Georgetown College history

Partisan differences at the start of the war became so hostile, the College was forced to shut down until 1863.

By 1867, enrollment had grown to seventy-six students, and, that same year, one of the earliest female seminaries was founded at the college.

Healy dramatically reformed the university’s curriculum with a new emphasis on history and the natural sciences and started construction on the Flemish Romanesque-style Healy Hall in 1877.

After deciding to pursue a career in architecture, Smith moved to Chicago in 1937 to enroll at the New Bauhaus school, a short-lived design school established and directed by Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy.

Soon after, Smith’s first sculpture truly made from steel, Black Box (1962), was executed by a commercial fabricator.

In 1967 Smith had his first solo exhibition, at the Wadsworth Atheneum, and then appeared on the cover of the October issue of Time magazine.

The women’s movement began to take hold, and women were accepted into the College for the first time in 1969.

During the university’s bicentennial year (1988-89), United States President Ronald Reagan provided the opening address to kick off the yearlong celebration, the culmination of which included a reunion ball with over 3,500 guests at DC’s Union Station.

In 2001, John J. DeGioia became Georgetown’s 48th and first lay president.

In 2005, Georgetown College and the Kentucky Baptist Convention redefined their formal relationship.

Since 2014, 2 history majors have earned a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, and another history major won the award for best undergraduate paper on world history written by a Kentucky college student.