As a graduating senior, I often reflect on my time at Georgetown. I have mused on how a chance encounter led to my breaking a campus news story, how arriving early to a capture the flag game on Cooper Field helped me land my first internship and how my friends and I honed our hand-eye coordination battling armies of cockroaches in Darnall Hall. But most of all, I have thought about my time in the Philodemic Society, Georgetown’s student debate society, and the oldest secular student organization on campus.
When I heard there was an effort by some misguided Philodemicians to partner with the Georgetown administration to alter the Philodemic Hall — the physical representation of almost 200 years of enriching, inspiring, and civil student discourse — I was heartbroken. I also knew that a vital part of being a Philodemician is taking a stand. So, during my final semester, I have decided to demonstrate my gratitude to the Philodemic Society by joining in solidarity with students and graduates to speak out in support of its history and traditions. I invite you to join me.
During my first semester, when I was still getting used to life on the Hilltop, I sat in on Philodemic debates with no intentions of speaking. I was captivated by the confidence, eloquence and boldness of the speakers, and spent most of my time taking notes on how to emulate them. In my second semester I was called on. Even though I stumbled, I was hooked. A year-and-a-half later, despite the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, I became a member.
Eventually, I took for granted the grandeur of Philodemic Hall and our long history of student discourse. Great minds were formed and strengthened in the crucible of debate that is the Philodemic Hall. From its start, the society debated the most glaring issues at the time — abolition and slavery — and from the Philodemic president’s chair came the rallying cry for a campus-wide student walk-out to demand that the Jesuit priests desegregate Georgetown College.
The University President’s Office has taken it upon itself to reimagine the interior decor, design, woodcraft, artistry and historic content of Philodemic Hall. The administration has convinced a donor to give a few million dollars and now they are off, degrading an endowed historic space into a multipurpose meeting room with a completely different style of decor.
Like Gaston Hall and Riggs Library, the Hall is classified as a protected interior room of Healy Hall, a designated National Historic Landmark. For this reason, I have joined with students and alumni to establish “The Sodality for the Historic Preservation of Philodemic Hall.”
Some students advocated for the removal of just a few portraits from the room (mostly of people related to Georgetown University or the Philodemic Society who either fought for the Confederacy, or had family ties to it), but the university has taken advantage of this activism. It has instead removed all portraits and pitched an expensive alteration of Philodemic Hall, as if that is what students requested. No matter — the Sodality does not need to engage with the years-long debate about the portrait removals. Its sole purpose will be the preservation of Philodemic Hall. To borrow the words of William F. Buckley Jr., it simply “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no other is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
I prefer to leave Philodemic Hall unaltered, and now set off to restore it. But, one could install portraits of a few key members of the Philodemic from the 20th century on the long-standing and historic wall of portraits. One could also replace just a very few others, chosen for whatever reason, all without altering the Hall’s “Victorian” decor and design (a gem of the university), or changing its historic, endowed purpose as stated in official documents: “Debate.” Philodemic Hall embodies the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum’s place of privilege for Rhetoric. It honors Georgetown’s heritage perhaps better than any other space, and it deserves — even demands — to be protected. We cannot ensure success in preventing the execution of the university’s plans, but we pledge that we will do everything in our power to prevent the destruction of this sacred space.
If you would like to join our effort, please reach out at: [email protected]
Justin Drewer is a senior in the College.