Let’s recap the University’s terrible, awful, despicable decision to close the Pub:
Healy Hall was once the center of student life on campus, with the student-run Pub serving as its drunken core. The Pub was a ‘sticky, smelly, sweaty, time-of-your-life,’ one former manager said. [...]
It won praise year after year as the best college bar in America, but slowly went bankrupt in the late 1980s after a new alcohol policy forced its student managers to host a dry night once a week. Although the Pub was reborn in the newly-completed Leavey Center, Vice President of Student Affairs James A. Donahue closed the bar for good during the 1994-1995 academic year.
R.I.P. Pub. We wish we had the pleasure of knowing you.
Let’s get serious now. It’s time to choose Georgetown’s worst-ever idea, which will live in infamy for generations to come. We’ll keep the polls open for a week—let’s finish this.
As always, Vox readers came through with some fantastic submissions. (And we learned that you’re a terribly cynical bunch!) You’ll find our favorites below, with a little bit of background info added to help you along.
Its hushed halls now home to the president’s bureaucracy and a handful of exclusive administrator offices, Healy Hall was once the center of student life on campus, with the student-run Pub serving as its drunken core. The Pub was a “sticky, smelly, sweaty, time-of-your-life,” one former manager said—a place where you could get trashed any night of the week you pleased on 50-cent beer in the relative safety of an on-campus establishment.
Occasionally, you might have spotted the bar’s faculty adviser, then Dean of Students John DeGioia, imbibing at the counter. It won praise year after year as the best college bar in America, but slowly went bankrupt in the late 1980s after a new alcohol policy forced its student managers to host a dry night once a week. Although the Pub was reborn in the newly-completed Leavey Center, Vice President of Student Affairs James A. Donahue closed the bar for good during the 1994-1995 academic year.
For the final round of our “Worst Idea” feature, we’re turning over the nomination process to the wild world of Vox commenters.
Think you know Georgetown’s worst idea ever? Let us know in the comments. On Thursday night, we’ll wade through the submissions and pick out our favorites. Then, we’ll pit the best of the best against one another in a vote on Friday.
And just because we love you all, we’ll give a prize to the commenter who nominates the winning idea. (The prize is a mystery. IT COULD BE ANYTHING.)
We’ve read some greatideas already, but we think you all can do even better. So tell us, what do you think is Georgetown’s worst idea?
This week’s “Worst Idea” covers two of Georgetown’s silliest property-related decisions: building Lauinger Library as a brutalist interpretation of Healy Hall, and selling WGTB’s radio license. We’ll keep the polls open for your votes until next week, when we’ll move onto the next round.
Lauinger Library
When visitors cross under Georgetown’s august front gates, they see one of the best prospy-traps in all of U.S. collegedom. The regal form of White-Gravenor, the picturesque front lawn, Copley Hall—DC’s most gratuitously castle-like dormitory—and the soaring Flemish Romanesque-style Healy Hall comprise an unbroken panorama of magnificent pulchritude. But, then there’s Lauinger.
Lauinger Library is ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
Today’s “Worst Idea Georgetown’s Ever Had” isn’t really a contest. Heller is going to recall the egregious actions of a group of conservative blowhards who sold off a free-speech outlet and educational opportunity because they were—well, conservative blowhards. It was a terrible decision, but it didn’t put a hulking, concrete behemoth on campus that visually assaults thousands of students every day.
After the alcohol policy’s resounding victory, we’re moving onto a new category: Georgetown alumni. Whose diploma do you wish Georgetown would take back and tear to shreds? We’ll keep the polls open for your votes until next week, when we’ll tackle a new category.Ultimately, you’ll choose the worst move ever made by Georgetown.
Jennifer Altemus (COL ’88)
Remember that time that Hogwarts conferred a wizardry degree upon Tom Riddle, and he subsequently became the evil Lord Voldemort and his alma mater’s greatest mortal enemy?
This is kind of like that.
In 1988, Jennifer Altemus graduated from the Georgetown College, and now, she has returned to the neighborhood to wreak havoc on student life via a robust campaign from the Citizens Association of Georgetown against the 2010 Campus Plan. (This was presumably after Provost O’Dumbledore refused to let her teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. We’ve even heard rumors that she hid a horcrux in President DeGioia’s office—but he’s never there, no one’s found it yet.)
Heir to a Citizens Association that insists your bus ride to Dupont Circle be over 4 miles long because Georgetown private property owners apparently have jurisdiction over some public streets, Altemus is even more trouble than your ordinary CAG president. Thanks to her Georgetown degree, she can claim (and local news outlets can imply) that she has an understanding of both students’ point of view and her neighbors’.
But don’t be fooled. She’s not on Georgetown’s side, she’s on CAG’s. And if they had it their way, there would be a butterbeer keg ban levied on the entire neighborhood.
For the next couple of weeks, Voice Managing Editor Molly Redden and I will be pitting the University’s most foolish decisions against one another in a feature we’re calling “The Worst Idea Georgetown’s Ever Had.” Today, we discuss two decisions we think radically altered partying at Georgetown, and then let you vote on which you think was worse. We’ll keep the polls open for you votes until next week, when we’ll tackle a new category. Ultimately, you’ll choose the worst move ever made by Georgetown.
In May 2007, as students buckled down for finals and seniors prepared for graduation, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olsonannounced a revised alcohol policy that applied strict rules to on campus parties. The sneaky move, which caught many students off guard, effectively killed on campus parties thereafter. Although student-based suggestions at the end of the 2008-09 academic year led to minor changes in the policy, make no mistake—Georgetown’s party scene has never been the same.
In case you’ve forgotten, the policy limits the size of on campus parties (25 to 35 attendees, with some exceptions for townhouses and Village A rooftop apartments), suspends students if they run afoul three times, and hilariously bans “board games … such as ‘Drinko’, ‘Keel Over’, and ‘Shots and Ladders’.” (No! Not Drinko!)
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's weekly newsmagazine. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
Georgetown has spoken. (Er … voted.) Closing Georgetown’s once-upon-a-time, on-campus bar, the Pub, was the worst idea the University has had. Ever!
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