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GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1920 thehoya.com
Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 93, No. 34, © 2012
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2012
GUSA WINNERS: CLARA AND VAIL
RESULTS Check thehoya.com for more on Gustafson and KohnertYount’s victory.
GUSA President-Elect Clara Gustafson (SFS ’13) and Vice President-Elect Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ’13) won this year’s election early Friday morning.
Gustafson Wins Election
Med Center Deficit Over $22 Million HIROMI OKA
GUSA executive election marks first time turnout has exceeded 50 percent
Hoya Staff Writer
The university has projected annual budget shortfalls for the Georgetown University Medical Center of more than $20 million for each of the next five years, according to university financial plans. GUMC has a history of finishing in the red; it has run deficits of more than $15 million each year since 1995, THE HOYA reported in 2004. In 2000, the center sold the university’s hospital to MedStar Health in an attempt to ease its debt burden. Today, the Medical Center encompasses the School of Nursing and Health Studies, the School of Medicine, the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Biomedical Graduate Research Organization. According to the university’s Financial Plan 2013-2016, the medical center was the largest contributor to the university’s overall deficit in fiscal year 2011, with expenses running $22.1 million over revenues. University services, which include the Office of the President and several other
SAM RODMAN Hoya Staff Writer
Clara Gustafson (SFS ’13) and Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ’13) won this year’s GUSA executive election with just over 50 percent of the vote in the sixth and final round. About 3,700 ballots were cast in the election, a record-high turnout for any Georgetown University Student Association vote. This year’s race marked the first time that more than 50 percent of the
MORE ONLINE Read more about the results of the election at thehoya.com. student body participated in an election or referendum. The number of ballots cast surpassed the previous executive election record set in 2010, in which 3,089 total votes were counted. This year’s election beat that mark by 1 p.m. Thursday, at which time the polls had been open for just under 15 hours.
MORE INSIDE A look at Medical Center and GU deficits during the past eight years. administrative offices, also ran a deficit in 2011, ending the year $5.4 million in the red. But due to surpluses from the main campus and law center, the university’s overall deficit was cut to $12.8 million. Howard Federoff, executive vice president for health sciences and executive dean of the School of Medicine, said that the medical center is taking measures to reduce costs. “GUMC is developing and implementing a new fiscal structure … that responds to the declining availability of federal research funding and other external factors while guiding us toward sustainable growth and maximizing opportunities for our success,” Federoff wrote in an email. According to university spokeswoman Stacy Kerr, GUMC is run efficiently despite the continued deficits. “The investments we are making are core to our mission and identity as a world-class research university,” Kerr wrote in an email. “In an environment of increased competition for federal research money and expanding external See DEFICITS, A5
TOP RIGHT, TOP LEFT, BOTTOM LEFT: SARI FRANKEL/THE HOYA, BOTTOM RIGHT: NICOLE MCKENZIE FOR THE HOYA
Campaigning for GUSA executive elections wrapped up Thursday night as students voted in record numbers.
See GUSA, A5
Campus Plan Processes: A Battle or a Breeze SARAH PATRICK Hoya Staff Writer
While Georgetown has been entangled in debates over its campus plan since December 2010, other D.C. universities have also spent months or years trying to gain approval for their own campus plans. D.C. municipal regulations require universities to submit comprehensive plans for their expansion to the Zoning Commission at regular intervals. The duration and scope of the plans differ widely — Georgetown’s plan must be renewed every decade while the George Washington University’s cur-
rent plan will last 20 years — as do universities’ interactions with community members and the Zoning Commission. At a Feb. 9 hearing, the Zoning Commission voted to push back its ruling on Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan, the third time it has delayed the decision. By contrast, The George Washington University’s 2007 Foggy Bottom Campus Plan, which outlines development objectives for 16 sites on the school’s main campus over the course of the next 20 years, was approved by the commission the same year it was proposed.
HOPING TO MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE ON THE HILLTOP
See PLANS, A5
ELIZABETH CHEUNG FOR THE HOYA
The D.C. Zoning Commission has become a stage for universities’ dramatic fights to win approval for their campus plans.
CSJ Seeks New Director OMIKA JIKARIA
Special to The Hoya
CHRIS BIEN/THE HOYA
Hoyas for Immigrant Rights tabled in Red Square Tuesday to support the DREAM Act. See story on A4. Newsroom: (202) 687-3415 Business: (202) 687-3947
After two years under interim leadership, the Center for Social Justice aims to hire a permanent director by the end of the spring semester. The center’s founder, Kathleen Maas Weigert, left in 2010 after nine years as its director to become an adviser to the provost’s office at Loyola University Chicago, as well as a research professor of social justice. Following her departure, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the President decided to reassess the scope of social justice work at Georgetown. Administrators led working groups of a few dozen faculty members, students and senior administrators to consider campus and community impact, alumni, academics and national partnerships. The results of these discussions were intended to be used to create a guideline for the job de-
Published Tuesdays and Fridays
scription of the next permanent director of the CSJ. In July 2010, Jane Genster, a leader of the evaluation effort, was appointed interim executive director of the CSJ after serving as university vice president and general counsel from 2000 to 2009. According to Associate Director Raymond Shiu, the CSJ is waiting to hire a permanent director until it finds a candidate capable of matching the stability that Weigert provided for the center. University spokeswoman Stacy Kerr wrote in an email that Genster has remained interim director for a second academic year in order to ease the search for a permanent hire. “Although Jane is the interim director, there has been little that is ‘interim’ about her leadership,” wrote. While at the helm of the CSJ, Genster has made several key hiring decisions to See CSJ, A5
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