Georgetown University history

A year after the complete restoration of the order in 1814, the College secured its first charter from the United States government.

President James Madison signed into law Georgetown's congressional charter on March 1, 1815, creating the first federal university charter, which allowed it to confer degrees, with the first bachelor's degrees being awarded two years later.

In 1817, the school awarded its first two bachelor’s degrees.

To raise money for Georgetown and other schools in 1838, Maryland Jesuits conducted a mass sale of some 272 slaves to two Deep South plantations in Maringouin, Louisiana, from their six in Maryland, ending their slaveholding.

In 1844, the school received a corporate charter, under the name "The President and Directors of Georgetown College", affording the growing school additional legal rights.

In response to the demand for a local option for Roman Catholic students, the Medical School was founded in 1851.

After the founding of the Law Department in 1870, Healy and his successors hoped to bind the professional schools into a university, and focus on higher education.

When the Georgetown College Boat Club, the school's rowing team, was founded in 1876 it adopted two colors: blue, used for Union uniforms, and gray, used for Confederate uniforms.

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.

In 1880, he founded the Alumni Association.

That inscription, in Latin, greeting the visitors to the celebration of the completion of Georgetown’s first century in 1889, reminded them of the University’s unique origin as an American Catholic institution of higher learning.

The Washington Dental College was acquired in 1901.

The School of Foreign Service (SFS) was founded in 1919 by Edmund A. Walsh, to prepare students for leadership in diplomacy and foreign commerce.

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.

In 1944 the Graduate School admitted women for the first time.

The new hospital was opened in 1947.

The School of Nursing has admitted female students since its founding, and most of the university classes were made available to women on a limited basis by 1952.

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.

In 1975, Georgetown established the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, soliciting funds from the governments of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Libya as well as American corporations with business interests in the Middle East.

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.

Before 1996, crucifixes had hung only in hospital rooms and historic classrooms.

In 1998 it was renamed the McDonough School of Business in honor of alumnus Robert E. McDonough.

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

In October 2002, Georgetown University began studying the feasibility of opening a campus of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Qatar, when the non-profit Qatar Foundation first proposed the idea.

In December 2003, Georgetown completed the campaign after raising over $1 billion for financial aid, academic chair endowment, and new capital projects.

However, as of 2004, the hospital did perform research using embryonic stem cells.

Additionally, The Center for International and Regional Studies opened in 2005 at the new Qatar campus.

The McCourt School of Public Policy, founded in 2013, offers four graduate degree programs and nine dual degree programs.

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.