The Hilltop Faces Critical Juncture in Replacing Donahue

It’s Time for the Administration to Focus on Student Needs and Priorities

Georgetown enters the first semester of the 21century with a number of opportunities for self-improvement. First, there is the promised start of construction on the much-anticipated Southwest Quadrangle and MBNA Performing Arts Center. Then, there is the potential for a renewed commitment to Catholic education through the implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Most importantly for the future health of Georgetown’s campus culture, however, is the decision that a small group of faculty and students will make in the coming months to select the man or woman who will replace James A. Donahue as the new dean of students.

As far as moments in Georgetown history go, this one is critical. The search committee, formed by Provost Dorothy Brown, has the chance to make a powerful statement about Georgetown’s priorities by selecting a dean who is dedicated to fostering student initiative and empowerment. There is a deep-seated perception among campus leaders that the structure of Georgetown’s institutions – from the Office of Student Programs to the Student Activities Commission to GUSA – inhibit talented students from becoming involved in campus politics. One needs only to read last spring’s Report on Student Life to get a sense of student leaders’ disenchantment with Georgetown bureaucracy. The report is littered with colorful phrases like “stranglehold on student activism” and “paternalistic environment.” The search committee’s members – particularly the student participants – should demand an unqualified allegiance to the cause of correcting this problem from the candidates for dean.

One often hears this argument posed. An administrative structure that actively encourages involvement in meaningful activities will yield a greater amount of student satisfaction. This satisfaction will lead to more school spirit as Hoyas realize their increasing ability to make positive contributions to the campus community. As more students identify strongly with their alma mater, they will be more likely to make contributions as alumni. A larger endowment will mean more money invested in student activities, and a self-perpetuating cycle will ensue.

Practically speaking, it will be quite some time before the effects of such events become noticeable. Yet, a student-empowered Georgetown need not remain a city in speech, if the search committee uses its position wisely. First and foremost, it must ensure that the new dean will continue to follow the Report on Student Life’s timetables for increases in student club funding. While the $144,000 increase this year exceeded expectation, Georgetown’s annual activities budget is still just under $386,000, while that of comparable schools, like Duke and Brown, totaled $772,000 and $583,000, respectively, in 1998-99. It is surprising that Georgetown – a known lover of intercollegiate competition — can stomach this.

It is also crucial that the committee choose a candidate with a clear philosophy of the proactive and reactive responsibilities of the dean of student’s job. The reactive aspect has already been well demonstrated by Donahue, who mediated between warring factions with considerable aplomb both during the 1995 Georgetown Pub debate and the 1999 Georgetown Solidarity Committee sit-in. In fact, Donahue refers to himself as a broker for “The Culture Wars,” based on James Hunter’s book of that title. A key part of Donahue’s proactive agenda, however, has been based on town hall-style meetings and task force committees. He defends these agencies as means of promoting dialogue within the entire university community – stopping the culture wars before they start – but they are often perceived as the height of bureaucratic frivolity. (As Senior Class Committee chairman Ryan Murphy (COL ’00) once pointed out, Georgetown is not a direct democracy.)

This perception has detracted from the positive aspects of Donahue’s tenure as dean. It was he, after all, who eliminated the senior associate dean of students position and reapportioned that dean’s salary to student clubs. Nevertheless, Donahue’s successor would do well to redefine the role in more proactive terms that challenge the accepted mores of administrative departments and return responsibility to the students. He or she could make this position clear from the onset by taking a stand on any one of numerous issues at the fore among student activists today. It could be as simple as finding the Georgetown Program Board a permanent venue for concerts – one of the most unrealized forums for students to celebrate a common interest – or as profound as allowing a student, for the first time, to have a vote on the University board of directors – a move that this administration, including Donahue, considers unfeasible.

The fact that Brown realizes the need for student input on the search committee is evidence of her awareness of the pivotal part that students play in university life. Here, there is no cause for complaint or skepticism. Students will sit on the committee, help make the decision and defend their cause univocally and unequivocally. They will be an example to other students, and a source of university pride. So long as the future of student life remains tentative, there is at least some comfort in this.

For What It’s Worth appears every other Tuesday in The Hoya.