Just like last year, Vox is helping you get on top of “news you can use” with an excessively comprehensive review of last year’s important news stories. You’ve already heard of foolish things former freshman have done. Now, we cover the other on-campus issues that made headlines; Healy Pub, Uribe, and unions come after the jump.

Cash rules everything around me

The Georgetown University Student Association is your undergraduate student government.

Between a president, vice president, cabinet, and 25-member Senate (elected at-large and from dorms), the student association funds initiatives such as Summer Fellows, subsidized LSAT courses, free newspapers, and weekend GUTS busses.

Despite cleaning up its act in recent years, GUSA is also a source of endless entertainment: botched elections, interpersonal bickering, toothless resolutions, and campaign silliness.

Most importantly, though, GUSA allocates the student activities fee that students pay every semester.

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This week, Vox wanted to give the Class of 2015 a sneak peek into each of Georgetown University’s four undergraduate schools. Today, we take a look at the School of Foreign Service (SFS).

A strong core builds a strong degree, so they say

With a heavy load of core requirements, you’ll still be stuck in Comparative Political Systems while your friends in the College are taking drawing classes.

One of those required classes is the proseminar.  Freshmen SFS students takes this course—usually taught by a top professor—during their freshman fall in order to improve their writing and analytical skills.

Overall, the core consists of two government courses (international relations and comparative political systems), three history courses (one introductory course and two regional histories), and proficiency in a modern foreign language. Sincerest apologies to those who have spent countless years studying Latin—it counts for nothing in the SFS.

Perhaps to weed out the weak of constitution, the SFS also requires all of its students to take four—yes, four—economics courses, including international trade and international finance.

“I’m sorry, I have to go participate in (insert major world event)”

This might not make up for those four econ classes, but the School of Foreign Service faculty does boast a number of big shots in the domestic and international policy realms.

Dean Carol Lancaster has served as deputy administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, while her predecessor Robert Gallucci now runs the MacArthur Foundation. Other notable professors include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Council member Victor Cha, and former Special Envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios.

Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe served as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership this past year, an appointment that set off a firestorm of complaints from human rights activists. He and former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar, another controversial guest lecturer, left last spring.

“You mean you don’t know where Tuvalu is?”

Even though you’ll all take pretty much the same prerequisites, you may not all have the same tyrannical CPS professor. Map of the Modern World, meanwhile, unites all SFS students.

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On April 27, Fr. John Langan, S.J., rector of the Jesuit Community at Georgetown, signed a letter supporting Hollman Morris, a Colombian filmmaker and journalist who had been the target of a smear campaign on the part of ex-Colombian president and University lecturer Alvaro Uribe.

Morris’ documentaries accuse the Colombian government of human rights abuses. Because of these controversial films, Uribe’s government is implicated in an attempt to link him with the leftist FARC guerilla forces

Officials in Colombia are also thought to be behind the U.S. decision to deny Morris a visa when he was asked to speak at a Harvard journalist’s fellowship last summer. This decision was later reversed.

Langan’s letter came as Morris appeared on campus last week to promote his new film, Impunity, which details trials against alleged paramilitaries in Colombia.

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Colombian Ambassador Gabriel Luján has requested that the United States grant immunity to former Álvaro Uribe, according to Colombia Reports and La FM.

“The request is exceptional, because generally this type of immunity is granted to present heads of state, not former heads of state,” Colombia Reports‘ Adriaan Alsema added.

Uribe, the former president of Colombia who was invited to lecture on campus this year, was subpoenaed in early November to appear at a civil trial against Drummond Coal. However, he did not testify, not appear at the courthouse. According to the National Catholic Reporter, plantiffs in the case believe that Uribe may have known about a deal cut between Drummond and the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary group.

Luján, who was Colombia’s Minister of National Defense until Uribe’s term ended last summer, became Colombia’s ambassador to the United States in October.

Photo: Max Blodgett

The Hispanic American Center for Economic Research recently awarded former President of Colombia and controversial Georgetown professor Alvaro Uribe its Simón Bolívar Prize.

The prize was given to Uribe for “his work on promoting liberty, security and democracy in Colombia and the Americas,” according to HACER’s website. Former U.S. Ambassadors Otto Reich and Robert Noriega attended the ceremony.

HACER commended Uribe for leading efforts against the FARC, which controlled nearly two-thirds of the country when he took office, but has now retreated to the less populated parts of the country. The murder rate also dropped significantly during Uribe’s term.

Uribe’s presidential tenure as president did not come without controversy, however. Activists accuse him of violating human rights in order to achieve these results; critics point to incidents such as the “false positives” scandal to illustrate the alleged abuses his administration carried out. Since his appointment as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership by the University, protesters have demonstrated outside his on-campus speaking engagements.

HACER, a non-profit organization, promotes the study of “personal and economic liberty, limited government under the rule of law, and individual responsibility” within Hispanic populations.

Photo: HACER

Last Thursday, the Jesuit Community invited Fr. Mauricio García Durán, S.J., director of the Center for Research and Popular Education, to assess the legacy of Álvaro Uribe, the former Colombian president and current Georgetown Distinguished Scholar.

In the wake of unprecedented violence in Colombia, García explained, Uribe adopted the “Democratic Security Policy,” which abandoned a decades-long peace process in favor of a direct military campaign against the left-wing guerrilla movement FARC. While García admitted that homicides and human rights violations decreased during Uribe’s administration, he also pointed out that the bloodshed only decreased to levels seen during the 1990s.

García also claimed that Uribe did little to stop the resurgence of right-wing paramilitary groups that emerged to combat the FARC, complaining that only two paramilitary leaders have been indicted although paramilitaries displaced 4 million people and illegally appropriated 6,500,000 hectares of mostly peasant land.

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This week in Features, Sean Quigley profiles Rabbi Harold White, who will retire in June, and the state of Georgetown’s Jewish community.

“From forging lasting relationships with students and alumni of all faiths to establishing the Program for Jewish Civilization in the School of Foreign Service,” writes Quigley, “White has arguably done more than anyone else to build and strengthen the school’s Jewish community in the four decades since he first came to Georgetown.”

News has the latest on yesterday’s Álvaro Uribe protest and counter-protest.

In Sports, Tim Shine interviews Mike Seander (a.k.a. Mike Stud), the rapping Georgetown baseball player.

Leisure reviews the fare at the new D.C. location of P. J. Clarke’s.

In Voices, Julie Patterson bemoans Prop. 19′s failure and its national ramifications.

The Ed Board pushes for more student participation in the hiring of both campus leaders and administrators.

As expected, the first full month of the academic year saw an uptick in crime from the summer lull, bringing the total number of crimes reported to the Department of Public Safety up to 43 for the month. A number of off-campus crimes occurred in September as well, including a burglary, a number of iPhone robberies, and a robbery of an armored car.

Here’s a rundown of some of the crimes that were reported to DPS:

• A suspect was found to be in possession of a dangerous weapon when it was determined that he had three machetes. (Sounds like he came prepared for any potential burglaries on campus.)
• Two assaults on a police officer occurred in September, one of which happened during the protest of Álvaro Uribe’s guest lecture.
• Nine drug violations were discovered by DPS, of which nearly half took place over the second weekend of September.
• A total of 13 thefts were reported to DPS, including a bike stolen from inside the Mortara Center, as well as an unattended computer and wallet  taken in Lauinger Library.
• Two lewd incidents were reported, including one about a male fondling himself in front of a student.

[Editor's Note: Due to technical problems, we couldn't compile September's crimes onto a map this morning. Once we work out the kinks, we promise to add it to the post.]

A letter urging Georgetown to dismiss former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, signed by over 150 scholars, was allegedly delivered by students to President John DeGioia last Wednesday.

According to a press release published by the North American Congress on Latin America, Uribe’s connection to human rights violations have been ignored.

“Given the human rights scandals associated with Álvaro Uribe’s administration, and the ties between his administration and illegal paramilitary groups, it is disturbing that Georgetown University has chosen to host him this year,” Lesley Gill, a Vanderbilt professor, wrote in the release.

Last summer, Uribe was invited to teach courses at Georgetown as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership. Since his arrival on campus, however, human rights groups have organized against and protested his hiring.

Eight Georgetown faculty members, including Professor Mark Lance, Adjunct Professor Fr. Joseph Palacios, and Associate Professor Maurice Jackson, signed the letter.

Photo: Jackson Perry

h/t Chronicle of Higher Education

The man arrested last Monday during Álvaro Uribe‘s lecture is a field organizer affiliated with School of Americas Watch, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Nicolas Udu-gama, who the Reporter interviewed, stood up as Uribe took questions from Professor Eric Langenbacher‘s Comparative Political Systems class, began clapping derisively, and approached the stage. He was forcibly removed by the Department of Public Safety and then arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department.

The protest aimed to criticize “social cohesion by threatening and physically eliminating any social opposition,” Udu-gama said.

The School of Americas Watch has been involved with protests against Uribe’s hiring since they began earlier this month. University officials, however, continue to support Uribe’s position at Georgetown.

“As an academic community, we are committed to fostering the transmission of knowledge and supporting the free exchange of ideas,” University spokesperson Julie Green Bataille wrote in an email to the Reporter. “Georgetown is not endorsing the political views or government policies enacted by an individual, but realizing the value in allowing a world leader’s experience to be part of campus dialogue.”

Photo: Max Blodgett