Features

A deep dive into the most important issues on campus.



Features

Georgetown jams: How GU Jam Sesh is building a community for Georgetown’s burgeoning music scene

From the outside, Georgetown’s music scene often seems limited to a few visible student groups. But a capella singers aren’t the Hilltop’s only musically-inclined students. Through its efforts to build a community of student musicians, GU Jam Sesh is providing an outlet for diversified creative musical expression at Georgetown, despite the obstacles it faces from neighbors and University noise policies.

Features

“Second-class faculty”: The hidden struggles of Georgetown’s adjunct professors

The concerns faced by adjunct professors at Georgetown are many, stretching far beyond access to permanent office space. Adjuncts at Georgetown and other institutions of higher learning across the United States receive salaries as low as half of those of tenure-track professors, seldom have access to any health or retirement benefits, and must cope with job insecurity year after year. Recognizing these hardships, Georgetown’s adjunct faculty voted in favor to form a union under SEIU Local 500 in May of this year.

Features

The Hilltop at your fingertips: Online learning at Georgetown

Last week, Georgetown joined the ranks of Harvard and MIT in offering a range of new digital learning alternatives by launching its first Massive Open Online Course. Through these projects, Georgetown is rapidly moving into the technological arena by making online learning a substantial part of the undergraduate experience. While this puts Georgetown on par with its tech-savvy peers and presents students with a cheaper, more diverse course selection, faculty members on the Hilltop and elsewhere are raising concerns about the pedagogical effectiveness of online courses, in addition to the broader implications for higher education.

Features

The Fashion Issue: Fall 2013

This season is a melding of hard and soft, meeting at a blurred edge. Pastel colors come together with leather panels, studded sweaters meet tartan skirts. Men’s prints meet womenswear in a houndstooth dress—the bold pattern is almost a neutral. Mixed-media coats paired with delicate, single-soled heels. Mild decadence is in the details, with rich textiles and prints coming together in moody hues. Welcome to fall.

Features

In the Red: The burden of student debt at Georgetown

Leah Brown (COL ‘16) wakes up at 9:30 a.m., finally giving in to her alarm after hitting snooze a couple times. She rolls out of bed and pads into the hallway, slipping into the empty bathroom. After getting ready and dressed, she breakfasts on a piece of fruit she swiped from Leo’s the night before. She has to choose her Leo’s meals carefully and stretch out her 10 meals so they last the week.

Features

Life Beyond the Rainbow: LGBTQ at Georgetown

In the past year, Georgetown has been cited in national media as a trailblazer in LGBTQ issues for a Catholic university. Although seeing students sporting “I am” shirts and toting rainbow flags around campus feels as normal today to the average student as Nantucket Reds and Sperrys, activists say Georgetown still has a long way to go before it can truly call itself “gay-friendly.”

Features

The Creative Approach: Engaging the arts and rearranging the education equation at Georgetown

Do bioethics and architectural design have anything in common? What about international politics and theatrical performance, or even the visual arts? Much more than you might guess, especially here at Georgetown.

Features

All Hands on Deck: Risks and Rewards of Georgetown Sailing

Despite a general lack of knowledge about college sailing, people seem quick to write the sport off as minor—or worse, boring. On the contrary, Georgetown’s sailing team has proven to be one of the University’s most successful varsity sports programs of the last decade, having secured the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association/Gill National Championship twice, including last year, and having placed five times in the last nine years. And what’s more, the high physical risk sailors face in what turns out to be an extremely dangerous sport challenges anyone who thinks of sailing as a leisurely activity.

Features

The Bar Issue: Three Hoyas walked into a bar…

With the addition of two new SafeRide routes to Dupont and Adams Morgan and the lifting of the one keg rule for on-campus parties, one thing has become painfully clear to the student population: The administration either wants us on campus or miles away from it. But, despair not! D.C. offers many a night time dives, ranging from laid-back beer gardens to lively joints to dance the night away. So, if you find yourself already tired of hosting sticky, Burnett’s-fueled ragers under the watchful eye of DPS, check out the Voice’s suggestions for a quality night out at the District’s bars. Just don’t be too loud getting out of the taxi on your way back to campus.

Features

Bridging the Gap: Stories from Hoyas who’ve been there

A Hoya's first year on the Hilltop is often filled with new challenges, new friendships, new experiences—new everything. In our first-ever NSO Special Edition, we here at the Voice have compiled stories from our own first years at Georgetown.

Features

2013 Voice Photo Contest Winners

Check out the winners to our annual photo contest!

Features

Friday Night Plights: The health concerns of club athletes

The medical attention given to club programs is not held to the same standards as that given to their varsity counterparts. Although it has been a concern, these athletes are not given access to a trainer—considered an essential resource at advanced levels of competition.

Features

The limits on free expression: Red tape and Red Square

In 1989 the University implemented the speech and expression policy, which guarantees members of the University access to public space on campus to discuss issues, as well as demarcates the boundaries of Georgetown’s unrestricted free-speech zone to Red Square.

Features

The big ‘O’—Organic and local food comes to Georgetown and D.C.

For years, Georgetown students’ access to locally-grown food was limited. But with the establishment of the Georgetown Farmers’ Market in the spring of 2011, a variety of vendors have been attracted to the opportunities selling produce at a university provides.

Features

Voice Spring Fashion

This season we ventured into the District to showcase a mix of vintage and new. From Malcom X Park to cafes in Adams Morgan to the Sculpture Garden at the National Mall, D.C. is the perfect place to get out and explore. Now is the time to shed your winter layers and strut spring styles.

Features

A weighty issue: Eating disorders at Georgetown

One. Two. Three. I stood over the toilet, staring down a toothbrush clutched in my hand. I couldn’t stop. I drove the toothbrush to the back of my throat, and I doubled over and gripped the walls of the stall as what was once my dinner burned my insides.

Features

The vagina dialogue: Women’s integration at Georgetown

In the fall of 1969, Georgetown’s College of Arts and Sciences admitted its first class of female students. This first class of 50 women were the first to break a long tradition of single-sex education in the College, which then constituted the majority of the undergraduate student body.

Features

I’m gonna pop some tags: Thrifting adventures on the East Coast

My shopping retreats went from thrift stores Housing Works on East 23rd St to chain stores like H&M and Zara. The megalithic fashion factories could not quench my sartorial thirst. I anxiously awaited the occasional weekend trip home to New York City where I would reserve an entire day to get thrifty.

Features

Around the world in 50 years: Where the nerds become the rockstars

“You can literally feel the energy of these 20 people who you’ve been working with for a year to create a conference,” said Ishita Kohli (SFS ’13). “I definitely had that perfect sense of fulfillment that I had ownership over an extremely amazing endeavor.” Students and alumni reflect on the meaning of NAIMUN’s 50th conference this coming weekend.

Features

Out of left field: The Voice‘s 2013 politics survey

Georgetown University was ranked as the second-most politically active college. Whether it’s the proximity of the Hilltop to the Hill, or the many political figures on campus, Georgetown has a reputation for a strong political culture. The Voice conducted an online reader survey to see if this reputation holds true.