Honoring the service of John J. DeGioia

Seeking to ensure that the best students, from a broad range of backgrounds, could come to Georgetown and thrive, President Emeritus DeGioia advanced numerous initiatives to deepen the financial resources available to Georgetown students. The DeGioia Scholarship Initiative will honor this career-long leadership, rallying the Georgetown community in support of undergraduate and graduate financial aid.

The effort will include a renaming of the 1789 Scholarship Initiative, launched by President DeGioia in 2009 as the university’s flagship effort to achieve affordable access for students through donor-supported scholarships. Having raised more than $800 million for undergraduate and graduate scholarships since that time, our efforts have been hugely successful. But more remains to be done, and Georgetown wants to expand the new DeGioia Scholarship Initiative by increasing direct donor funding for scholarships and ultimately removing loans from our undergraduate financial aid packages. Gifts to the DeGioia Scholarship Initiative will build on the work that President DeGioia started, shrinking financial barriers for Georgetown’s undergraduate and graduate students.

President Emeritus DeGioia has long been a prominent voice in higher education, gaining national recognition for his thoughtful contributions. He has served on a number of higher education leadership boards related to business; Washington, DC; immigration; global engagement; health; athletics; civic engagement; and Catholic and Jesuit identity.

Inspired by his role in these crucial conversations, Georgetown is launching the DeGioia Symposium, an annual event focused on intellectual, ethical, and spiritual leadership—and their role in higher education. Gifts to the DeGioia Fund will support the symposium, bringing leaders from around the world into dialogue at Georgetown.

President Emeritus DeGioia spent 50 years living, learning, teaching, serving, and leading on Georgetown’s historic Hilltop Campus, beginning with his matriculation as an undergraduate in 1975.

We are honored to recognize his legacy at Georgetown through the creation of DeGioia Hall, a renaming of Old North and New North, to include a renovation of Old North. DeGioia Hall will be the centerpiece of Georgetown’s Humanities Quad, a consolidated home for the humanities at Georgetown. Before becoming an academic space, Old North, a building with 235 years of history, held dorm rooms, a chapel, a library, and even the University President’s office. It is physically connected to two other iconic buildings named for former Georgetown presidents, Patrick Francis Healy SJ and Bernard A. Maguire SJ.

Gifts to the DeGioia Fund will support the reimagining and renovation of Old North. Once completed, the revitalized DeGioia Hall will become the heart of Georgetown’s work in the Humanities. With new convening centers, updated classrooms, and open areas for collaboration, it will be a unified space for Georgetown’s founding disciplines—including President Emeritus DeGioia’s undergraduate major, English, and doctoral field, Philosophy.