Georgetown University President Jack DeGioia recently sat down with representatives of several campus newspapers to discuss issues important to students.
The U.S. News and World Report rankings just came out and once again we probably were further behind than we deserved to be. How much of that do you think is affected by the endowment?0
All of it.
And how do you think things are coming on that situation?
I think U.S. News and World Report rankings … place a disproportionate emphasis on endowment size that shows up as it relates to their category “faculty resources.” And I think if we had a larger endowment than the 76th-ranked in the country, then we would have a claim to being more highly ranked in the U.S. News and World Report rankings … We’re in the quiet phase of a major fundraising campaign that I expect will have a significant impact on the Georgetown community, but I doubt it will ever enable us to significantly change our position in U.S. News and World Report, given the emphasis that that has on ranking.
About the new alcohol policy: It’s on a lot of students’ minds, what were your feelings about the alcohol policy and what led you to that conclusion?
I know how difficult it can be to wrestle with these issues. I happened to be the dean in 1986-87 when the alcohol age changed from 18 to 21 so I can only, you know, I can identify with the challenge that he [Senior Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson] wrestles with and part of it is this challenge between recognizing the needs that young people have to express themselves and to make choices through their own freedom, and yet on the other hand recognize that we have laws to uphold and a community where we need to provide the best possible framework for safety and security … This was widely discussed over the course of last year … I think there was some hope that that would help mitigate some of the impact … I think part of what we’re wrestling with now is the realization of the implications … And we did authorize the funding of some new activities and I think we’ve seen some of that already—the event that took place last Saturday night in the library was one of those. We had an event on Copley lawn where the Grilling Society [was] present in all their glory. Tremendous turnouts for these events, very encouraging … So I hope that the combination enables us to strike that balance.
The gentleman from New Zealand who spoke at commencement [Peter Cooper] … mentioned that you taught at a Communist university in China.
[Laughs] I don’t teach there, I lectured at the Central Party School … Fudan University is the lead university in Shanghai, we have a formal memorandum of understanding … The Central Party School is—it’s hard to describe using the analogies of American universities, because it’s not really like any American universities. It’s essentially a place where senior government officials—actually where extremely important and promising government officials go for ongoing training, education and development … The people studying there are rather significant, and the previous president of the Central Party School was Hu Jintao … We felt when given the opportunity to have a relationship with them that we would be able to expose our students and faculty to opportunities through this relationship that were unprecedented, so we’re doing that now. We hosted a visit from the Central Party School here in May; we had a seminar with members of the school; we’ll be going back there this coming year … What we hope we can do is develop this relationship so that we can create opportunities that we would never be able to provide for you and other members of the community without exposure to the leaders, future leaders of China.
What were the effects of our basketball team going to the Final Four?
From the perspective of admissions or fundraising, or from the economic development of the university, I’m not sure we will necessarily see significant changes of year over year as a result of the Final Four tournament. I think what you see, however, is a manifestation in a very public way of Georgetown at its very best … While it’s hard, for example, to go on national television and extol the virtues of a particular academic department, and get enthusiastic support from a big audience about that department, the conduct of our basketball program is able to attract lots of interest and lots of attention, and I think it’s so significant for us because it is so consistent with the values, the character and the identity of the university.
After the construction of the new MSB Center, what will be the fate of the Car Barn, current home of the Business School?
No, I don’t think anybody could answer that question right now. Now the Car Barn—we don’t own the Car Barn, it’s been our temporary home for—particularly for our graduate program in business, but it’s also our home for our public policy program, and for the center for our graduate program in communications, culture and technology, and lots of other very important pieces of the university are there.
