News

What’s happening on campus and in D.C.



News

City on a Hill: So long Solberg!

Commander Andrew Solberg recently left his post as the leader of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Second District, which includes Georgetown. Hopefully his replacement, Commander Mark Carter, will change MPD’s attitude toward Georgetown students.

Editorials

The Pope visits D.C.

As part of his first trip to America, the Pope will speak with 200 Catholic university and college presidents today. Since he arrived on Tuesday, Pope Benedict XVI met with President Bush and various Washington dignitaries, celebrated his 81st birthday and held mass at Nationals Park this morning. Prior to tonight’s discussion, at the Catholic University of America, several Georgetown papal experts speculated about what issues the Pope will address during his stay.

News

GUSA passes funding budget

The Georgetown University Student Association Senate voted 24 to zero with four abstentions to approve the $310,000 Student Activities budget for next year, allowing GUSA President Pat Dowd (SFS ’09) and Vice President James Kelly (COL ’09) to go ahead with their Summer Fellows program. Representatives of the six funding boards and GUSA drew up the budget at the Funding Board meeting last Wednesday.

News

Biden harangues Bush

“We cannot afford another four years of Republican stewardship over our national security,” Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) said at the outset of his lengthy denunciation of the Bush Administration’s policies in Gaston Hall on Thursday.

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H*yas hold Choice Week

On Tuesday, about 50 students and teachers stopped by a H*yas for Choice table in Red Square to guess the number of condoms in a large jar. The game was one of many activities, from a pro-choice panel discussion to a sex-education trivia night, that H*yas for Choice has sponsored this week as part of the second annual Choice Week at Georgetown.

News

Brownback backs religion in politics

Senator Sam Brownback (R–Kan.) emphasized the importance of faith in public policy to “ensure that human dignity is at the center of everything” during a talk last night in Copley Formal Lounge. Following a short address, the Senator, who is best known for his evangelical religious views, talked with University President John DeGioia and answered questions from the audience.

News

Union Jack: Of mortgages and MSBers

It was easy for people like me—freshmen, liberal arts majors—to ignore 2007’s rumbles of a subprime mortgage meltdown. I barely blinked in December when Bear Stearns, one of the largest underwriters of mortgage bonds in the nation, announced losses of $854 million. But for Georgetown students readying themselves to enter the banking and finance job market this fall or next, these economic tremors are making the employment search an uncertain task.

News

Bloomberg goes green

“For far too long environmentalism has gotten pitted against economic development,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday in Gaston Hall. “Going green is the best and indeed only pro-growth strategy.”

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Funding boards hash out next year’s budget

At last night’s annual funding meeting, Georgetown University Student Association President Pat Dowd (SFS ’09) and Vice President James Kelly’s (COL ’09) proposed GUSA Summer Fellows program was allocated $10,820.35—$29,000 less than they had requested. Representatives from GUSA, the Student Activities Commission, the Georgetown Programming Board, the Center for Social Justice, the Performing Arts Activities Commission, the Advisory Board for Club Sports and Media Board divvied up next year’s $310,000 Student Activity Fees. In addition to detailing their funding requests, many of the boards discussed plans for reducing their reserve funds, which cumulatively total more than $800,000.

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Epicurean to open by end of April

About four years after the initial proposal to put a restaurant in the former Darnall cafeteria, Epicurean & Co. General Manager Hieu Pham said that Epicurean’s restaurant should open in Darnall by the end of April. No specific date has been chosen yet

News

$800,000 in unused funds

The Georgetown University Student Association recently conducted an audit of several student advisory boards and found that six umbrella student groups—the Student Activities Commission, the Media Board, the Georgetown Program Board, the Performing Arts Advisory Council, the Center for Social Justice and Club Sports—are holding onto more than $800,000 in contingency accounts.

News

GUGS offends

The Georgetown University Grilling Society has decided to delay the sale of shirts that read “GUGS: Grade A, Size D” in response to accusations of sexism by members of several prominent campus groups. These students have also objected to the name of the GUGS event “Grills Gone Wild Week,” to be held later this month.

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Murdoch defends News Corp

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is just like the Jesuits, he told a mostly-full Gaston Hall yesterday, “except we don’t insist on vows of poverty or chastity.”

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City on a Hill: Hope for a healthier D.C.

On Tuesday, Councilmember David Catania (I-At Large) introduced one of the most promising pieces of legislation to come before the Council in recent memory: the “Healthy D.C.” plan, which would allow the District to provide subsidized health insurance for residents.

Editorials

GU holds its first Women’s Week

Feminist author and blogger Jessica Valenti wanted to know what words came to Georgetown students’ minds when they heard the word “feminism.” The responses from the predominantly female audience included words such as “angry” and “bra-burning.”

“Most young women are feminists, have feminist values, but are too freaked out to use the word,” Valenti said.

News

CAG confronts student noise

Noise violations top the list of concerns for a new “task force” of University administrators and neighborhood residents, according to Citizen Association of Georgetown President Denise Cunningham’s March newsletter.

“The escalation of noise in the neighborhood is an issue that needs to be constantly addressed,” Cunningham said in an interview.

News

Union Jack: Obama gets Georgetown’s race relations problems

New York Times op-ed contributor Bob Herbert suggested on Tuesday that Senator Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) March 18 speech on race, which gained publicity for its willingness to tackle a difficult topic, should be required reading in classrooms across the country. He may be years removed from a college campus, but Herbert has the right idea. Obama’s claim that society still needs inflammatory remarks to drive people to action is certainly relevant to Georgetown’s campus.

News

Arming DPS

Some Department of Public Safety officers have started to carry pepper spray and batons and wear protective vests, and DPS hopes to have all officers trained and equipped by the end of March.

The University committed to the initiative at the end of August 2007 after requests by DPS officers for the equipment, according to University spokesperson Julie Green Bataille.

News

News Hit

Cabbies take meters to court In a continuation of the months-long struggle between D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) and the city’s taxicab drivers, a hearing will be held today in... Read more

News

New prez, new plans

After being officially sworn in at Monday night’s GUSA senate meeting as the new GUSA President and Vice President, Pat Dowd (SFS ’09) and James Kelly (COL ’09) laid out an ambitious timeline for accomplishing their three major initiatives: a “GUSA Summer Fellows” program, a take-your-professors-to-lunch program and a modification of the alcohol policy.