Charles Nailen/The Hoya President DeGioia discussed issues raised by students at a town hall meeting Monday evening.
With a number of prominent current issues facing Georgetown University, President John J. DeGioia spoke to a group of about 20 students and faculty members in McNeir Auditorium on Monday evening. He addressed a number of topics in a question and answer session, ranging from tuition cost to the present war in Iraq.
“For months, the threat of war has made us think about just war and our role as a world superpower,” DeGioia said, setting the current scene of the U.S. “We have been living with unease about our own safety, preparing for a possible terrorist attack.”
Citing education as the university’s first priority, DeGioia noted that faculty members are also knowledgeable on the issues of civil liberties, bioterrorism and international health. Furthermore, he praised the valuable resources provided by the university’s various study centers.
DeGioia described the “nature of discourse” with the inherent consequence of people of goodwill disagreeing. “[The university] is a safe place where issues can be debated, discussed and fought over,” DeGioia said. “Conflict will occur, it is inevitable . but when you find it necessary to disagree, do it in the principle of open form . with dignified protest.”
He then briefly recapped the university’s position on the recent affirmative action controversy. “The university should be allowed to consider race and ethnicity for admission . to insure a broad variety of life experience,” DeGioia said. He attested to the university’s diversity as a community with students of numerous religions and ethnicities, with a caveat that “all students deserve respect.”
Shifting gears briefly to talk about security issues, DeGioia said that in days ahead the university will have to cope with a great deal. “Code orange is real here [in the District] and has an implication on how we behave,” he said.
In closing he urged students to “set a high standard of respect and caring for one another while remaining vigilant about [their] own safety and security.”
The forum was then opened up for questions from the student audience. One student asked about how the university could insure fair debate regarding recent legislation dealing with the Department of Homeland Security. DeGioia responded by noting that there are faculty members on both sides of the issue, as one Law Center faculty member was involved in the drafting of the Patriot Act while another is a leading opponent of such legislation.
In a follow-up question, DeGioia responded to concerns about the act’s inclusion of the SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) database, which was designed to centralize student-tracking information from various institutions. “We’ve been very involved in making sure [SEVIS] is implemented in a way that respects the culture of our community,” he said. “Today, I haven’t seen anything [regarding SEVIS] that compromises the academy or its values.”
Changing topics, DeGioia addressed a question regarding the university’s possible raising of tuition for coming years. He said that any increase will definitely be above the inflation rate. “Inflation is not good to determine the cost of education because there are costs imbedded in higher education that grow faster than the general inflation rate,” he said. He further stated that the university will look at general market conditions in the economic context and the increase for next year will probably be somewhere between four and one-half to five percent. “Full need financial aid enables us to cope with whatever happens with tuition increase.”
In regard to the 24-hour lockdown policy, DeGioia said it inhibits the sense of community when students cannot access the uslim prayer room in Copley Hall and other students cannot visit chaplains in buildings other than their own. DeGioia said that this is an important issue that is being given careful consideration. “It is not clear whether this is an appropriate response to safety and security after 9-11,” he said. “It is a very live question as the policy is not permanently in place.”
Admitting that he did not have the knowledge to give details about the sexual assault classification system on campus, he said that it has come out of a very careful community-based process. He also stated that the current policy was originally formulated in the disciplinary review committee and grew from there. “I will say that this is an area that has been contested . and we are now raising questions again to see if the answers from previous years is right for today.”
DeGioia also addressed the living wage debate for university workers. Defending the wages of university employees, he said that the controversy lay in the income of workers who are technically employed by other companies whose services are contracted by the university.
Finally, DeGioia was asked about the housing debacle by a concerned student who had been denied on-campus housing and now lacks the funds needed to live off-campus. “We thought it would be a struggle to fill the beds . Demand was more overwhelming than what we expected,” he said. He added that he is confident in the team headed by Director of Facilities and Student Housing Karen Frank, which is responsible for the situation. If nothing else, DeGioia said that the huge interest in on-campus housing was certainly a “vote of confidence in community life.”