Based on availability, the Fellows will probably be housed in the Shire

When he was just a baby GUSA President, Pat Dowd (SFS `09) told Georgetown that with the help of the funding boards’ giant surplus, he was going to set up a summer housing program for students with unpaid internships in the District or surrounding area. He called it GUSA Summer Fellows. At the Voice, we collectively tittered at the program’s name (think Lord of the Rings jokes) and absolutely lambasted Dowd’s ambitious plan:

Dowd and Kelly have approached the idea with a startling naiveté of the complexities involved in enacting such a bold proposal. Putting their energy towards an unreachable goal of trying to institute it this summer diminishes GUSA’s credibility and detracts from the program’s chances for next year.

Trying anyway is a waste of GUSA’s time because some aspects of the program, like applications, will not carry over to an attempt next summer. … Dowd thinks he can set up a pilot program this year for five to ten students, but given his scant experience with Georgetown administration and the little time remaining in the semester, this goal is wildly unrealistic.

Boy, did we eat them words. Dowd and Kelly quickly got their act together, got $10,500 from the surplus (only a quarter of what they asked for, however), and ended up providing free summer housing for a handful of students in Village B. Even though they only housed five students, we later admitted that that’s no small feat for the typically ineffective GUSA exec branch.

This summer, GUSA Summer Fellows can accommodate ten students instead of five. That’s thanks exclusively to $26,000 in donations from one alumn and a member of Georgetown’s Board of Directors, according to Walid Khalifeh (SFS `09), who was Dowd’s Chief of Staff until October when he created and headed the GUSA Summer Fellows Steering Committee with Dowd’s VP, James Kelly (COL`09). The future of the Fellowship of Pat Dowd looks secure, too:

“We’re working on an endowment that would fund the program through perpetuity for future generations,” Khalifeh said.

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Editor’s note: below is the first edition of Vox Populi’s weekly GUSA roundups, a sass-meets-C-SPAN summary of Georgetown student government’s goings-on. In sum, we’ll go to GUSA meetings so you won’t have to. We think Tipp O’Neill would be proud.

The big issue at this week’s GUSA meeting was the Metropolitan Police Department’s new noise policy. Several strategies to combat the measure were suggested, including a town hall meeting, an editorial in The Hoya (for the record, the Voice’s has done its part) and banding together with members of the District of Columbia Metropolitan University Student Alliance (they of the erstwhile Student Metro Discount crusade).

Pat Salvo (SFS ’09—Off Campus) kicked off the meeting with an executive briefing, mentioning that the search committee for the new Dean of the College has narrowed down the candidates from twelve to five. The next step in the selection process is a round of meetings between the candidates and members of the administration.

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