pub to campus is not the outlandish dream of a group of thirsty undergraduates, but rather the result of much research and hard work performed by a handful of current students and alumni supporters. Detractors have raised many questions about the feasibility of a drinking establishment in the center of campus: potential apprehension from University administrators, competition from other bars and restaurants like the Tombs or Epicurean, and the opportunity cost of other options forgone, to name a few. But these concerns do not hold as much water as they appear to. For one, the administration has signaled its openness to the idea in meetings with the pub’s coordinators, in part due to the fact that the Healy Pub would hardly be an ordinary bar. As the proposal states, the new restaurant would primarily be a student study and relaxation space, open to everyone on a campus that suffers from an awful lack of student space. This, along with the fact that it would be student-owned and operated, would make it a welcome and viable alternative for undergraduates who don’t feel comfortable at the upperclassman hangout of the Tombs or the overpriced graduate and medical school hotspot Epicurean.
The costs of a new pub in Healy would need to be more fully explored upon its approval, but similar establishments have come with a price tag well within the committee’s budget. Harvard completed a similar project, the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub, with a $3 million budget. Organizers of the Georgetown movement said in their proposal that alumni have already expressed interest in donating funds to ensure the return of the beloved establishment. If that’s the case, the pub could likely be built with SAFE money to spare for some less expensive proposals, like campus murals or new furniture for Lauinger. Either way, there is no alternative spending plan that holds such promise in improving student life and campus culture as the Pub.
It is refreshing to see members of the student body take on a big idea, and do so with the competence and workmanship that has embodied this project thus far. Many lament the fact that Lauinger library is the center of Georgetown’s campus life. A pub would provide a unique and valuable space for generations of students to come.
Well thought-out? It’s not even proof read.
“Never again will students will have the opportunity to decide how to spend millions of their own dollars.”