The University formally inaugurated John J. DeGioia as Georgetown’s 48th President Saturday in front of an audience of students, faculty, staff, and Georgetown community members at D.A.R. Constitution Hall.
In his inaugural address, DeGioia outlined three “sets of questions” regarding Georgetown’s identity and tradition, focusing on the academic “tensions” inherently characteristic at the University, Georgetown’s role as a Catholic and Jesuit institution and social responsibility in education.
Both the inaugural ceremony and inaugural concert, featuring the jazz group the Dave Brubeck Quartet took place at D.A.R. Constitution Hall. A reception after the ceremony was held at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center.
According to Julie Green Bataille, assistant vice president for communications, about 2,000 people attended both the inauguration ceremony and concert. Notable attendants included Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington and the two living past Georgetown presidents, the 44th president, Gerald J. Campbell, S.J. and the 47th president, Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J.
McCarrick entered D.A.R. Constitution Hall just ahead of DeGioia in the opening procession and sat immediately to DeGioia’s right. McCarrick opened the ceremony with a prayer.
“In the midst of the trauma our country faces this day gives us joy,” McCarrick said. “Today is a special day in the long life of this University.”
Representatives from students, faculty and staff, among others, gave speeches directed at DeGioia. In addition to welcoming him to Georgetown, some called for specific agenda items.
Areto Imoukhuede (LAW ‘02) asked DeGioia to increase diversity among Georgetown’s faculty, to create credited externship programs and to reduce tuition.
“We learn among a diverse group of students,” Imoukhuede said. “We must not ignore the necessity that we also learn from a diverse group of scholars.”
Imoukhuede said that Georgetown can demonstrate its commitment to social justice by giving students academic credit for the work they do in the community.
“[Credited externships] enable service without trading academic success,” he said.
High tuition keeps many students from considering a Georgetown education, Imoukhuede said.
“Tuition cannot increase exponentially forever without turning an inclusive institution into an exclusive club,” he said.
Steven Foster, a staff member of University Facilities and Student Housing said he remembered when DeGioia was the resident director in the New South dormitory. Foster had come to fix the air conditioning in the building, when he and DeGioia had a long talk.
“What I remember most vividly is the interest you showed in me,” Foster said to DeGioia. Foster said he credited DeGioia with giving him the support that helped him eventually earn his bachelor’s degree in Information Science Management.
James Storms, S.J., the Maryland Provincial of the Society of Jesus, said he was entrusting DeGioia with the mission that the Jesuits brought to Georgetown when it was founded. DeGioia is the first lay person to run any of the Jesuit colleges or universities in the United States.
“I am most grateful to you, Dr. DeGioia, for accepting this mission,” Storms said. “We Jesuits stand with you.”
Storms said DeGioia must concentrate on finding creative responses to changing times and also on the Jesuit commitment to social justice.
According to J. Bryan Hehir (HON ‘98) said DeGioia’s presidency was part of the Catholic Church’s call to recast the role of lay people within the Church.
“The question of the laity has become, for us, a necessity and no longer an invitation,” Hehir said. “The leadership of the University now passes into the hands of a lay person as happens and will happen with all Catholic social institution.”
Brian McDermott, S.J., ended the inaugural ceremony by quoting from the Georgetown mission statement.
“Today Georgetown University recommits itself as a Catholic and Jesuit, student-centered research university.”
DeGioia first spoke on Georgetown’s future as an academic institution, focusing on the importance of tension, debate and critique in the livelihood of any university. DeGioia encouraged debate and questioning between students, faculty, and administration.
“There are a set of tensions that characterize all great universities … These tensions are powerfully present in our aspirations and our strategic choices, certainly in how we use our time and resources,” he said.
From such inquiry, DeGioia also spoke about the growth of critique in academic life. By critiquing culture, DeGioia explained, students can speak out on issues such as racism, sexism, and other forms of injustice.
However, such critique must always be balanced by an environment conducive to creating culture, DeGioia said.
“So we have dual drives at work?to create culture and to critique culture?and those drives bring us inevitably into states of tension and conflict. Our function as a university community is to sustain an environment in which both of these things happen,” DeGioia said. “The unique role of the university in our society is to sustain these two responsibilities in conflict, in tension.”
Secondly, DeGioia addressed Georgetown’s identity as a Jesuit university. DeGioia emphasized the University’s responsibilities and resources as religious institution, focusing on the cooperation of the two to investigate the mystery that is spirituality.
“A fundamental animating dimension of the university is to push against and push through the blocks to understanding; the blocks to knowing; blocks to freedom; blocks to human flourishing,” DeGioia said.
In the midst of hardship, DeGioia called on the community to focus on love, compassion and “moments of grace” in efforts to “grapple with the greatest mystery,” of loving one’s enemy.
“The greatest mystery is to grapple with this command … It is in this most difficult and challenging engagement with this impossible command that we come to understand blocks within ourselves,” DeGioia said.
Not only did DeGioia promote inquiry into the University’s religious traditions and responsibilities, but he also encouraged the campus community to adopt service learning and moral justice into every aspect of the Georgetown educational experience.
“Living these questions relates very definitely to the fundamental challenge we face of forming young men and women to accept responsibility for their privileged places in the world,” he said. “Our fundamental challenge is to break through the blocks to fulfilling our obligations as human beings, to one another.”
According to DeGioia, faculty research, the building of a diverse student body and the institution of a need-blind full-need financial aid program all help alleviate the problem of injustice both locally and on a larger scale, they are not the answer to the problem either individually or as a group.
“For Georgetown, the service of justice means engaging these harsh realities head on, knowing that the questions they raise about our priorities or our wealth as a country and as a community will sometimes make us uncomfortable,” DeGioia said.
In addition to his three main questions for defining the University’s identity, DeGioia also addressed the University’s response and resources regarding the attacks of Sept. 11th. According to DeGioia, the terrorist attacks forced all American universities to review their focus in light of the tragedy. DeGioia emphasized Georgetown’s wealth of support resources and encouraged the community to use them to their full value.
“Georgetown has invaluable resources to offer a world struggling with crises both urgent and profound,” he said.
After DeGioia’s inaugural address, Hans Ziegler (SFS ‘63), a member of the Board of Directors and Edmond Villani (CAS ‘68), vice chair of the Board of Directors gave DeGioia the Georgetown seal, which represents the University’s heritage. Chair of the Board of Directors John Kennedy gave DeGioia the charter, which empowers the president to confer degress.
Kennedy said he believed that DeGioia’s speech covered all the relevant issues facing him. Kennedy said he did not believe the inauguration marked any change in DeGioia’s presidency.
“The inauguration is not an issue of change,” Kennedy said. “It’s an issue of introducing the new president to the world.”
Green Bataille said the school has no estimation for the cost of the inaugural events.
Rose Magruder, a representative of D.A.R. Constitution Hall, said the Hall costs $5,000 to rent for an evening.
According to Green Bataille, all 3,702 tickets for the inauguration and concert were given out. At the inauguration, six sections of seats remained completely empty.
About 550 tickets for the ceremony and 400 tickets for the concert were available for students, Lecture Fund Chair Brian McCabe (SFS ‘02) said. McCabe said the Lecture Fund, which was responsible for handing out tickets to students, gave away approximately 350 tickets for the ceremony and all 400 for the concert.
McCabe said he thought many of the students with tickets decided not to attend the event. He said D.A.R. Constitution Hall was only about two-thirds full.
“There was less student energy for the ceremony itself … The concert was the more popular of the inauguration events.”
