On Friday afternoon, Georgetown University President John DeGioia sat down with student reporters from the Voice and The Hoya to answer a range of questions about Georgetown, including the Ten Year Plan, the goals of the school’s $1.5 billion Capital Campaign, the progress of the Diversity Working Groups, and football.

Below is a full transcript of DeGioia’s interview, painstakingly transcribed by the Voice’s Cole Stangler, our man at the meeting.

The highlights? In response to The Hoya’s April Fools’ Issue and the recent Heckler incident, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson’s office is going to conduct a “satire and civility” workshop.

The University has raised $580 million so far in its Capital Campaign. Georgetown’s science center will cost $98 million to complete and its target date for completion is Fall 2012.

Voice: How do you view our relationship right now with the neighborhood? I know a lot of students seem to be frustrated about the extent to which the University has entertained neighborhood input with some aspects of the Ten Year Plan—like rerouting the GUTS bus through the Canal Street entrance. How would you respond to students who feel that the University has made concessions to residents that harm University life?

DeGioia: Well, it’s always a very difficult balancing act to try to recognize and understand the needs of the community with what it will take for us to be able to be successful in our mission. And so the work of the master plan is generally ongoing on all the time. It’s not like it’s something that we begin in the months leading up to the need to have it approved.

It’s truly a ten-year effort. We’re always at it and we’re always engaged with our neighbors in trying to understand their needs and their concerns. At the same time, we frustrate them. If a neighborhood were sitting here, they’d be using the same language. So we’re always trying to get the right balance. I believe what you’re seeing right now are a range of ideas and proposals that have been on the table that we are considering in one form or another, but it very much is a work in progress.

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Thanksgiving dinners and football may be proud American traditions, but nowadays, they don’t figure very heavily into life at Georgetown. That wasn’t always the case. Students used to celebrate Thanksgiving Day all together on campus (forget skipping your Wednesday classes) and Georgetown University used to annually host the Washington Thanksgiving Game—the most popular football game in town.

Beginning in the 1850s, Georgetown began to throw a yearly Thanksgiving Day feast for its students, which Georgetown’s Southern students referred to disparagingly as “Yankee Christmas.” The turkey dinner, Robert Curran writes in The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University, took place after a High Mass and came “with all the trimmings, including pumpkin pie.”

By the 1880s, a concert that included performances by the Georgetown Banjo Club, Mandolin Club, and Glee Club rounded out the night.

Georgetown began to host the annual football game by the turn of the century, and at the time, it was the place to be in Washington on Thanksgiving Day. Attendance was regularly in the thousands. It was a time when college football was a brutal affair and it wasn’t uncommon for players to incur injuries that resulted in death.

That was the case for a Georgetown halfback, George Bahen, in 1894, when he was paralyzed in a game against the local Columbia Athletic Club.

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This is what a happy soccer player looks like

Men’s Soccer

Georgetown (1-1-1) split two games against ranked California opponents this weekend at Kehoe. On Friday No. 8 Cal got the better of the Hoyas 2-0, marking the second game in a row where Georgetown was held scoreless. But the team bounced back on Sunday, walking away with a 2-0 victory over No. 19 UCLA. The win, played in front of a near-capacity crowd, was head coach Brian Wiese’s first over a ranked opponent.

Women’s Soccer

Coming off a 4-0 drubbing of James Madison on Wednesday, the Hoyas (4-1-0) had momentum on their side heading into Sunday’s matchup with No. 22 Santa Clara. But the team suffered its first loss of the season, dropping a 2-1 heartbreaker in overtime. Santa Clara struck first in the 43rd minute, when Anessa Patton got one by Georgetown keeper Jackie DesJardin. It was the first goal allowed by the Hoyas all season. Sara Jordan scored the equalizer in the 73rd minute, but despite some good looks for the Hoyas in overtime, the visitors scored the decisive goal in the closing minute of the first extra period.

Football

Going pro: Summers (left) and Etukeren

Last Friday was a good day for former Georgetown athletes. First off, DaJuan Summers, who went to the Pistons in the second round of the draft as the 35th overall pick, was officially signed to Detroit. Summers put on an impressive show in the summer league, and the Pistons ended up signing him as well as fellow draft picks Austin Daye and Jonas Jerebko. Summers’ contract is worth $475,000 per year, according to the Detroit News.

The deal should be a nice pick-me-up for Summers, who was dealing with some rather embarrassing publicity earlier last week when it was reported that he was racing his friend, porn star Valerie Luxe, to see who could get 4,000 followers on Twitter first (he has since called off the race on his Twitter account).

Over in a league less familiar to Hoya athletes, the NFL, former Georgetown defensive end Ataefiok Etukeren was signed by the Buffalo Bills. Etukeren, who the Voice profiled in March, was an unsigned rookie free agent before being picked up by the Bills last Friday.

Given that another recent Georgetown football alum, Alex Buzbee, was picked up by the Washington Redskins in 2007, this means that after going 50 years without producing a pro player, the football program has now sent two to the NFL in the past couple years.

A few weeks ago, Tim Shine brilliantly profiled Ataefiok Etukeren and his pursuit of the NFL Draft. Shine writes:

“At first glance, Ataefiok Etukeren could be any MSB senior. He still does not know where he will be working after graduation, but he is confident he can land a job at one of the billion-dollar businesses where he has been interviewing. But Etukeren isn’t a typical MSB senior. He’s 6’3”, 245 pounds, and can run 40 yards in under 4.7 seconds. And his potential employers aren’t banks—they’re NFL teams.”

Well, the draft begins today. Etukeren has a slim chance to be drafted at all, and if he is picked, it will most likely be on the Draft’s last day, this Sunday.

One opportunity that might come Etukeren’s way, though, is with the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons have brought Etukeren in for a private workout already. Dave the Falcon, an author of the blog the Falcoholic, writes, “….he could represent a mid-to-late round draft pick for a franchise that still needs help along the defensive line. More than that, even, Etukeren serves as a symbol. This is no longer a Falcons team that’s going to make a draft choice based on a big name or where a guy went to college.”

Ed Thompson of Scout.com originally reported the workout. Etukeren was a key cog in the Hoyas’ defense over his college career. His amassed 82 tackles, eight sacks, and four defensed passes in 32 career games.

Due to the outbreak of the norovirus on campus, athletic director Bernard Muir has postponed or cancelled most events scheduled for this weekend, including women’s soccer home games Syracuse and St. John’s, football away at Colgate, and swimming away at American. Muir said games were delayed because of sick players:

“Because several members of the team have been infected and others have been exposed, and because the infection is contagious, after discussion between medical personnel at both universities and with Syracuse’s and St. John’s athletic administration and the BIG EAST, the decision has been made not to play the games. Make-up dates have not been reached at this time.”