Over 700 students signed a petition to the University last Thursday calling for contraceptive coverage in the student health plans for the coming academic year. The letter was jointly signed by law student Sandra Fluke and Georgetown’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice. This action followed a similar petition from the Law Center’s faculty, in which 66 members of the law faculty urged President John J. DeGioia to reconsider the current health plan.

According to to the letter, undergraduate student movements for contraception are forming, but a response from undergraduates has yet to be seen. H*yas for Choice could not be reached for comment on their potential plans to collaborate with Fluke or LSRJ on further petitions or actions to demand contraception for students.

Kelly Percival, Georgetown law student and member of LSRJ, told Vox in an email: “We are working with H*yas for Choice, Georgetown Med Students for Choice, as well as a group of students from Georgetown’s business school to collect signatures on similar petitions. We hope that the university chooses to listen to our student voices by not unnecessarily delaying contraception coverage until 2013.”

The University consistently remained resolute on the issue since Fluke’s testimony to Congress earlier this year. In a letter released to the Washington Post last Friday, DeGioia wrote to a law professor that “We do not intend to change Georgetown’s longstanding practice of excluding contraceptive coverage for the purposes of birth control from its student health insurance offerings unless explicitly required to do so by law.”

Georgetown law professor M. Gregg Bloche, who wrote an Op-Ed in the Huffington Post on the faculty petition and the University’s response, wrote in an email to Vox:

The law now requires that Georgetown’s health plan for students cover contraception – by next year at the latest.  I’m confident that the University will honor President DeGioia’s commitment (and our legal obligation).  Though the University might, in theory, be able to put this off until 2013, I very much hope that we act this year.

On August 1, all health care insurance providers will be required to cover contraception in their plans. Since religious colleges and universities may apply for a one-year extension, law students hope that the petition will force the University to change the health plan earlier. However, rumblings from law students and faculty fail to convince the University, as of yet, to act upon the laws any earlier than mandated.

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“There is an Afghan proverb: A good year is determined by its spring. I think that is a worthy proverb to keep in mind, and indeed it is a call to action for us to be sure that the spring sets the pace for the kind of good year we hope to see in Afghanistan,” said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her opening remarks at a State Department event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council.

At the event, University President John J. DeGioia presented an award to Clinton and former First Lady Laura Bush for their contributions to the Council. Also in attendance were Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and Afghan ambassador to the U.S. Eklil Hakimi.

DeGioia co-chairs the Council with Melanne Verveer, a Georgetown graduate and Ambassador-At-Large for Global Women’s Issues. Originally founded by former President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2002, the Council is dedicated to improving the standard of life for Afghan women and children by reaching out to non-governmental organizations as well as academics and the private sector. Both Sec. Clinton and Mrs. Bush thanked DeGioia yesterday for “providing a home for the Council since 2008.”

Foreign Minister Rassoul catalogued the dramatic improvements in the life of women and children in Afghanistan over the past ten years. According to Rassoul, women made up 40 percent of voters in the 2004 elections. He also mentioned the emergence of “female pilots, army and police officers, and professional martial artists.” DeGioia chuckled.

“These numbers and percent that I just referenced by the example were all a big zero in 2001 and there were no legal guarantees for women rights in Afghanistan,” Rassoul said. He thanked the Council and all members in attendance for their hard work.

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Friday March 2, Georgetown University President John DeGioia sent an email to the Georgetown community commending law student Sandra Fluke for her civil discourse about birth control and criticizing the media for the personal attacks against her. A few weeks ago, Fluke testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the university’s student health insurance’s refusal to cover a fellow student’s birth control to manage her polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Since then, Fluke has been the object of personal attacks from pundits like Rush Limbaugh, who called her a slut for using birth control.

DeGioia’s message is below.

March 2, 2012

Dear Members of the Georgetown Community:

There is a legitimate question of public policy before our nation today.  In the effort to address the problem of the nearly fifty million Americans who lack health insurance, our lawmakers enacted legislation that seeks to increase access to health care. In recent weeks, a question regarding the breadth of services that will be covered has focused significant public attention on the issue of contraceptive coverage.  Many, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, have offered important perspectives on this issue.

In recent days, a law student of Georgetown, Sandra Fluke, offered her testimony regarding the proposed regulations by the Department of Health and Human Services before a group of members of Congress.  She was respectful, sincere, and spoke with conviction.  She provided a model of civil discourse.  This expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people.  One need not agree with her substantive position to support her right to respectful free expression.  And yet, some of those who disagreed with her position – including Rush Limbaugh and commentators throughout the blogosphere and in various other media channels – responded with behavior that can only be described as misogynistic, vitriolic, and a misrepresentation of the position of our student.

In our vibrant and diverse society, there always are important differences that need to be debated, with strong and legitimate beliefs held on all sides of challenging issues.  The greatest contribution of the American project is the recognition that together, we can rely on civil discourse to engage the tensions that characterize these difficult issues, and work towards resolutions that balance deeply held and different perspectives.  We have learned through painful experience that we must respect one another and we acknowledge that the best way to confront our differences is through constructive public debate.  At times, the exercise of one person’s freedom may conflict with another’s.  As Americans, we accept that the only answer to our differences is further engagement.

In an earlier time, St. Augustine captured the sense of what is required in civil discourse: “Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance.  Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth.  Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us.  For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly, if there be no bold presumption that it is already discovered and possessed.”

If we, instead, allow coarseness, anger – even hatred – to stand for civil discourse in America, we violate the sacred trust that has been handed down through the generations beginning with our Founders.  The values that hold us together as a people require nothing less than eternal vigilance.  This is our moment to stand for the values of civility in our engagement with one another.

Sincerely,

John J. DeGioia
President
Georgetown University

While GUSA and the Republican Party are hard at work grooming our next presidents, we’re taking this Presidents’ Day off to appreciate the accomplishments of the University’s very own fearless leader. Presidents’ Day shouldn’t be about just George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

A laptop was reported stolen from a New South dorm room last Thursday. PSA questions the brainpower of the laptop’s hapless owner:

As much as I’d like to think that GU students are reasonably intelligent, it sure seems to me that there should be a required course for all incoming frosh on “lock your door.” I mean, really, it would be one thing if somebody knocked you to the ground and stole your laptop in Red Square. To go to sleep with the door unlocked suggests a high degree of stupidity. Maybe the PSA’s should identify the home-town of the victim. They must all be from Kansas or whatever. Or perhaps inclined to imbibe.

Last Monday, Vox wrote about University donor and Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud‘s reported employment of dwarfs as “jesters.”

Taking a break from always paying his debts, Tyrion Lannister shared some advice with Alwaleed:

Let them see that their words can cut you and you’ll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name take it make it your own. Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore.

Meanwhile, Reda has us figured out:

Financial erudition and god blessing
That is what Al Waleed is
Rest is just litterature that is enviois and jealous about his success!!

Best comment of the new year after the jump…

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Last week, reporters from the Voice and the Hoya participated in University President John J. DeGioia‘s semesterly interview session with campus media organizations. While we’ve highlighted several of the important takeaways from the interview on both Vox and in our print edition, published yesterday, here we offer the complete transcript of the interview.

DeGioia: It was a great fall- I just think we had a terrific fall. For me, it was kind of driven by a couple of big things. We had to launch the public phase of the campaign. That was really quite an extraordinary weekend for us. It was us at our best and I was glad we were able to have such an inclusive experience with so many, including the tent on the front lawn. Our fundraising success has continued, we’re doing pretty well. We’re over the halfway mark in the campaign, at the halfway mark. We feel very encouraged by the generosity of our community. We’re just going to keep at it, our highest priority is scholarships, support for financial aid. Given the challenging nature of the economy I don’t think we could have a more important priority- that priority emerged over the course of roughly 8 years of planning going back to 2003, but certainly characterized all of the years of our quiet phase- that was our most dominant priority. We actually went out publicly with that priority in the quiet phase in a series of town halls across the country, where I talked about what we call the 1789 Scholarship Imperative, which is our way of characterizing the financial aid piece.

I think there were other issues that dominated my time in the fall- the relationship with the community and our engagement in the city were part of that. This is our cycle, to submit our campus plan and we completed our public hearing on November 17th. And we have our final filing of documents this Friday, and on February 9th we have a read-out from the Board of Zoning, where they think they’re going to come down in terms of the conditions for Georgetown, and we’ll expect some time later this spring, probably mid-April to maybe May, that will be our expectation that we’ll get a written report, and that will give us a sense of the position of the Board of Zoning. But I think as you know, this was a three-year effort, but also really it’s not a episodic experience, it really is a full immersion for ten years with deep engagement with the community and lots of conversations. It just becomes particularly focused in roughly the final two years of that ten-year period where you really deeply engage in the formal submission of documents to various city agencies and the like. So we went through that.

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In August, approaching the end of a ten-year term in office, Provost James O’Donnell announced his decision to step down from the position at the end of this semester. Last night, the University’s provost search committee convened a town hall of students, faculty and administrators to discuss its search for a new provost. The town hall was organized to provide students with an opportunity to provide input in the search process. At least thirty students were in attendance.

Professor Wayne Davis, the President of the Faculty Senate, the Chair of the Philosophy Department and the head of the search committee, began the event with a long description of the various qualifications necessary to become the provost of the University, as well as the responsibilities the job entails. The provost has a hand in nearly every important department at Georgetown. He or she is a part of the President’s cabinet and is responsible for making sure the main campus operates within University policy. Other responsibilities include deciding where tuition is spent, approving appointments for both tenured and non-tenured faculty, meeting with the deans of each school, receiving direct reports from the Office of Admissions, the Registrar, the Financial Aid office, Student Affairs, the libraries, the Office of International Programs, and many other departments.

Davis highlighted several important qualifications the search committee expects from candidates for the position. The group is primarily searching for academic excellence. “Given that the provost has the ultimate responsibility for hiring faculty and deciding on priorities for spending money on various initiatives, I would want somebody who had lived the life of a successful scholar,” Davis said. The second important requirement is experience with administration, and the third priority is “an academic leader who can represent that and embody…Georgetown’s Jesuit identity”. Although Davis mentioned that they are open to non-Jesuit candidates, only one provost in the University’s history was neither a Jesuit nor Catholic.

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University President John DeGioia has sometimes been perceived by Hoyas, including the editorial board of the Voice, as being disconnected from the everyday life of the student body. In Vox‘s previous life as a columnist, we criticized DeGioia for his distance during campus crises, including the DMT lab and noose-that-turned-out-not-to-be-a-noose incidents last year. In his semesterly interview with campus media last week, Vox asked DeGioia to reflect on his relationship with the student body through his first 11 years in the presidency.

DeGioia, who served in various administrative roles before becoming President, including as Vice President for Student Affairs, made it clear that he attempts to strike a balance between the broad responsibilities of the presidency and his desire to remain connected to the community.

Throughout his response, DeGioia emphasized the presidency’s rigorous travel demands:

This one’s a hard one because I have a couple of days of travel almost every week for our fundraising, and also representing Georgetown on a lot of different contexts. At different times of the year, the travel demands are very, very, very heavy. The fall is my favorite time of year because I genuinely need to be here more, I always try to teach in the fall (I do a first year seminar in the fall) so that requires that I be here every Monday. The work I try to keep so I’m here Tuesday, I’m often away Wednesdays and Thursdays, but in the fall I try not to do much international travel. From now until May it’s a lot of both domestic and international travel so it’s a little hard.

Nevertheless, DeGioia defended his record of involvement in student life:

I sort of track how I’m doing, I keep very close records personally, just for myself: how many events am I getting to, how many student events am I getting to. And I’m sure it would surprise everybody the number because I go to see a play or I’ll go see a game or I’ll go see a concert, and those who know I’m there are those who are at the concert, the game or the play. I do quite a few lectures, so speeches for Georgetown, I do more than 200 a year for the University, and many of those are for the University community right here.

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In an interview with campus media last week, President John DeGioia discussed Georgetown’s response to the November arrest of Derrik Sweeney (COL ’13) in Cairo for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at security forces.

Before reflecting on the broader dynamics of the situation, DeGioia made clear his position on student  involvement in political activities and protests while studying abroad:

No it’s unnecessary, and it’s not permitted. There are very clear instructions for our students studying abroad as to what’s permissible behavior for guests in the country at the time.

DeGioia also praised the Office of International Programs for its performance while Sweeney was detained:

Our Office of International Programs performed in a heroic way during that weekend, because it was a very very tough period. That was roughly Thanksgiving period, and that was a very tough time. Kathy Bellows [Executive Director of OIP] was extraordinary in her dedication and commitment to addressing the concerns of our student who was being detained in Cairo, and I think she did an extraordinary job.

While Sweeney immediately returned to the United States following his release, Georgetown’s other students at the American University in Cairo completed their fall semester abroad. As Georgetown considered whether to send students for spring semester, DeGioia says AUC, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the State Department all encouraged the University to allow students to go.

Concerning the spring semester, DeGioia struck a tone of measured confidence:

We have three students scheduled to study at American University in Cairo this spring, and we’re going to permit that. 69 other American universities will be sending students to Cairo so we feel comfortable at this point having our students there. As you know last year we spent about 15, we made a decision at the end of January to bring them out, and we did. We feel the circumstances on the ground there would not warrant restraining our students from studying there this year.

Photo: Tim Markatos

In his semesterly interview with campus media last week, President John DeGioia discussed the growth of Georgetown’s connections in India and his optimistic vision for the future of the University’s initiatives there.

In 2009, Kapil Sibal, the Indian Minister of Human Resources and Development, visited Georgetown, participating in a two-hour workshop and delivering a speech. During the same trip he also visited other elite American universities, including Yale.

According to DeGioia, ties with foreign universities are essential for India’s further economic growth:

Part of the challenge for India is they simply don’t have enough higher education infrastructure. If you look at some of their recent reports, they may need as many as 600 new universities to meet the demand now to be able to accomplish what the Chinese have done in the last generation in this next generation in India which is essentially to double the level of college attendance. They have a very strong need for infrastructure, and they’re trying to encourage institutions who have a history of delivering higher education to consider coming in and doing some of that, helping the Indian government move forward in building that infrastructure.

In November 2010, DeGioia delivered the keynote address at a higher education summit held in Delhi by the Indian Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry. That visit led to two of the defining aspects of the University’s expanding initiatives in India. At the summit, DeGioia first learned of high-level plans for a US-India Higher Education Summit. After lengthy talks with the State Department, Georgetown hosted that summit in October. Sibal and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the summit with speeches in Gaston Hall.

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