The Hoya: April 25, 2025

GU Community Mourns Pope Francis, Remembers

Life, Legacy, Teachings

Ajani Stella Senior News Editor

In the wake of Pope Francis’ death April 21, the Georgetown University community has continued to mourn his life and celebrate his legacy.

Francis’ 12 years as leader of the Catholic Church left a legacy of his care for immigrants, refugees and underserved communities. Since his death, Georgetown students and faculty have praised Francis’ lifelong commitment to service, humanity and interfaith dialogue, noting his influence on the university’s mission as the first Jesuit pope.

Kim Daniels — director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, which leads programming on Catholic social teachings and interreligious dialogue, and an adviser to the Vatican’s communications team — said Francis inspired Georgetown community members to embrace service to others.

“From his election twelve years ago when he first humbly asked for the people’s blessing, to his last Easter message of joy and hope, Pope Francis

has lifted up a vision of our Church renewed in our mission of mercy, humble yet bold, rooted in tradition yet forward-looking and above all keeping our doors open to all, especially the poor and vulnerable,” Daniels wrote to The Hoya. “I’m so sad for his passing and so grateful for his life and leadership.”

Fr. Greg Schenden, S.J., director of Campus Ministry, met Francis in a private audience in summer 2023 while at a Georgetown conference in Rome. Schenden said Francis’ kindness and sincerity were omnipresent in his life and pontificate.

“Shaking his hand and the way he gazed into my eyes and the look on his face — I just simply said, ‘Thank you for everything,’” Schenden told The Hoya. “That gaze and that look in that smile on his face — and you’ve seen it in so many photos — that was real. And he’s no longer with us.” In the evening following Francis’ death, Campus Ministry hosted a rosary for the pope and the university

See POPE, A7

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

The Georgetown University community commemorated the life and legacy of Pope Francis following his April 21 death.

FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2025

Legacy Admission Rate Triple Non-Legacy

Evie Steele and Nora Toscano Contributing Editor and Executive Editor

Children of Georgetown University graduates were nearly three times more likely to be admitted to the university’s entering class than applicants without parental connections to Georgetown, according to an internal presentation given in March by a senior university official and released publicly April 24.

Interim Provost Soyica Diggs Colbert (COL ’01) also told the school’s faculty senate March 20 that in a typical year, about

Expect Application Increase When GU Joins Common App

Evie Steele

Contributing Editor

For current high school sophomores — potential members of Georgetown University’s Class of 2031 — becoming a Hoya may be more difficult than ever.

These students will become the first with the option to apply to Georgetown using the Common Application, an online college application platform which over a million students use to apply to U.S. colleges.

College admissions professionals and data from Georgetown predict joining the Common App could significantly impact university admissions, including an influx of applications and increased accessibility for lower-income and minority students.

Georgetown is one of only a few top-ranked colleges that do not currently use the Common App. Over 1,000 U.S. colleges accept the Common App for undergraduate admissions — including each of Georgetown’s 10 self-selected “peer schools,” schools to which the university compares itself in student and faculty data.

Increasing Application Numbers

Georgetown officials see their decision to join the Common App, which The Hoya first reported March 24 and the university confirmed March 27, as a way of increasing its applicant numbers.

Interim Provost Soyica Diggs Colbert’s (COL ’01) presentation to the university’s faculty senate March 20 described joining the Common App as a way to ensure enrollment remains high to protect Georgetown against the “demographic cliff” — a predicted decline in college enrollment as the U.S. birth rate has decreased.

On an individual level, joining the Common App allows students considering applying to Georgetown to integrate their college search and application with their applications to other schools, according to Susan Chiarolanzio, the director of college counseling at the Flint Hill School, a private K-12 school in Oakton, Va.

“As we are talking with students about the process, we will always mention that there are some schools that use a different platform, and Georgetown is one of the ones that we’ll say, ‘Hey, if you’re planning to apply, there’s a different process,’” Chiarolanzio told The Hoya. “When we’re speaking casually about applying, we just refer to the Common App. It’s just such a ubiquitous term and system that it makes it easier for kids to just do everything, but also just to research colleges.”

Chiarolanzio said she expects more students, both at her Northern Virginia school and in general, to apply to Georgetown after it begins using the Common App.

Doreen Helmke, a New Jersey-based college adviser and educational consultant, said she expects to see a drastic increase in applications to Georgetown.

“My goodness, they are not going to even be able to conceive how many applications they’re going to get next year,” Helmke told The Hoya . “It’s so easy to hit that ‘apply.’ With kids applying to more and more schools every year, I think they’re going to see an astronomical amount.”

Helmke said she saw Georgetown’s separate application sometimes created barriers for students with whom she worked.

“It definitely, I think, impeded some kids from actually applying,” Helmke said.

“There were definitely some barriers, because it was more challenging, more difficult.”

Joining the Common App has resulted in major increases in admissions at other large universities that have recently joined the Common Application, such as the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) and Rutgers University.

After joining the Common App, UT-Austin received just over 10% more applications for entry — the university received 59,767 in Fall 2022, its last year before joining the Common App, before receiving 66,109 applications

See COMMON APP, A7

one-third of all legacy applicants admitted are accepted after a second review of their application and a “tip” due to their legacy status.

In her presentation, Diggs Colbert described legacy admissions as a key attribute of Georgetown undergraduate admissions.

A university spokesperson did not immediately respond to

The Hoya’s request for comment.

In her presentation, Diggs Colbert appeared to deny that financial considerations play a role in the university’s decision to maintain legacy admissions and rather attributed it to “historical perspective, culture,

and cohesion,” according to a summary of her presentation in the meeting minutes.

University admissions officials have repeatedly said legacy admissions helps the university solicit alumni donations.

“There is no university call to dismiss it,” the minutes read, referring to legacy admissions.

Diggs Colbert said Georgetown typically accepts roughly 30% of legacy applicants and that 25% of applicants admitted to the entering class are children of Georgetown graduates.

This rate would be nearly triple this year’s admission

rate for non-legacy students — an overall admissions rate of 12% this year and a rate of about 25% for legacies imply that approximately 9.4% of non-legacies gained admission to Georgetown. Diggs Colbert said that of this 25%, approximately one-quarter, 6% of the total admitted class, were “admitted with a second review based on legacy status,” which she termed a “tip.” The university received about 26,800 applications for the Class of 2029 and admitted about 3,200

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Two GU Students Win Prestigious Truman Scholarship for Service

Bridget Galibois Hoya Staff Writer

Two Georgetown University juniors won the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, an award for undergraduate students’ commitment to public service, the Truman Scholarship Foundation announced April 18.

Kanmani Duraikkannan (CAS ’26) and Izzy Wagener (SFS ’26) were two of 54 scholarship winners selected from a pool of 743 applicants nationwide in recognition of their devotion to public service.

The Truman Scholarship awards winners with up to $30,000 in grant money for a graduate degree program in public service as well as leadership development programming and internship support.

Duraikkannan said becoming a Truman Scholar showed her that her dreams of working toward gender equity are attainable.

“Being a Truman, when I first heard about it, it was validation that everything I said I’m doing, everything I said I’m passionate about, all these important people agree,” Duraikkannan told The Hoya. “They see that I have this credibility, and when I describe it, everything I say I want to accomplish I can actually do. It’s a really, really great feeling.”

Wagener, who will pursue graduate studies in investigative journalism, said she is honored for the recognition of her public service.

“I’m definitely very thankful for this opportunity,” Wagener told The Hoya. “I hope that I can have a

See TRUMAN, A7

of the NBA draft following his first season. A12/A11

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Georgetown University typically admits children of graduates at a rate three times higher than that of applicants with no parental connections to the university, according to an internal university presentation given in March and released publicly April 24.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Kanmani Duraikkannan (CAS ’26) and Izzy Wagener (SFS ’26) received the Harry S. Truman Scholarship for public service

star Aaron Judge

OPINION

Cautiously Support GUSA at Halfway

After campaigning on an expansive platform spanning reforms to meal plans, installing swings and faithful communication between GUSA and the student body, Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) President Ethan Henshaw (CAS ’26) and Vice President Darius Wagner (CAS ’27) had a long to-do list on taking office Jan. 12. These goals seemed ambitious and challenging to fulfill at the time of their election, yet three months into their term, the Henshaw-Wagner administration has shown promise and progress. The Editorial Board commends Henshaw and Wagner for their work thus far: Though many of their projects have started small, their work indicates a potential to meet student needs on a greater scale throughout the rest of their tenure. Despite areas for improvement, the Editorial Board supports the administration’s policy decisions and remains cautiously optimistic while entering the second half of their term. So far, the Henshaw-Wagner administration has taken strides to increase Georgetown’s financial and physical accessibility. They have implemented electronic benefit transfer, a service allowing the addition of welfare benefits to payment cards, for payment at The Corp location Vital Vittles, added new extension cords to Lauinger Library and Sellinger Lounge and installed accessibility ramps at affinity houses.

The administration has also made strides in increasing GUSA’s accessibility for students, an improvement the Editorial Board applauds. For example, they reintroduced the GUSA bi-weekly newsletter to update the student body on events and policy changes. After promising recurring open house events with administrators in their campaign platform, their administration has held one town hall and two club forums for the student body, including the first Common Spaces Committee meeting April 14, which allowed students to communicate their concerns about campus facilities.

These changes, while somewhat smaller-scale, show great promise. They represent positive signs that the second half of the Henshaw-Wagner administration will leave large-scale impact.

Yet the Editorial Board would like to see these ideas expanded with a broader range of topics, including residential living, Capitol Campus developments and the university’s responses to the Donald Trump administration.

A university spokesperson said GUSA plays a crucial role in facilitating dialogue and ensuring the university factors student opinions into its campus-wide decisions.

“Student input into administrative decisions, particularly those that impact the student experience, is vital,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “The formal responsibility for providing input is vested in student government. GUSA leaders are asked to participate in committees and meetings, with the intention and purpose of sharing student perspectives on academic and community policies and practices.”

Beyond these smaller-scale efforts, Henshaw has also co-sponsored an upcoming referendum that would call on the university to disclose and divest their investments in companies with ties to the Israeli military.

While this referendum has been divisive, Henshaw said he stands by his decision to be a co-sponsor be-

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cause he believes it represents GUSA’s role in communicating student concerns.

“It was our responsibility to make sure that we didn’t block them and that they were able to have their voices heard and the students were able to vote on this,” Henshaw told The Hoya. “It’s important to vote and just make sure the university knows where the students stand.”

Yet students have criticized the administration for this effort — both because the referendum did not pass through the typical process within the GUSA Senate and for going beyond the administration’s prerogatives.

GUSA senator Saahil Rao (SFS ’27) said he wishes the administration would remain focused on actionable goals rather than policy proposals he sees as out of their reach.

“Their accomplishments around getting more HSFC furniture (which we were proud to work with them on in the Senate), delivering swings and buying Lau extension cords are really great,” Rao wrote to The Hoya. “I wish they would focus on more stuff like that and less on ends like a divisive divestment/Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions referendum which admin will never adopt.”

The Editorial Board appreciates how Henshaw and Wagner have used all methods to fulfill their campaign promise to be more cognizant of student voices — but hopes that they will follow proper channels in future referendums.

Another area of concern for the Editorial Board is financial transparency. While The Hoya has access to an itemized list of GUSA expenses, the finances are not linked to GUSA spreadsheets or announcements. The Editorial Board appreciates this transparency but wishes these financial data points were more accessible to the general student body.

Despite these concerns, the Editorial Board is optimistic for the second half of the Henshaw-Wagner administration’s term. We encourage the administration to focus on tangible policy proposals, including establishing stronger relationships with administrators and improving student quality of life. The Editorial Board looks forward to continued improvements to campus life thanks to this GUSA executive. Wagner said the administration’s continued priority is to establish lines of communication with the administration, including a new university president once selected.

“I think for us, it will be a priority to ensure that we’re connected with that new president and that we share the concerns of students, ranging from transportation to facilities, especially protecting our international and undocumented students and promoting our values of diversity,” Wagner said.

The Henshaw-Wagner administration has centered important goals for student life, and for that, we commend them. As we await further progress on the administration’s goals, we urge Henshaw and Wagner to focus on tangible changes instead of uncertain policy initiatives to continue their work of leaving Georgetown in a better place.

The Hoya’s Editorial Board is composed of six students and is chaired by the opinion editors. Editorials reflect only the beliefs of a majority of the board and are not representative of The Hoya or any individual member of the board.

Once Again Rejects Proposed Restructuring Referendum

April 7, 2022

The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) Senate voted against holding yet another student referendum to restructure GUSA at an April 4 meeting.

The proposed referendum, which fell short of passing by two votes, would create policy committees and appoint student representatives to university boards, councils and committees. The goal of the proposal was to restructure GUSA to be more accessible, as well as increase involvement and participation in the organization.

Restructuring through a student referendum is the best way to make meaningful changes to GUSA, according to GUSA Senator Bora Balçay (SFS ’23), who introduced the bill.

“I think the biggest problem that we face right now is an excess of bureaucracy and a lack of direction,” Balçay said in an interview with The Hoya. “Few people in a very large organization are dedicated to the actual path, and unless we fundamentally change how we do things, I don’t think that can be solved. I think it is very easy to get involved on the ground level, but I think it is impossible, if you’re a dedicated person, to be satisfied with the institutional constraints of the organization.”

Still, GUSA Senator Zev Burton (SFS ’22), who voted against the referendum, said the primary issue with GUSA is not its structure,

but rather low involvement from current members.

“When you have a third of senators not showing up, that’s as big a red flag,” Burton told The Hoya. “The real issue here isn’t students wanting to be a part of GUSA. It’s just that once they’re part of it, once they have that title of senator, they don’t actually show up. Restructuring doesn’t get rid of the lack of willingness to show up and do the work like that.”

GUSA previously attempted to restructure itself through a student referendum that failed Nov. 7 due to lack of student turnout, with only 20.11% of the student body voting in the election, which fell short of the required 25%.

Unlike the previous referendum, which called to abolish the GUSA Senate and Executive and replace the bodies with a student activist assembly, the most recent proposal would have maintained the GUSA Senate and Executive.

If the recent referendum had gone to the student body and succeeded, it would have increased enthusiasm for GUSA, thus promoting student involvement in the organization, according to Balçay.

“We would have seen a lot more excitement around elections in the first place. Also, we would have a lot more dedication and a lower turnover rate,” Balçay said. “As is, too many people are on tasks that really don’t make sense and don’t really deserve their time.”

However, Burton said that the referendum failing to make it out of the Senate is a victory for both GUSA and the student body.

“I think it was rushed, and I think it would be too embarrassing if it were to have gone to the student body and failed again,” Burton said.

“I think the student body has already weighed in. Let’s move on. Let’s start working on getting textbooks into people’s hands and getting laptops — stuff we can actually change. If we want to improve the perception of GUSA, doing internal restructuring isn’t going to solve that issue.”

GUSA President Kole Wolfe (SFS ’24), who remains in favor of GUSA restructuring, said it is necessary for the organization to effectively serve students.

“Some senators believed that we would not be able to reach the minimum number of votes needed to pass a referendum, and said that this failure would be ‘embarrassing’ for GUSA,” Wolfe wrote to The Hoya. “I believe in, and vocalized, the notion that we should be more concerned about be able to fulfill our duty to adequately provide for student need instead of public opinion surrounding GUSA, especially when we are already generally viewed in an unfavorable light.”

Wolfe said GUSA leadership plans to reintroduce similar legislation again in the fall and will focus on internal reform in the meantime.

Samuel Yoo

We urge Henshaw and Wagner to focus on tangible changes instead of uncertain policy initiatives to continue their work of leaving the student body with a better life on campus.

The Editorial Board “Cautiously Support GUSA at Halfway” thehoya.com

On Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024, it was announced by the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) Election Commission that Ethan Henshaw (CAS ’26) and Darius Wagner (CAS ’27) were elected GUSA executive president and vice president. Their platform was outlined on an 11-page document that promised to support fair admissions practices, increase GUSA

transparency and rejuvenate community spaces among other initiatives.

In order to gauge student opinion, students were asked if they felt the Henshaw-Wagner administration has fulfilled its campaign promises. Of

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EDITORIAL CARTOON by Aria Zhu

Build on RA Union’s Success

On a warm spring evening late last year, I joined a group of students to celebrate what would ultimately be one of the most meaningful moments of my undergraduate career: the unionization of Georgetown University’s resident assistants (RAs). Our attempt to unionize was far from the first, but we were ultimately the first to succeed — not only among undergraduates at Georgetown, but across all colleges in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

After the certification of our union, my colleagues and I began the lengthy process of collective bargaining. Just last week, after seven long months of negotiations and hundreds of hours spent meeting with administrators, the RAs reached a tentative agreement with the university, including topics like compensation, discipline and training, among other details of long-standing interest.

This achievement merits an important moment of reflection. When we founded the Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC) and launched our initial organizing campaign, we did so by calling attention to the issues RAs perceived as most pressing. We pledged to fight for greater accountability in our workplace, a fairer process of assigning discipline, increased compensation and the establishment of a formal staffing ratio, among other priorities. In July, we shared a 38-page proposed contract with our membership delivering on these promises.

Both RAs and avid readers of The Hoya will recognize that the tentative agreement we reached last week appears different from the one we initially proposed, including an unchanged placement process and unresolved issues with how the university’s need-based financial aid reduces our effective compensation. Still, I am no less proud of our wins. We made gains that are in no way small, from the removal of RAs’ at-will status to a provision mandating RAs in good standing retain their jobs to an annual stipend of $3,500. Within the next several weeks, I both hope and expect my colleagues will vote to affirm these wins, securing a better future for the generations of RAs to follow. Although the conclusion of our first contract is within sight, our work remains unfinished. The effort required to maintain a union is both far greater and far more

difficult than that required to create it. By the time the next cohort of RAs will begin to negotiate their contract, a whole generation of undergraduates shall have passed. Indeed, most of GRAC’s work will rest not in negotiating a contract, but in educating, organizing and remembering. Remembering is essential, for, with the graduation of the Class of 2026, the direct memory of why we unionized will fade, making it all the more vital to preserve our history and purpose for future generations. GRAC must heed this call to ensure its wins do not become transient. Its future leaders must work diligently to ensure the fair enforcement of our contract. In this role, they will have to wear many hats, serving as shop stewards, mediators and committee members. As must leaders of any democratic institution, they will be called to remain receptive to their constituents. They must be proactive in engaging both new RAs and members of our community, like serving in GUSA, speaking with student publications or collaborating with campus groups who share our mission. They must remember: Eyes are watching. In its short time, GRAC has already solicited attention from student workers both on our campus and afar seeking ways to improve their workplaces. Accordingly, we must strive for our best, not just for ourselves, but also for those who look up to us. As we look ahead, the story of GRAC must not become some old opinion piece but instead remain a vibrant and flourishing legacy passed down with care, conviction and clarity. Our fight was never just about a contract. It was about dignity, courage and the belief that student workers can and should shape their workplaces. What we have built is fragile but powerful, and its continued success will depend on the willingness of future RAs to step up, speak out and steward this union faithfully. To the next generation: GRAC is your inheritance — but more importantly, your responsibility. Treat it not as a finished product, but as a foundation. Build on it. Question it. Defend it. Above all, never forget how far we have come and why we chose to fight in the first place.

Sam Lovell is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences

Stay on the Record, Keep Resisting

When I write, I have one primary goal: I want you to bleed. I want the knife of my words to cut your soul and leave you there wondering how to fix the emotional mess.

At my worst, I am a plastic kitchen knife trying to cut into a tough sirloin steak. My writing is too languid, perhaps self-indulgent, replete with commas and semicolons and hyphens.

But even at my lowest, I am proud of what I write. The act of publishing is a brave statement of forging your words into the annals of history, forever on the record for someone to dig up decades down the line.

This concept should terrify writers to a healthy degree, but it should not stop them from speaking their mind. Unfortunately, in a world where free speech has become an enemy of the state, reporters and contributors have been crippled by the fear of having their words mean something, anything, in a time when they matter the most.

Here is the truth: Getting sources to go on the record is harder than ever. In recent years, I have seen an alarming uptick in current students and graduates emailing me asking their names be removed from articles or requesting anonymity out of worry for their public image.

Include Students in Campus Decisions

As seniors on Georgetown University’s College Academic Council (CAC), we’ve collaborated with professors, deans and university stakeholders for four years. As first-years, we led the successful charge for each student to receive 250 pages of free printing. Since then, we’ve worked on several academic issues, including waitlist and registration policies, the GUExperience transition and the selection of the next dean of the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS). Through these engagements and more, we’ve found administrators to be remarkably open and responsive to student concerns and insights.

This sentiment, unfortunately, doesn’t fully extend to Georgetown’s expansion to the Capitol Campus.

The Hoya recently reported Georgetown could lose an estimated $91.4 million on Capitol Campus programs by Fiscal Year 2028, according to spring 2024 projections. Only 40 students are confirmed for the two undergraduate programs at the Capitol Campus for next year. Even with an optimistic estimate of 60 for CALL program participation, downtown enrollment between both the undergraduate and CALL programs next year will fall far short of the 145 initially projected. The 20262027 target of 360 downtown students also seems increasingly unrealistic.

Two years ago, while serving on the CAS Executive Council (ExCo), Naveen Shah (CAS ’25) warned about this possibility during the consideration of a new joint public policy degree with the McCourt School. CAC, comprised of undergraduates across the College, raised serious objections to the degree’s requirement that students spend their final two years living downtown, writing in an addendum to the degree proposal we did “not believe the proposal should proceed before these issues are thoroughly researched and addressed.”

As two government majors, we both instinctively understood the unique

appeal of studying on the Capitol Campus, but we could never imagine leaving our friends and extracurriculars on the Hilltop. Barring access to MedStar’s helipad, we doubted many students would elect to navigate the commute through D.C. traffic for, say, evening club sports practice. This view was held by Sara Eyob (CAS ’27), who shared that she decided to drop the public policy major after weighing it against her involvement with friends and clubs on the main campus.

Our addendum to the degree proposal was ultimately revised to include concerns from the College faculty before the proposal passed unanimously in November 2022. But it is unclear if the Provost’s Office included this addendum en route to final approval with Georgetown’s Board of Directors, and there was no further communication about our objections.

Two years later, we are still troubled by how this disregard for students has led to an inauspicious start for undergraduate programs downtown. Nevertheless, we love Georgetown and want its ventures to succeed. So how can we turn this $90-million ship around? We have ideas, which are expressed here independently from CAC.

Let’s get a few things straight: First, Georgetown should diversify its revenue streams to ensure long-term viability. Second, expanding enrollment is one reliable way to achieve this goal. Third, Hilltop enrollment is legally capped, so enrollment expansion requires a new location. But fourth — crucially — most Georgetown students will never (voluntarily) leave the Hilltop. One recommendation we have is for Georgetown to offer the Capitol Campus as a space for “semester in D.C.” programs for other universities nationwide.

Given the amenities, location and Georgetown brand, we expect such a program to be wildly successful

and help rectify financial issues.

Beyond the Capital Campus, the core issue is how major decisions are continually left to generationsremoved — albeit very experienced — administrators and board members, leading to a level of groupthink that we believe is unacceptable given the stakes. A university boardroom dominated by discussion of fancy amenities and immersive internship opportunities may never realize that most Georgetown students would prefer to live all four years in Darnall than prematurely walk away from friends and extracurriculars.

In our last meeting with the College deans, we requested a permanent student voice in the Capitol Campus decision-making process. But even this would be a half measure. Students cannot continue being belatedly included in decisions on a case-by-case, merely advisory basis on Georgetown’s biggest initiatives.

There’s an easy fix: add a student to the board of directors. Peer institutions like Stanford, Duke and Cornell have all done this with positive results. Even in a non-voting role, a student present at meetings would provide critical feedback that we reckon board members will appreciate, as has been the case in all other administrative bodies we have been part of. Undergraduates are the heart of Georgetown. We are impacted by every major academic and financial decision, and our contributions are crucial to avoiding missteps. Yet we cannot help but feel our recommendations only ever make it to the doorstep of “the room where it happens.” Georgetown students are diligent, intelligent and deeply invested in our school’s future. Take us seriously during the decisionmaking process.

Naveen Shah and Pratik Jacob are seniors in the College of Arts & Sciences.

As a former senior editor, executive editor and departing chair of the board for The Hoya, I’ve seen it all — but this one is new. I’m quite terrified that the value judgement of comfort over truth has become more appealing in a time when dissenting voices should be louder than ever.

To state the obvious, I am sympathetic to these claims. The U.S. governmenthasdetainedinternational students and revoked their visas for writing op-eds on Palestine; doxxing campaigns have ramped up against pro-Palestinian protestors; and the Trump administration has filed lawsuits against a slew of law firms and journalism outlets that he claims wronged him.

In this fragile moment — when the arc of justice has consistently bent away from morality — journalists, and those who contribute to newspapers, must be more aggressive than ever in their reporting and sourcing to safeguard democracy and free speech. Willing self-censorship is the easiest way for dangerous far-right parties to continue gaining power and evading accountability.

Moral clarity is a tricky word, much like justice, in that it holds different definitions for different people. I will not tell you what moral principles to

believe, but I will tell you what your beliefs should compel you to do.

Georgetown exists because of the Jesuit Catholic belief that Jesus Christ selflessly died for humanity’s sins at the hands of the Roman Empire, and it is a moral model religious and non-religious folk alike should follow.

Thus, it is a failure of the university if, at the time of receiving their degree, a Hoya does not have a strong enough moral compass that they might even consider dying for their beliefs.

Taking one look at the world tells all: The sound of democracy’s kettle crying out for relief is all around us. It is the sounds of protestors on campus against Badar Khan Suri’s legally dubious detention, universities like Harvard standing up to absurd demands of conservative zealots and national marches against the erroneous civil violations of the Trump administration.

Really, what rings in my head is the titular line from Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad’s account of the war atrocities in Gaza: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”

Our words may not be perfect, but the greatest sin is to not try.

Fight back against shallow words and weak statements and morally neutral observations. There is a difference between moral clarity and impartiality, but the two are not mutually exclusive. To call out what is happening in the world at this moment as evil, unfathomable and dangerous is not a betrayal of journalistic values, but the reason this profession exists. I am guilty of holding my tongue in times of crisis, of not catching all the errors and flaccid phrases in my years of editing for The Hoya, but there is still time, always time, to speak for truth. No matter what I publish in the future, I am dedicated to making sure every word of mine has meaning and contributes to public dialogue. Even if I don’t always get it right, I will continue to use my words to create a better world for all of us. It is the only way forward. May journalists stay dedicated to keeping clear eyes, open hearts and strong minds — and continue to boldly go on the record forevermore. So help us, God.

Clayton Kincade is a senior in the School of Foreign Service.

We are concerned with the referendum that the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) put forth for the undergraduate student body to vote on from April 26 to 28.

The referendum calls on the university to disclose investments involving Israel and “End University Partnerships with Israeli Institutions.”

As student leaders of the principal Jewish and Israel-focused student organizations at Georgetown, we oppose GUSA’s referendum as damaging to academic freedom, illegitimate and discriminatory. We urge students to vote no.

First, the referendum’s demands are a striking breach of academic freedom. According to its mission statement, Georgetown University is an “academic community dedicated to creating and communicating knowledge,” and “was founded on the principle that serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical and spiritual understanding.”

The referendum undermines Georgetown’s mission by violating students’ academic freedom. It could revoke the opportunity for Georgetown students to study abroad at Israeli universities, for Georgetown to invite faculty of Israeli universities to teach and lecture, for Georgetown faculty to engage with Israeli universities and for student groups to collaborate with Israeli institutions on academic and cultural initiatives. These engagements are necessary components of academic freedom. Israeli scholars, academics and students are some of the most vocal advocates for peace and coexistence amongst Israelis and Palestinians. Eliminating these intellectual resources would betray our Jesuit values and the core principles of higher education.

Second, the referendum is illegitimate. The sponsors of the

referendum pushed their bill through GUSA’s voting structures without full or typical consideration. Bills are generally introduced through the Policy and Advocacy Committee, which assigns policy priorities to senators and allows deliberation on bills at least a week in advance. Yet, this bill did not pass through the committee, rather it was introduced in the last minutes of the April 6 GUSA Senate meeting on a motion to break the rules, shortchanging the traditional period of deliberation. Similar motions have been used in the past, but this referendum was unique in that the bill’s proponents surprised even their peers in the GUSA Senate.

The referendum’s scheduling also raised concerns over accessibility for Jewish students. While it was initially planned for April 14-16 — which falls during the important Jewish holiday of Passover, when observant Jews were unable to use technology for a period of the vote — GUSA rescheduled the referendum for April 26-28 due to concerns from university administration and Georgetown’s Jewish community. We are grateful the referendum vote was moved to accommodate our Jewish community members, although voting for other GUSA issues, including our representatives in the GUSA Senate, still fell during this holy time. Third, the referendum is inherently discriminatory. Hamas’ Oct. 7th terror attacks and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war have devastated Israeli and Palestinian lives. In cutting ties with Israeli institutions and associated companies, the referendum removes Israel from the dialogue on peace, impeding learning and coexistence for both Israelis and Palestinians. Furthermore, the referendum singles out and demonizes the world’s only Jewish state, accusing it of human rights abuses without mentioning other Georgetown-affiliated states facing similar accusations. In so

doing, the referendum imposes a “double standard” that falls under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, which the governments of the United States and other countries recognize. We are also highly concerned with recent acts of antisemitic vandalism taking place on Georgetown’s campus in connection with the referendum. Last week, university officials found antisemitic graffiti on a Jewish student’s poster. In addition, between April 11 and 12, flyers posted by Jewish students protesting the referendum were torn down in Red Square, infringing the free speech of Jewish community members and violating Georgetown policy. These acts of vandalism constitute attempts to intimidate and silence Jewish voices at Georgetown, and our entire university community must condemn them. We aregratefultheadministrationisactively investigating these incidents and that appropriate action will be taken. We support the right to free speech and protest whether or not we agree with the objectives. Students should never have their voices stifled regardless of the causes they advocate for, and Georgetown University ought not restrict the freedom of its students and faculty in any capacity or for any point of view. This referendum violates the very principles Georgetown stands on. We urge students to vote no. Thisviewpointwasco-authoredbyTalia Zamir,MaddieStoller,ZachSamuel,Abigail Assadi, Natalie Goldwasser, Ava Uditsky, Noah Rudick, Naama Ben-Dor, Jonathan Rothschild andJacob Intrator, representing leadership from Georgetown’s principal Jewish and Israel-focused student organizations, including the Jewish Student Association (JSA), Georgetown Israel Alliance (GIA), Georgetown Chabad and Georgetown Students Supporting Israel (SSI). The viewpoint was drafted in consultation with club leadership and receivedsupporttheirmembership.

VIEWPOINT • JEWISH STUDENT GROUP LEADERS

VIEWPOINT • KINCADE

VIEWPOINT • JACOB AND SHAH

Regulated AI Use, Detection at GU Leads to Growing Uncertainty

Georgetown University’s lack of a centralized enforcement policy for students and faculty looking to navigate AI use has created differences in classroom and administrative AI policy.

Clayton Kincade Former Chair of the Board

hen Abby Miles (MSB

W’26) applied to study abroad for the Spring 2025 semester in Spain, she had everything in order — two teacher recommendations, application questions and a 500-word essay in Spanish to demonstrate her foreign language literacy. Miles, who has received an A for every Spanish class she took at Georgetown University, was more than excited for the chance to study outside the United States.

Weeks later, however, Miles received a surprising email request from the program advisor: Could she explain why she incorrectly used masculine gender pronouns instead of feminine ones in her application essay?

“I immediately wrote back saying that I use she/her pronouns, and it might have been Google’s autocorrect feature because Google will frequently autocorrect feminine pronouns to masculine,” Miles told The Hoya. “His subsequent email immediately deferred me to the Honor Council and suspected me of using ChatGPT or some form of AI to write my study abroad essay.”

“My initial reaction was complete shock. To this day, I have never used ChatGPT to write an essay,” Miles added.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is ubiquitous among college students. Around a third of college students use AI regularly for coursework, according to research by OpenAI, the non-profit organization behind the large language model chatbot ChatGPT.

As this use has become more widespread and differentiating between AI and human writing becomes increasingly difficult, universities have had to adapt their policies to combat AI cheating and plagiarism, among other academic violations.

At Georgetown, the process of detecting and responding to AI usage has generated confusion, but also innovation, among students and professors alike. Discussions about AI’s role in education are only just beginning.

The Institutional Framework

At Georgetown, approaches to AI usage in the classroom are intentionally inconsistent. Official university guidance stipulates professors have discretion over student interaction with AI in their classrooms.

The Georgetown Honor Council’s Honor System Policies requires that “the question of how to acknowledge AI-generated intellectual work and whether it is to be allowed at all is answered by individual course policies.”

A university spokesperson similarly said professors hold the highest say on AI use.

“Students should refer to their professor’s syllabus policies on AI usage to inform their work,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “These policies take precedence over personal practices or variations in faculty allowances. Students should adhere to the guidelines provided in each course syllabus.”

Molly Chehak — the director of digital learning at the Center for New

Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), Georgetown’s home for pedagogy — said Georgetown’s lack of a central AI policy apparatus in the classroom is to give professors creative and academic freedom when teaching their courses.

“The reason that Georgetown doesn’t have a policy that governs everyone equally is that we wouldn’t want a faculty member in one field or discipline being constrained in their use if they need it for teaching,” Chehak told The Hoya. “The university is an incredibly diverse place.”

In the classroom, Georgetown’s English department, for example, has a wide range of professors’ AI requirements.

Nathan Hensley, an associate professor in English and the director of undergraduate studies in English, prefers students to avoid using AI tools in their writing. In one of his classes, Hensley said he makes students critique an AI-generated essay to look for stylistic flaws.

“I have students articulate what about the large language mechanics they see reflected stylistically in the, for example, vacuous prose of the large language model, its inability to create accurate citations or its inability to produce accurate, close readings of texts,” Hensley told The Hoya Hensley said these assignments act as a way to critically reproach AI, centering these tasks as a dialogue between the student and AI rather than an integration of it into the classroom. Hensley said this approach encourages students not to be afraid of taking intellectual risks and making mistakes.

“We get a false sense of security from typing things into the machine and having it tell you what’s the point of Sigmund Freud, for example, and what it gives you is some watered-down set of cliches,” Hensley said.

On the other hand, Phil Sandick, an associate teaching professor in the English department and the director of the creative writing minor, said he is more open to the idea of students using AI in the classroom, including in the required writing course WRIT 1150.

“I decided in the fall to turn all of my WRIT 1150 sections, for better or for worse, into a class thinking about each assignment in some way engaged with generative AI,” Sandick told The Hoya. “We didn’t get too technical in it, but it revolved around big projects where students had to write a guide for other students about how to use generative AI in ways that are sort of meaningful, ethical.”

Seth Perlow, an associate professor of English currently on research leave, said he has been considering how to address AI when returning to the classroom in 2026.

“I don’t think that there’s much question that ChatGPT, among other tools, is now capable of producing coherent, expository prose such that it is indiscernible from human writing,” Perlow told The Hoya. “I do think it’s worth thinking about the wide range of possibilities of assessing student learning.”

“These tools are a part of daily life now, and I don’t think it’s any likelier that they will not be used in some capacity for writing than it is that we won’t use calculators for arithmetic,” Perlow added.

Navigating AI Policy

While Georgetown doesn’t have a university-wide framework for AI usage in classrooms, it has a consistent approach to addressing suspected instances of AI misuse.

In the 2022-23 academic year, roughly half of the alleged instances reported to the Honor Council in violation of the Honor System, the university’s academic expectations set forth in the student handbook, dealt with plagiarism. Without a central policy or mechanism for finding and detecting AI use in assignments, each professor has the ultimate say when they believe a student has used AI in their work without authorization. However, there is not a firm consensus on what unauthorized AI use looks like.

Hensley said the repetition of a three-point structure, lack of close reading skills and the overuse of the same stylistic trends key him into potential AI use. Perlow said he looks for the hallucination of fake citations and stock phrases not at a student’s writing level, and Sandick said that while AI writing is hard to detect naturally, he looks more generally to see if a student’s writing has emotional depth that AI cannot reproduce.

The Honor Council’s Honor System Policies, which apply to all undergraduate students, states that while professors should handle regulations of AI generated coursework, “if you didn’t generate the words yourself, say so by quoting and citing the source; if you generated the words but not the content and ideas, say so by citing the source.”

Ali Whitmer, associate vice president in the Office of the Provost and executive director of the Honor Council, said the Honor Council handles unauthorized AI cases no differently than other violations.

“When an allegation comes in from a faculty member or TA or someone else, the first thing that happens is I review all the case materials, and then I ask one of our faculty members from the Honor Council faculty assembly to do an investigation,” Whitmer told The Hoya. “The investigation generally includes a conversation with the professor and then a conversation with the student, and then a written report is submitted back to the Honor Council.”

Regarding Miles’ case with the Honor Council, Miles said the faculty member who reviewed her essay noted the errors of referring to herself as the masculine “un estudiante” instead of the feminine “una estudiante.”

Miles also discussed with the faculty member the use of “e” instead of “y” to represent “and,” a non-beginner conjugation in Spanish that seemed at odds with the previous gender errors, learned as early as introductory courses. The two also reviewed Miles’ editing history on

Google Docs to see how fast she typed the essay.

Whitmer said that these preliminary conversations serve as one component when deciding if a complaint will go to a full hearing.

“It is a conversation that we have with students asking them to explain things about their assignment, things about their exam, how they did their work,” Whitmer said. “The investigator might ask them to show some previous drafts of their work or ask them how they approach the material.”

The Honor Council decided to have a full hearing after the faculty member met with Miles, which she said came as a surprise.

“There were elements in it that I felt could not have been recreated by AI, so I was frankly extremely shocked that anyone could assume I had used ChatGPT,” Miles said.

At her full hearing, Miles said the Honor Council cleared her of suspected wrongdoing.

“I think once the Honor Council saw my editing history, it was pretty clear that I didn’t use AI, because it showed how I had typed things and gone back to edit them,” Miles said. “My other explanation was that I hadn’t taken Spanish at all over the summer, so I was kind of rusty, and I had never had to write a personal essay since getting to Georgetown.”

AI Policy and The Future

Moving forward, Georgetown students and faculty have different ideas on how to factor AI into students’ learning and classroom experience.

Hensley said some in the English department feel AI may act as a crutch to learning, stifling students’ creativity and reinforcing the emerging transactional nature of education.

“If you can create a situation of trust where students feel that they can take risks and that they can fail and that’s okay, and that that’s how you actually accomplish things that are new and real,” Hensley said.

Cal Newport, a professor of computer science and contributor to The New Yorker, wrote an article in October 2024 titled “What Kind of Writer is ChatGPT?” where he followed students using AI to write essays.

Newport said many students used generative AI in fragments to tweak or edit assignments, yet this crutch sometimes led to other problems in their writing ability.

“To outsource core aspects of writing to AI would be like wanting to be a better athlete but outsourcing some of the gym time to a machine to lift the weights for you,” Newport told The Hoya. “Yes, technically, the workout was done, but do you think you’re any stronger? So what was that? What was the point of that?”

Others, like Sandick, are more willing to embrace AI as a classroom tool. Sandick said his introduction of AI in assignments was to fight back against traditional biases regarding AI, acknowledging the technology in real time and expanding the depth of conversations in his classroom.

“Passion, I think, is the most important thing that happens in

With AI policy at professors’ discretion, Georgetown students have had a wide variety of interactions with the new technology in classroom settings, ranging from critiquing AI compositions to producing AI music concerts.

a college humanities class. It’s the debates that you had, the disagreements, the feeling that things started to click,” Sandick said. “So more and more, I’m going to probably have to redo how we do class discussions to really look deeper.”

In the summer of 2024, Georgetown offered grants ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 to professors who proposed pedagogical ways of using AI in their courses, according to an email sent to faculty that TheHoya obtained. Funding for these initiatives comes largely from the Baker Trust for Transformative Learning, which supports Georgetown in value-based endeavors, and the Sonneborn Innovation Fund, which funds new pedagogical practices. Each organization is a partner of the Red House, Georgetown’s educational research and development unit.

“The writing program faculty who were interested had an interest meeting about the program, and we talked in a workshop about what kinds of ways we could teach this,” Sandick said. “The spectrum ranges from wanting to adopt it into the classroom to too many environmental costs, don’t want to do it, don’t really want to engage with it, it’s too ethically fraught.”

CNDLS offers financial support to carry out the Initiative on the Pedagogical Uses of AI (IPAI), a program to support faculty experimentation with AI across disciplines and foster innovation in teaching and learning at all levels.

A university spokesperson said the different grants and opportunities the university offers through IPAI align with the university’s values of expanding educational opportunities.

“The first round of proposals received approximately 90 ideas, with 40 projects funded and implemented. These projects span three themes: ‘Rethinking Ways of Teaching,’ ‘Researching New Ways of Working,’ and ‘Improving the Student Experience,’” the university spokesperson wrote. “The IPAI exemplifies Georgetown’s commitment to integrating AI into education while remaining true to its mission of forming future leaders.”

“IPAI awarded $160,000 to 19 projects in its first round of funding. A second round in 2024 expanded this to $224,000 across 33 grants, including student ‘X-grants,’” the spokesperson added.

Jeanine Turner, a professor with a joint appointment to the McDonough School of Business (MSB) and the communication, culture and technology (CCT) program, said she has used AI in her MSB and CCT classes to better help students in their educational efforts.

“I’ve had students use AI to help them with their writing, help them build their presentations, help them interact with it as a way to roleplay a challenging conversation,” Turner told The Hoya. “I think it’s critical that we integrate it in the way that we teach and think about how we use it with learning.”

Turner said she wanted to introduce AI into the classroom because of its popularity among students.

“The second that I saw it, I said this is exactly what students are going to be using. I would be using it too as a student,” Turner said. “I think what AI has done has helped us all think about learning in a different way. It’s become so integrated into knowledge, so now we have to think about the role of the faculty member. I think we’re moving away from a very old model of teaching.” Some classes have fully integrated AI into their curriculum, including “Music in the Age of AI,” taught by Benjamin Harbert, chair of the department of performing arts and the director of undergraduate studies in music. The course culminated in an AI music festival held in the Gonda Theater April 23. Sophia Dorr (CAS ’27), a student in the class, said it has changed her view of AI as a personal and educational tool.

“It really made me a lot more open to using AI in my everyday life,” Dorr told The Hoya. “I now use AI a lot more for all my work than I did before this class. My understanding of AI has become so complete after taking this class, and I think it was really useful in that way.”

“It’s completely different from any other class I’ve taken, because we use it for everything from composition to brainstorming to organizing. Some of my classes, you’re allowed to use AI, but it’s not encouraged or embraced like this class,” Dorr added.

While the university’s AI policy in classrooms continues to evolve, students continue to have varied experiences.

Miles’ story did not end after her Honor Council hearing. To remove the conditional status from her study abroad application and avoid taking a Spanish language class abroad, Miles took a Spanish placement test to further demonstrate her familiarity with the language. Miles said she scored a C1, which translates to near fluency. Miles has happily spent this semester in Spain with her host family, but the AI accusation had the chance to derail her college experience.

“I was very frustrated at this point, because I had been through what is essentially six hours of meetings and also prepared a full written statement,” Miles said. “Who wants to spend two hours taking a placement exam for a language they’ve clearly already demonstrated their position in because of an AI accusation?” For professors, these conversations begin a long road to a permanent solution.

“Although I want my students to be intellectually honest and not find ways of cheating on assignments, I also don’t want to organize the student-faculty relationship around surveillance or the kind of detective work and enforcement that structures questions around plagiarism,” Perlow said.

“We as humanities instructors might respond to these AI tools by thinking less about the quality of student writing and more about the quality of students’ ideas,” Perlow added.

ILLUSTRATION BY MADELEINE OTT/THE HOYA

GU Professor Highlights Critical Flaws In Global Approach

Niyat

Theodroes Special to The Hoya

A Georgetown University professor specializing in public policy and infectious diseases discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic highlights critical flaws in the global economic approach to health crises at a seminar April 9.

The event was part of Georgetown’s health and the public interest (HAPI) master’s program, a program preparing students to tackle complex global health challenges that intersect with culture, psychology and policy. Taylor Winkleman, the professor, explained how classical economics can help explain decision-making during health care crises.

Winkleman said pandemics uniquely illustrate different levels of decision-making.

“The pandemic is a good example of a global problem that has global issues,” Winkleman said at the event. “Therefore, we can use this to examine choices at multiple levels. We can look at choices made by individuals, countries, states or international choices.”

Winkleman added that infectious diseases require a unique policy approach because they

to Health Crises

can emerge and spread without deliberate action.

“Weapons of mass destruction usually have to be deliberately made,” Winkleman said. “You actually don’t have to do anything to make an infectious disease harmful.”

Winkleman identified major misalignments that contributed to policy failures in the economic response to COVID-19.

Winkleman said one misalignment is that, during a pandemic, the global economy is less concerned with incentivizing innovation for the long term and more focused on preventing actions that put people at immediate risk.

“We’re not concerned about how they are incentivizing innovation to get through the pandemic,” Winkleman said. “We are concerned about what they are or are not doing that could put us at risk.”

According to Winkleman, policy failures also emerge when the public health sector does not fairly distribute important resources, like information and vaccines. These disparities are evident from the United States’ COVID-19 response, with Black and Latino populations facing higher rates of infection and

death due to limited access to testing, vaccines and accurate health information.

Winkleman said government responses to COVID-19 failed to ensure equitable vaccine distribution worldwide, despite taking important steps to incentivize pharmaceutical companies to develop such vaccines.

“Since we incentivized innovation by giving pharmaceutical companies insane amounts of money and resources to create the vaccine, we were able to create one in less than 12 months,” Winkleman said. “But we were not concerned with the equity of the vaccine.”

Ana Konakanchi (SOH ’28), a global health major, said countries should reject economic individualism.

“The pandemic, and specifically the period where the vaccine was being distributed, was just another example of countries acting economically, meaning they were looking out for their own interests,” Konakanchi told The Hoya “If we had learned to cooperate better, it’s possible that the pandemic could have been contained earlier and better with the emergence of fewer variants.”

Global efforts like the COVAX initiative, which aimed

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

A Georgetown University professor spoke at a April 9 event to highlight how the COVID-19 pandemic revealed critical flaws in the global approach to public health crises.

to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines regardless of income level, faced challenges such as vaccine hoarding by wealthier nations.

Marin Napolitano (CAS ’28), who studies political economy, said vaccine equity underscores how economic factors influence public health.

Zheng Lab Researches Role of Telomeres in Cancer

Joelle Kang Science Writer

A Georgetown University professor is continuing novel research on the impact of DNA patterns on breast cancer.

Yun-Ling Zheng, an associate professor of oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center, conducts research on dysfunction in telomeres, protective caps at the ends of chromosomal DNA that prevent DNA from getting damaged when cells divide in the body. Her recent research measures the length of telomeres, attempting to understand what role telomere function has in cancer development.

Zheng specifically focuses on telomere dysfunction, which occurs over time as cells continue to divide and telomeres get shorter and shorter — similar to how tips wear down after use. When telomeres get too short, the cell cannot divide anymore and stops working properly. Some scientists believe telomere dysfunction is linked to aging and other diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure, making Zheng’s research crucial in identifying telomere dysfunction as an indicator of cancer.

Zheng’s most recent research, published in September 2024, shows a new method of telomere measurement, which can be used to detect individuals with abnormal telomere lengths before clinical symptoms of cancer and other degenerative diseases emerge.

Zheng said she decided to create her own techniques to measure telomere length after being unsatisfied with the techniques previously available.

“There are dozens of methods out there that have been developed in the past 20 years, but each

one has its own limitations and pros and cons and I wasn’t satisfied with any of them,” Zheng wrote to The Hoya. “For five years, we have been trying to develop a better one through collaboration with bioengineering scientists.”

Zheng’s research is informed by her background as a clinician-turned-researcher. Zheng graduated from Jiangxi Medical College in 1984 and practiced medicine before turning to research work.

Zheng also serves as a mentor to undergraduate researchers, including Ayla Feng (SOH ’28) and Madeline Williams (CAS ’27). Feng said the implications of this research could help predict cancer in patients.

“Knowing more about the physiological role of telomeres can potentially help predict cancer emergence, and telomere length can be an important predictive biomarker for certain types of cancer,” Feng wrote to The Hoya Williams said her work on DNA extraction projects in the lab was included in a published paper on Zheng’s research.

“To be a part of the publishing process as a co-author of a powerful methods paper, as a sophomore, was amazing,” Williams wrote to The Hoya Williams said her work in the lab focuses on using wet-lab techniques which helps analyze different samples from the body.

“I have done a lot of DNA extraction from whole blood, buffy coat, granulocyte and lymphocyte samples, ” Williams wrote.

Williams said being part of the Zheng lab has changed her perspective on research, as well as equipped her with skills she plans to use as an aspiring medical doctor.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The Zheng Lab at Georgetown University is conducting novel research on telomeres as a potential cancer indicator.

“I think many people perceive research as one person working in a lab for hours by themselves (not to say this hasn’t happened at times),” Williams wrote. “But, I have come to realize that research is actually inherently collaborative. It also requires diligence, focus, patience and a true interest in whatever field you are in.”

As the Zheng lab continues to refine its methods and expand its understanding of telomere dysfunction, Zheng said she hopes its work will have real-world applications in cancer prevention, detection and treatment. By focusing on other aspects of telomeres, these methods expose early warning

signs of genomic instability and offer more routes to risk assessment and therapy development.

“This is very exciting,” Zheng wrote. “It will change future research for the whole field — by focusing on multiple aspects of telomere abnormalities, not just average telomere length.”

Zheng said her ultimate motives are grounded in patient outcomes.

“After so many years of research, you want your product to actually promote health — to benefit the people who really need it,” Zheng wrote. “I feel that if we can succeed at helping them, it is very rewarding.”

SON Unpacks Updated 2025 Code of Ethics for Nurses

Kaitlyn Lee Science Writer

Georgetown University’s School of Nursing (SON) explored the key changes designed to support nurses and patients in the changing healthcare systems in the newly revised 2025 Code of Ethics for Nurses, marking the first update since 2015, at an April 8 lecture. The 2025 update features an added tenth provision alongside significant updates to the original nine and changes to terminology, such as referring to the patient instead as “recipients” of care, prioritizing the patient above the institution. Jennifer Bartlett, associate dean and associate professor of nursing at Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University, who co-chaired the revision, spoke about the key changes to these provisions.

Carol Taylor, a SON professor who helped lead the revision of Provision 2 and spoke at the event, said one such revision — adding the phrase “conflicts of commitment” to what was previously only “conflicts of interest” — was crucial in this provision because it addresses the centrality of patients.

“I love the fact that we addressed conflicts of commitment,” Taylor said at the event.

“Because when we’re talking about our professional practice and that our commitment to patients should come first, when we do lack the attention and time to be who our patients need us to be, there’s a problem, and I think that invites reflection from all of us.”

Bartlett said the updated Provision 5 emphasizes a holistic approach to nursing, encouraging nurses to bring their personal perspectives and values into their practice.

“We bring our entire selves into nursing for all the good and the bad that is, and this notion of wholeness of character that we need individual nurses, we need your perspectives, we need your diversity, we need your life experiences,” Bartlett said at the event. “That informs who we are as people and certainly should inform who we are as nurses.”

Provision 6 moves away from the idea of “good nurse vs. bad nurse,” and focuses more on the evolution of a nurse’s virtues and their environment.

Lucia Wocial, senior clinical ethicist and assistant director of

the Center for Ethics at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, who also spoke at the event, said the expectation of nurses in Provision 6 is not one of perfection, but one in which nurses strive to make the best ethical choices.

“What I hope people will think about when they see Provision 6 is it does not expect us to be virtuous or perfect nurses,” Wocial said. “It does invite us to think about who I am, what is my identity as a nurse and how I take that and contribute in a very positive way to what we call a moral milieu, an environment that allows people to flourish and excel and be of their ethics best.”

The last four provisions focus on nurses in relation to society. The ninth provision, originally about nurses on a national and global level, was split into two. Provision 9 addresses national issues, while Provision 10 emphasizes global solidarity and the role of nurses in planetary health, justice and sustainable development.

Wocial said it is important to look at the interconnectedness of each provision when looking at the code as a whole.

“One of the things that is so essential for you to appreciate

is that no one provision stands alone,” Wocial said. “And it really does depend on us thinking deeply about the different parts.”

Sarah Vittone, a clinical ethics consultant and associate professor at Georgetown University, said the code captures Georgetown’s values.

“Our Code of Ethics, with our ethical principles and Jesuit values, is embedded in our Georgetown curriculum,” Vittone wrote to The Hoya. “A nurse in practice can be confident that their colleagues have this same code to guide their everyday decisions in practice, their own wellbeing and continuing education as well as the crucial decisions and actions, educating and collaborating with others to ultimately help those in their care.”

Bartlett said the code is significant because it reflects a nurse’s identity and professional obligations.

“It is for nurses and it is by nurses,” Bartlett said. “It really is our chance to articulate who we are as a profession, how we roll and how we function in healthcare, what structures we require and what’s necessary and how we want to serve the populations we serve.”

“In economics, I remember learning about the ‘efficiency versus equity’ dilemma — how policies that generate economic activity are not always evenly distributed within a society — and I think applying that idea to the vaccine creation highlighted how economic dilemmas are directly tied to public health.”

“I thought what Winkleman said about equity in disturbing the vaccine was really interesting,” Napolitano told The Hoya.

Winkleman said economics should be a means to achieve public good, not an end in itself.

“We should recognize that the economy, in fact, should be a tool, not an outcome,” Winkleman said. “The economy is the means to achieve what it is we want to do. So, if we want there to be fewer deaths from infectious disease, the economy is one of the tools we can use to do that.”

SCIENCE AT THE CROSSROADS

Language of Diversity Out As Administration Limits Science Research Vocabulary

Ellie Ward Science Columnist

While the reinterpretation or exclusion of a word here and there may seem inconsequential in the moment, these changes add up quickly. In recent months, President Donald Trump’s administration has rewritten the vocabulary of scientific papers, programs and grant applications, creating sweeping implications for scientific scholarship.

The Trump administration has frequently targeted language associated with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in research cuts. Scientists have been forced to phase this language out of scientific writing under threat of losing federal funding.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), an agency that supports science and engineering research nationwide, has flagged the words “women,” “diverse,” “trauma” and “equity,” among others, as words that, in scientific papers, violate one of Trump’s most recent executive orders. The erasure of such words hinders equity considerations when awarding grants, particularly for research into conditions like HIV/AIDS and breast cancer, which disproportionately affect certain vulnerable populations.

Furthermore, some of the erased vocabulary, including the words “barriers” and “excluded,” have been flagged by the NSF despite having little to no connection to DEI initiatives in their original context.

These changes will affect the scientific process at all levels. Banned words surrounding gender and sexuality will affect hiring processes, study participants, scientific conferences and training seminars. Fear of funding cuts may force people — both scientists and the people who benefit from their work — to act cautiously. For example, the wording of relevant executive orders has been so vague that some people have begun to “obey in advance,” or adopt measures more drastic than those stated directly in the executive order. Therefore, studies will become even more unrepresentative, inaccessible for patient populations and difficult to acquire funding for. These changes will also affect students pursuing the sciences. For example, FarmFlux, a NASA program, is among a group of programs that removed wording on their website aimed at recruiting students from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, NASA removed its Here to Observe program, which identifies student groups underrepresented in astronomy and actively connects them with opportunities. These program changes are reflective of the “obey in advance” mentality, making broad leaps that exclude marginalized groups based on the federal government’s current anti-DEI stance. Climate and ecosystem science is also facing serious threats over

a single contested word. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal agency responsible for the conservation of wildlife and their habitats, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which manages the conservation of coastal and marine ecosystems, jointly proposed reinterpreting the word “harm” in the Endangered Species Act, which prohibits actions that would “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect endangered species.”

The existing interpretation of “harm,” as upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995, considers habitat harm a form of harm against endangered species. This interpretation is backed by scientific leaders, including Andrew Bowman, president of the Defenders of Wildlife environmental group, who said most species facing serious survival threats are especially threatened by habitat loss. By reinterpreting “harm” to no longer include damage to the habitats of endangered species, protections currently preventing the oil and logging industries from using these habitats would be overturned, putting many endangered species at higher risk. Language of inclusion in clinical trials and drug development is another new area of contention. Public trust in new medications and treatment decreases substantially when diverse populations do not see themselves represented in the clinical development population. Executive orders preventing language associated with DEI have dismantled programs run by the federal government aimed at identifying populations excluded from clinical trials and helping facilitate access to these clinical trials. Halting measures to include these populations in trials poses potential issues in facilitating widespread uptake of treatments, both curative and preventive.

Furthermore, underrepresented groups may not be able to access novel medication even if they do seek it, as access to and coverage for treatment may be limited only to people who were represented in clinical trials. Without the data to show that a particular drug or therapy is safe and effective for underrepresented groups, members of these groups may not reap the benefits of research and development. Because the allowed language has been limited, scientists must now devote a part of their finite time and resources to adjusting their research in order to prevent funding cuts. At the same time, efforts to diversify access to science careers and research beneficial to diverse populations are being dismantled. While the nuances of these overhauls are yet to reveal themselves, it is clear that language is becoming a major point of contention between the Trump administration and the scientific community.

IN FOCUS

MSNBC Host Encourages Student Engagement

GU Faculty’s National Endowment

Ari Citrin Student Life Desk Editor

At least two grants awarded to Georgetown University faculty were terminated April 2 by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), a federal agency that funds humanities research, citing a change in presidential priorities, multiple faculty members confirmed to The Hoya on April 22.

The grants are among more than 1,200 the NEH terminated across the country. The NEH cuts come as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Donald Trump administration’s initiative aiming to reduce federal spending, reduces research funding, primarily targeting scientific research.

According to letters The Hoya obtained, Michael McDonald, the acting chairman of the NEH, told grant recipients the terminations were the result of an executive order.

“NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda,” McDonald wrote in the letter.

“The President’s February 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the NEH eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions. Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities.”

Amir Zeldes, an associate computational linguistics professor, received a $350,000 NEH grant in 2023 alongside a collaborator at the University of Oklahoma for a project documenting and developing tools to study Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language.

Zeldes said losing the grant will bring his project to a halt and harm Georgetown’s linguistics department.

GU Renews

Ajani Stella and

Ruth Abramovitz Senior News Editors

The Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) campus will remain open for another 10 years after Georgetown renewed its contract with the Qatar Foundation (QF), a state-led Qatari education and development nonprofit, April 16. The contract renewal comes 20 years after the university first opened GU-Q in Education City, Qatar, an area housing eight branch campuses of U.S.and Europe-based universities.

Over 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students have graduated from GU-Q, which offers various programs in the School of Foreign Service (SFS).

Francisco Marmolejo, QF’s president of higher education, said GU-Q has created a generation of international leaders who tackle issues with a global perspective.

“Thanks to this partnership, more than 1,000 diplomats — experts on international relations with a very well-informed and very well-balanced perspective on the U.S., the Middle East and international geopolitical understanding — have been prepared by Georgetown University in Qatar,” Marmolejo told The Hoya

According to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), the university has received over $909

“The cancellation of our project in the middle of the grant period without any explanation means that we do not have the resources to continue the work we proposed, to pay employees doing work for the projec or even to run all the servers that the project interfaces rely on,” Zeldes wrote to The Hoya. “I think this has an immediate impact for people working with these resources and damages a leading project in Coptic Studies — this is concrete and reputational damage to the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown and our scholarly mission.”

Huaping Lu-Adler, a Georgetown philosophy professor, received a $190,000 grant from the NEH to support bringing a cohort of higher education faculty to Georgetown’s campus this summer to examine 17th and 18th century philosophical debates about slavery and colonialism.

Lu-Adler said her grant’s termination is forcing her to scale back the initiative, even after most of her participants were enrolled.

“My NEH-granted Institute could have helped to transform how generations of scholar-teachers teach and write about the Enlightenment philosophy,” Lu-Adler wrote to The Hoya

“Most importantly, even though we may be able to continue the work in some form virtually, having a threeweek in-person institute would have helped us build a lasting community of scholar-teachers,” Lu-Adler added.

“There is simply no substitute for this kind of community building.”

A university spokesperson said Georgetown is familiar with the Trump administration’s reassessment and is continuing to respond to the administration’s actions.

“We are closely monitoring changes to federal policies and regulations that may impact the Georgetown community,” the spokesperson wrote

to The Hoya. “We will remain attentive to new federal policies and laws, continue to evaluate any impacts they may have on our community and share updates on this work.”

Ananya Chakravarti, an associate history professor who previously received NEH funding to support archival research in India for a book project, said NEH support was pivotal in her career.

“Receiving the news that I had won was one of the proudest moments of my career and I am devastated for all those incredible colleagues around the country, including those whose awards have been cancelled this cycle,” Chakravarti wrote to The Hoya

Recent NEH guidance dictates the agency will not fund programs the government sees as promoting “gender ideology,” “discriminatory equity ideology” and “environmental justice initiatives.”

Kathryn Temple, an English professor who previously received grants from the NEH, said she chose not to reapply for a grant in light of these topical restrictions.

“I was prepared to submit for the current cycle (the deadline was a few weeks ago), but I could not imagine how to pursue my project given the current constraints against gender and race studies, so I did not apply,” Temple wrote.

“To see the NEH reduced as it has been to disallowing critical commentary on race, gender and other matters deemed unsuitable by the current administration is disturbing,” Temple added.

Chakravarti said university faculty will continue to support the humanities amid changes at the NEH.

“The loss of the NEH to my colleagues, both inside and outside Georgetown, is profound and we are all in mourning and we are all determined to do what we can to prevent its dismantling,” Chakravarti wrote.

Sofia Thomas GUSA Desk Editor

WHAT’S NEW IN MULTIMEDIA?

Georgetown University announced in an April 23 email that the administration will loosen some restrictions on campus gatherings for Georgetown Day after the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) launched a petition calling on the administration to reconsider their policies.

In 2024, the administration implemented a series of restrictions aimed at improving safety, including limiting access to Village A and Alumni Square to residents and their guests only, requiring wristbands for entry to Vil A and Alumni Square, banning outside DJs and live music and banning tents on Vil A rooftops and in the Alumni Square courtyard. The petition, which collected 295 student signatures in two days, argued these campus-wide rules introduced in 2024 negatively impacted student safety and the overall accessibility of Georgetown Day.

Felix Rice (CAS ’26), GUSA chief of staff, said student concerns after the 2024 restrictions inspired GUSA to look into the policies and propose reforms.

“Ever since the campaign, we’ve been hearing concerns from students about Georgetown Day last year,” Rice wrote to The Hoya. “We took what we heard from students and submitted a comprehensive proposal to the administration that we believed would address both student experience and safety.”

GUSA announced April 17 that university administration agreed to loosen some policies for Georgetown Day 2025, including decreasing wristband restrictions, scrapping additional rules for alcohol and open containers, and allowing bands and DJs to perform in the

Southwest Quadrangle.

The Hoya Setlist: Wonk Live Performance

Check out the inaugural episode of “The Hoya Setlist” where The Hoya showcases and interviews student musicians, artists and bands live from the office’s Copy Cave. The Hoya hosted Wonk, a 6-member student band, to play four of their hits. All videos are available on YouTube and thehoya.com.

help safety efforts for students.

GUSA Vice President Darius Wagner (CAS ’27) said he sees the administration’s decision to loosen some Georgetown Day policies as a success.

“I would say from the perspective of other measures that the university wanted to take, this was ahuge win,” Wagner told The Hoya. “Obviously we did not secure Vil A in the way we wanted to, where we preferred a clicker system, but we were able to break down a lot of wrongs in communication last year that sent Georgetown Day into a spiral.”

Rice said GUSA launched the petition to show the administration that the student body widely supported less strict policies.

“We do our best to amplify what we’re hearing from students in all the ways we can, but sometimes we need help from the student body to do that, and that’s why we launched the petition,” Rice wrote. “We wanted to make it as easy as possible for students to demonstrate to the administration how upset they were.” Wagner said GUSA believed stricter policies in 2024 came from a lack of collaboration between GUSA, the administration and other student groups.

“During last year’s negotiations, we had seen that there was not a lot of working together between the Center for Student Engagement, between the Program Board and GUSA’s involvement in negotiations and so we had seen that lack of our presence there,” Wagner said. “That lack of collaboration led to what we saw out of Georgetown Day last year and I think it was a key goal of ours not to repeat the same Georgetown Day.”

Rishu Nevatia (CAS ’27) said university administration’s stricter policies are frustrating and do not

Qatar Campus Contract With State Nonprofit

million in gifts and contracts from Qatar since 2005, part of which has sustained GU-Q. Salome Mamuladze (SFS-Q ’24, GRD ’26), who is studying for a master’s degree at Georgetown’s Washington, D.C., campus after graduating from GU-Q, said the contract renewal supports a unique international collaboration.

“It’s a major step forward for continuing Georgetown’s mission abroad, and it means another decade of transformative education and cross-cultural exchange in the region,” Mamuladze wrote to The Hoya. “For students like me, it creates opportunities that are truly unique — like studying in Doha while maintaining a strong connection to the broader Georgetown community and network.”

GU-Q Dean Safwan Masri said in a press release that the Qatar campus expands the capacities of higher education.

“This renewal calls on us to reimagine what global higher education at its best can be,” Masri said in the press release. “In a region where tradition and transformation are held in creative tension, GU-Q stands as a space for fearless inquiry, moral imagination, and the pursuit of ideals that transcend the self.”

Maurice Jackson, a professor of history who teaches at both the Hilltop and Qatar campuses, said GU-Q opens the university

to a more diverse student body.

“We say that we have the Jesuit tradition, especially the education tradition,” Jackson told The Hoya. “Now we have the opportunity to work with a broader array of people, not just rich white kids, but kids all over the world.”

Marmolejo said Georgetown’s Jesuit values promote interfaith dialogue in Qatar, where Islam is the state religion.

“That has been a great opportunity to realize that, between religions, there is more that is common than what is different,” Marmolejo said. “This is an interfaith dialogue on the perspectives, both from the Christian religion and Islam.”

Multiple international branch campuses in Qatar have also faced congressional scrutiny over potential national security risks and scholarly criticism over human rights issues, particularly poor labor conditions for migrant workers and a lack of free speech protections.

A 2020 DOE report accused Georgetown and other universities of failing to disclose gifts from foreign entities, including Qatar, in compliance with the Higher Education Act of 1965. The report alleged the university’s presence in and cooperation with Qatar creates a national security risk.

President Donald Trump also announced in an executive order

April 23 that he would increase enforcement of the Higher Education Act and reaffirm the investigation against Georgetown and other universities opened during his first term.

Jonathan Rothschild (CAS ’26), a Hilltop student critical of GU-Q, said the Qatar campus is antithetical to Georgetown’s Jesuit values and human rights commitment.

“Georgetown continues to take money from whatever source it can without any commitment to vetting nor consideration of the values Georgetown claims to represent,” Rothschild wrote to The Hoya

“Georgetown renewing its relationship with Qatar is shameful,” Rothschild added.

Felicitas Opwis, director of graduate studies for the department of Arabic and Islamic studies, said that, while GU-Q is valuable, she hopes the university uses what influence it has to defend human rights in Qatar.

“I would hope that they put a little more pressure on the Qatari regime about human rights abuses and workers rights in general,” Opwis told The Hoya “If you can make a difference, absolutely try making it.”

Mamuladze said GU-Q fostered a campus environment tolerant of diverse perspectives and identities.

“I never felt restricted when it came to free speech or religious

freedom,” Mamuladze wrote. “In fact, GU-Q was one of the most respectful and inclusive spaces I’ve been a part of. People from all religious and cultural backgrounds felt welcome and safe to express themselves.”

Jackson said Georgetown has ensured its U.S. labor standards also apply to GU-Q, which is why he is comfortable teaching at the campus.

“I wouldn’t go if I thought I was hurting or leading to the exploitation of others,” Jackson said. “I do know that I’m educating people throughout the world which is, for me, an honor.”

Opwis said Qatar’s interest in training a generation of future leaders could mean the nation eventually outgrows its partnerships with U.S. universities.

“I think it’s frustrating more than anything else, because yes safety is important but they have to know people will be celebrating anyway,” Nevatia wrote to The Hoya

“Having stricter policies on campus is just shifting the problem further away and actually potentially making it more dangerous elsewhere or for students who will find creative and potentially unsafe ways to circumvent the policies.”

Wagner said GUSA aimed to promote student safety while maintaining an environment where students could celebrate Georgetown Day on campus.

“It was imperative that we grounded our focus in safety, while also ensuring that students are able to celebrate Georgetown Day here on campus, where they can be safer and where the tradition can live on and not be diluted,” Wagner said.

Rice said the policy changes in 2024 led to many students leaving not just campus but also the safety resources available on campus.

“Policies like limited access to Vil A and Vil B, the wristband policy and suddenly stricter enforcement of noise and open container policies made some students organize events off campus,” Rice said. “We know that students are less protected off campus both legally and medically in case of an emergency.” Wagner said GUSA’s priorities remain promoting a balanced approach to Georgetown Day by emphasizing student safety and traditions.

“We want to celebrate Georgetown Day here safely and allow students to have the opportunity to celebrate the way that they see fit that is in correspondence with safety and our school’s policies and regulations,” Wagner said.

“At some point, they will no longer need the American universities,” Opwis said. “Maybe after 10 years, Qatar does not want to renew the relationship. Georgetown can get out what it wants for 10 years, and Qatar gets out what they need.”

Mamuladze said GU-Q’s location in the Middle East gave her an invaluable perspective on international relations.

“Being based in Qatar, I was exposed directly to regional dynamics — whether through coursework, public events, or conversations with peers who came from across the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and beyond,” Mamuladze wrote. “It gave me a more nuanced understanding of international affairs — one that goes beyond textbook explanations.”

ELIZABETH FLINTOFF/THE HOYA

Stephanie Ruhle, an MSNBC host, warned of the dangers of misinformation and encouraged students to take up arms in the fight for truth during an April 24 event.

Through Vigils and Reflections, GU Community Honors Pope Francis

POPE, from A1

posted a webpage with reflections from administration members and chaplains of differing faiths.

Schenden said that while he mourns the pope, the support of the Georgetown community comforts him.

“These days have been sad days, but very, very, graced days in terms of people looking beyond all the usual and all the business and chaos,” Schenden said. “It is so much of what Francis embodied in terms of being present and caring and showing kindness to one another.”

More than 100 Georgetown community members attended an interfaith vigil at the steps of the Old North patio after the university rosary April 21. At the vigil, students reflected on Francis’ legacy by reading statements while Campus Ministry chaplains across faiths lit candles to honor Francis.

Joe Massaua (SFS ’25), who helped organize the vigil, said the event aimed to welcome non-Catholic community members, a goal that reflected Francis’ and Georgetown’s interreligious emphasis.

“This type of vigil was probably happening last night at other Catholic universities across the country, but to what extent were they interfaith?” Massaua told The Hoya. “I think that’s what makes Georgetown unique. We wanted to open this up to the entire Georgetown community.”

“It’s radical welcoming, and that’s exactly what Pope Francis espoused,” Massaua added.

Zadie Weaver (CAS ’28), who attended the vigil, said its high attendance also encapsulated Georgetown’s Jesuit values.

“It’s a testament to Georgetown’s commitment to its Jesuit values that so many people are here, across all faiths,” Weaver told The Hoya “It’s really great to see.”

Francis also influenced various Georgetown programs. The university hosted a series of dialogues discussing Francis’ mission and rooted its sustainability commitments in Francis’ call to care for the environment.

Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., university vice president for mission and ministry, said Francis inspired

Georgetown by emphasizing a “culture of encounter,” building connections and dialogue across faiths and differences.

“Georgetown really took that phrase to heart, and we have tried to see our work as a Catholic and Jesuit institution to really engage the world — whether it’s in terms of faith traditions, geopolitics, collaborating with the pope on concerns that were very important to him,” Bosco told The Hoya. “‘Culture of encounter’ would be the first thing that Georgetown has really taken to heart and seen him as a kind of inspiration for.”

Starting in 2021, Georgetown developed a project based on Francis’ culture of encounter, aiming to unite global scholars across disciplines in discussions through 2025. Campus Ministry also created its pre-orientation program “Encounter” based on Francis’ use of the term, encouraging incoming students to build interfaith relationships.

Francis met with Georgetown students and faculty at international faith conferences in 2013 and 2023 and expressed public support for a Georgetown conference in 2021. He also discussed migration and displacement with two Georgetown students in 2022.

In October 2024, Georgetown students traveled to the Vatican to attend a synod, a global Catholic conference drawing attendees from around the world, and the trip aimed to promote dialogue and understanding.

Nidhi Somineni (CAS ’25), who attended the synod, said that while she is not religious, Francis’ empathy and humanity helped develop her faith.

“It was important and meaningful, at least to me, to see him emphasize compassion and care, especially from a more social justice perspective,” Somineni wrote to The Hoya “His humility was really beautiful to watch, and it really reframed the way that I see my own faith. Faith that is rooted in love and care for each other and our environment, for all forms of life is how we build community.”

During his pontificate, Francis made changes to how the Church talks about social issues. Francis upended Catholic precedent through embracing same-sex civil

unions, defending the LGBTQ+ community in certain instances and saying he should not “judge” a homosexual person.

CC Mesa (SFS ’26), a member of a queer Catholic faith community at Georgetown who also spoke at the student vigil, said Francis’ outreach to the LGBTQ+ community enabled to embrace both her Catholic and queer identities.

“He’s actually doing the work and not just nominally saying things to gain popularity,” Mesa told The Hoya. “He lost a lot of popularity in doing that, and he has constantly had his popularity fluctuate because of how progressive he’s been towards LGBTQ people.”

“I don’t think Georgetown would have a queer Catholic faith community club if not for Francis making that okay to do,” Mesa added.

Georgetown also embraced Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si,” a papal letter calling for care for the environment, by creating sustainability commitments and the Earth Commons Institute, an environmental research and education initiative.

Annie Selak, a professor of feminist theology and director of Georgetown’s Women’s Center, said Georgetown should continue to strive toward Francis’ mission by centering accessibility, environmentalism and service.

“Pope Francis opened a door for us to take these concepts that he was introducing and run with them and integrate them into our local context,” Selak told The Hoya. “He gave us an invitation. We don’t have to do it, but he gave us an invitation to imagine how we could truly live into our Catholic identity.”

Schenden said Francis’ dedication to humanity and compassion is his central legacy.

“Francis would probably say he was not a perfect human being — nobody is — but to aspire to that kind of openness towards others who are seemingly not like us, in coming to recognize this common human dignity, I think that is foundational in terms of leaving a legacy,” Schenden said. “That is something that we can continue here. You all are going to take that out to the world.”

Common App Likely to Increase Applicants, Accessibility at GU

COMMON APP, from A1 for entry in Fall 2023.

Rutgers joined the Common App in 2023 and saw over 76,000 students apply for first-year admission into the university’s three campuses — 35% more than the 56,200 who had applied the previous year. Helmke said one side effect of a possible increase in applications is an increase in deferrals — where early applicants’ decisions are pushed to later in the year.

“I think it’s going to be hard for the admissions office to go through all of the applications,” Helmke said. “They’re going to feel very overwhelmed. Typically, what you see in schools when this happens is that they defer a larger percentage of kids just because they don’t have the time to read the applications.”

Reaching New Groups

The university has also touted joining the Common App to increase accessibility in the university’s admissions process.

Diggs Colbert said she expects joining the Common App will allow Georgetown to reach students who may not have otherwise applied.

“The Common App will ensure Georgetown’s applicant pool contains a rich set of backgrounds and life experiences,” Diggs Colbert wrote in a March 27 press release.

In her presentation, Diggs Colbert also said the Common Application has historically reached more lowerincome and minority applicants than the Georgetown application.

Since 2013, the number of Black and Hispanic students applying to Georgetown has increased by 30% and 62%, respectively — in contrast to growth of 64% and 69%, respectively, in the number of Black and Hispanic students using the Common App to apply to Georgetown, according to data in Diggs Colbert’s presentation.

Asher Maxwell (CAS ’26), a student who advocates for admissions reforms, said joining the Common

App will remove barriers impeding less wealthy students from applying.

“One of the reasons that the university continually has given us for why they have so struggled to enroll more working class and middle class students year after year is that they lack the kind of admissions tool that would allow them to do that,” Maxwell told The Hoya. “They talk about how they struggle to get working class and middle class students to apply.”

“Moving to the Common App would hopefully have the effect of bringing more students into the applicant pool and potentially making it easier for the university to enroll more middle class, working class students,” Maxwell added. Maxwell said he was only able to apply to Georgetown because of a college counselor, a resource not all prospective Hoyas share.

“I would not have figured out the Georgetown admissions process in time if it weren’t for my college counselor, and Georgetown was my first choice,” Maxwell said. “I probably would have missed a deadline or something for the separate application process, just because I had a lot of other balls juggling at once.”

Helmke said joining the Common App will increase Georgetown’s geographic diversity, noting West Coast students interested in universities like

theUniversityofCalifornia(UC)schools may learn more about Georgetown through the Common App.

“It’s always on my radar, because I live on the East Coast,” Helmke said.

“I’ve been to Georgetown. I know what an amazing school it is. For somebody in California who’s typically looking at the UCs, they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s a great school.’ But when they start reading all the stuff and more articles come up about Georgetown, and they start Googling, more people are going to be enticed to go to Georgetown.”

Maxwell said he hopes joining the Common App makes it easier for students from all backgrounds to apply to Georgetown.

“For students who come from prep schools, like I did, or who come from really wealthy backgrounds and have access to a lot of tutors and college counselors, they can take advantage of the admissions process every single time you put up a barrier like a separate application,” Maxwell said.

“Because of how time intensive the application process can be, every single time you make it harder for students to apply, that disproportionately makes it harder for the people who have to work a job after school, or people who don’t have college counselors and tutors and tons of alumni families in their communities who can help them navigate that process,” Maxwell added.

Data Suggests Legacy Applicants Triple Admission

LEGACY, from A1 students. These statistics imply that approximately 190 members of the entering class received the legacy “tip” to get into Georgetown.

Diggs Colbert said the grade point averages (GPAs) of legacy applicants receiving special consideration were only slightly lower than other applicants.

The data’s release comes amid student advocacy for ending legacy admissions. The student group Hoyas Against Legacy Admissions has pushed local lawmakers to ban legacy admissions, with members of the D.C. Council considering proposing a bill to deny funding to most Washington, D.C., colleges practicing legacy admissions.

Diggs Colbert said applicants with parental or sibling ties to Georgetown are slightly less racially diverse than non-

Rate of Non-Legacy

legacy applicants, with 22.2% of non-legacy applicants to the Class of 2027 defined as “underrepresented minority” students as opposed to 21.3% of legacy applicants. Comparatively, there was a 4.5% gap in underrepresented applicants between non-legacy and legacy applicants to the Class of 2022. It was not clear whether the university also included siblings of current students or Georgetown graduates in their other statistics or how Diggs Colbert defined the term “underrepresented minority.” The College Board, an association of schools and colleges, defines it as including Black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander students.

GUSA President Ethan Henshaw (CAS ’26) said the legacy admissions statistics show inequitable admissions practices.

“This bombshell reporting shows clearly that the

administration does not care about enrolling students from all backgrounds and communities,” Henshaw wrote to The Hoya Asher Maxwell, an organizer with Hoyas Against Legacy Admissions, said the university should take measures to mitigate legacy preferences.

“What this data shows is that Georgetown admissions has been moving in the wrong direction by expanding the legacy preference and making the process more exclusive and discriminatory,” Maxwell wrote to The Hoya. “Providing a threetimes admissions rate boost to legacy applicants means it is that much harder for equally qualified non-legacy students to get in. Our administration should be seeking to level the playing field and expand opportunity to all types of students. Instead, they’ve chosen to double down on a broken, discriminatory preference.”

Truman Scholarship Honors Two GU Students for Public Service

TRUMAN, from A1 fulfilling career in public service.”

“I was surprised and really thankful that the selection committee was able to see potential in my ability to do public service and my passion for it,” Wagener added.

Lauren Tuckley — the director of Georgetown’s Center for Research & Fellowships, an office supporting students applying to fellowships and scholarships — said Duraikkannan and Wagener exemplify the university’s ideals of leadership and service.

“We are so proud of Kanmani and Izzy’s recognition as Truman Scholars,” Tuckley said in a press release. “They both demonstrate academic excellence, a passion for making the world better and demonstrated leadership. We know they will advance generations of Hoyas’ leadership in public service.”

Duraikkannan, who transferred to Georgetown in the Fall 2024 semester from the University of Delaware, said her interest in how traditional gender norms impact women inspired her to study systemic gender inequality.

“I was giving a TEDx University of Delaware talk, and it was about how K-12 education doesn’t prepare women for the socio-cultural issues of the 21st century,” Duraikkannan said. “It was this topic that I found myself to be so passionate about because it had been little things throughout college, but then it was that I could literally dedicate my entire life to this.”

Wagener said she centered her application on campus labor rights advocacy and her work with the Free Speech Project, a Georgetown research initiative dedicated to exploring global free speech trends.

“I’ve always just been super interested in journalism, and I’ve been in student journalism since I was in high school, and I feel like I always just keep getting pulled back to it,” said Wagener. “I have experimented with a lot of different sorts of ways of expressing that interest since I’m doing photography now, and I’ve always done writing, but I’ve also done design stuff. I’ve always known I wanted to be a journalist.”

Duraikkannan, Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA)’s department director of diversity and community development, said she is passionate about improving equity.

“There’s definitely a lot of wealth-related things in this school,” Duraikkannan said. “Coming from the state school, they become more obvious in being able to show people and GUSA that even if I just got here, I understand that.”

Kathleen Bonette, a theology professor who taught Duraikkannan in “The Problem of God,” said she appreciated Duraikkannan’s efforts to uplift her classmates.

“Kanmani was always willing to offer her perspective to enhance conversations, but — equally important — she expressed genuine interest in the perspectives of her peers,” Bonette wrote to The Hoya. “In fact, she often chose to move seats simply to have the chance to engage with more voic-

es. Kanmani helped to bring the class community together.” Ann Oldenburg, assistant director of the journalism department, said Wagener’s dedication to serving local communities through journalism is admirable.

“I’ve been delighted to see Izzy go from wondering ‘what to do’ to developing an admirable and strong passion for public service, social justice and local journalism,” Oldenburg wrote to The Hoya. “She wants to be in the trenches of a community to improve it by uncovering and disseminating accurate information to educate its citizens.

“This goal of Izzy’s, at this particular moment, is crucial to our democracy,” Oldenburg added. “I could not be more thrilled that Izzy wants to work in local journalism — an area that desperately needs people exactly like Izzy.” Bonette said she hopes Duraikkannan continues to engage in social justice through the Truman Scholarship.

“I hope Kanmani will continue to bring her energy to the work of justice and community-building and that she will continue to ask the deep questions that allow her to grow,” she said. Duraikkannan, who has held various internships in the federal government, said she has grown to understand she can be a public servant outside the government.

“My definition of service — I’m a little bit confused about it,” Duraikkannan said. “It’s evolving and growing. And I think this motivation is that if I stay true to myself, and if I do what I’m passionate about, I can genuinely make

Former House Speaker Warns Against Increasing Federal Spending

Allister Adair

Special to The Hoya

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) argued against high federal spending at a Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy event April 23. Ryan criticized government spending on social services and rising national debt, and claimed the Republican Party is shifting from fiscal conservatism to populism during the event. The Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics), which studies national and local politics, hosted the event, which was moderated by Jonathan Burks (SFS ’99), a former GU Politics fellow and executive vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center. Ryan said entitlement programs, which include Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, are no longer viable as the share of people older than 65 increases in the United States.

“The problem with this is that these programs were basically designed for the 20th century and structured in a way that is proving unsustainable in the 21st century,” Ryan said at the event.

“These programs are driving us to a debt crisis, to the point where the programs themselves will be unraveled,” Ryan added. “They will disintegrate, in that they will go bankrupt.” Ryan said the government should phase out Social Security, allowing Baby Boomers who are 60 years old and older to continue receiving benefits, while everyone born in or after Generation X (from 1965 onward) will have their benefits scaled back or eliminated.

“Generation X on, down, is where you’re going to have to say, ‘These pro-

grams are going to look a little different than they do now,’ because they’re just not sustainable,” Ryan said.

When the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, life expectancy in the United States was 61 years, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

With life expectancy now exceeding 78 years, the program’s costs are increasing. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank analyzing federal spending, Social Security expenditures exceeded $1.5 trillion n 2024, accounting for 21% of the total budget.

Ryan said other politicians unfairly claim Social Security cuts harm Americans, which could frighten U.S. residents, noting former President Barack Obama’s attack ads during his 2012 reelection campaign.

“You will run into a demagogic wave of attacks that will make people who are on these programs think benefits are being taken away from them,” Ryan said.

“A TV ad nationwide was saying that it was like throwing grandma off a cliff,” Ryan added.

Critics of Ryan’s proposals argue cutting entitlement programs would reduce health care benefits, especially for low-income Americans. McCourt’s Center for Health Insurance Reform, a nonpartisan group researching health care policy, found entitlement programs have improved health outcomes in the United States.

Ryan called on President Donald Trump to take charge of spending cuts, saying Trump should focus on his long-term legacy over maintaining approval ratings.

“We have a president in his last term, and that’s the time to do it,

GU-Q Professor Named To Join Cohort A Fellow For Global Democracy

Jack Willis Chair of the Board

A Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) professor will join a five-person fellowship cohort to examine democracy’s role in the world and propose ideas to strengthen democratic networks, the university announced April 15.

Gábor Scheiring, an assistant professor of politics at Georgetown’s campus in Doha, Qatar, received the Global Fellowship nomination from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, a non-partisan research organization that aims to research and promote democracy worldwide. Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, the foundation centers inclusion, collective action and international engagement in its approach to advocacy. As a Global Fellow, Scheiring will collaborate with other fellows to research democracy and international affairs.

Scheiring, a former member of Hungary’s parliament whose academic work focuses on economic trends and their impacts, said his particular outlook on international politics made him an ideal candidate for the fellowship.

“Part of the reason why I was picked for this fellowship was for my political economy and human development-centric look at democracy and democratic resilience,” Scheiring told The Hoya. “Maybe the other reason is that in a previous life, I was a social organizer and politician.”

Scheiring said the Kettering Foundation connects subject matter experts with international networks that have global influenceimpact change on a global level.

“These kinds of global conversations with the fellows and the other experts and people around the Kettering Foundation are really amazing,” Scheiring said. “They build on this smaller network to generate these bigger international conversations on the topics of liberalism and democracy.”

The Kettering Foundation is home to several fellowships that center technology, journalism, education and civic engagement, among other themes. As a participant in the foundation’s Global Fellowship, Scheiring will join Koketso Moeti, a South African civic activist; Chris Njeri Muriithi, a Kenyan LGBTQ+ rights activist and former journalist; Flávia Pellegrino, a Brazilian civil society leader; and Ivan Vejvoda, a Serbian democratic development professional and academic.

Yasser Sakbani (SFS-Q ’26), one of Scheiring’s students, said Scheiring exposes students to important themes that question preconceived notions about politics and society.

when there’s someone who doesn’t have to face voters again, who’s looking for legacy,” Ryan said. “And what better legacy than to prevent your country from having a debt crisis?”

Ryan said he is disappointed current Republican leadership is failing to make substantive budget cuts.

“The last budget we passed was in 2015, and we cut $6.4 trillion out of the budget baseline,” Ryan said. “They’re struggling right now, struggling to cut $1.5 to 2 trillion.”

Ryan said that in his experience, Republicans tend to focus on political style over policy substance.

“We have more entertainers than legislators than ever before,” Ryan said. “You look at the landscape and see nothing but populism and owning the libs or doing whatever — this is like Instagram policy.”

Ryan said the Republican Party is shunning difficult and unpopular fiscal policy conversations he led as Speaker of the House, opting to focus on issues more popular with the public.

“This sort of vacuous populism, entertainment-like quality to government in politics is not sustainable,” Ryan said. “What is needed in this country are people who are policymakers.”

Ryan encouraged attendees to participate in politics, saying young policymakers can begin addressing the nation’s fiscal challenges.

“Frankly, this is an important time to get into this,” Ryan said. “It’s a good time to be an aspiring policymaker.”

“When you come out of school, you’ll be running the country, and we’re going to need smart policy and smart people,” Ryan added.

Four Journalists Share Concerns For President Trump’s Impact on the Freedom of the Press at GU Event

Ajani Stella Senior News Editor

“Professor Scheiring’s Politics of Development has been one of the most eye-opening courses I’ve taken at Georgetown,” Sakbani wrote to The Hoya. “His teaching challenged many of our assumptions about how civil societies, state institutions and international organizations function.”

Scheiring said the educational environment at GU-Q fosters inquiry, debate and critical thinking among a global student body.

“It’s just an amazing opportunity in terms of academic freedom,” Scheiring said. “To emphasize these days, it is increasingly under attack, not just where you’re sitting now, but also in Europe, in many countries, including my own country.”

“Having students from Costa Rica to the Philippines and getting the opportunity to talk about issues related to populism, illiberalism and democratic backsliding — young people experiencing these issues,” Scheiring added. “It’s just also a life changing experience.”

Minahil Mahmud (SFS-Q ’25), another of Scheiring’s students, said Scheiring’s passion for teaching and learning enriches the learning environment in his classes.

“Professor Scheiring’s enthusiasm inspires us all in class,” Mahmud wrote to The Hoya. “He is so passionate about his work. His class was one of my favorite IPOL electives so far and a great learning experience.”

Sabkani said Scheiring’s teaching style merges practice and theory, allowing students to examine examples and debate commonly-held ideas.

“A powerful part of the course was how the course combined foundational theories, such as dependency theory and state capacity with real-world case studies, from East Asian developmentalism to the MENA region’s rentier economies,” Sabkani wrote.

“These discussions challenged our understanding about global hierarchies, aid politics and development models, revealing that development is not a neutral or technical process, but one shaped by power and political dynamics,” Sabkani added.

Scheiring said the fellowship will allow him to expand his work outside academia and engage with real-world issues surrounding democracy.

“As researchers and academics, sometimes it’s hard to get out there in the media or get our voices heard,” Scheiring said. “We get to have our voices heard in the classroom, but getting outside the classroom and beyond the journals is a different matter.”

Four prominent political journalists argued President Donald Trump has limited journalists’ access to the White House and transformed the federal government’s relationship with the media at a Georgetown University panel April 22.

Georgetown’s journalism program hosted the event, which featured Peter Baker, The New York Times’ chief White House correspondent; Seung Min Kim, an Associated Press (AP) White House correspondent; and Yamiche Alcindor (COL ’09), a NBC News White House correspondent. Karen Travers (COL ’00, GRD ’03), an ABC News White House correspondent and former Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Policy fellow, moderated the panel, where the journalists described how Trump has upended journalistic norms in his second term.

Baker said Trump understands politics better in his second term, allowing him to be a more effective political actor.

“This time around, he has four years under his belt and four years to think and prepare for it, along with his people,” Baker said at the event. “So what you see now, I

think, is the product of somebody who actually knows how to get done the things he talked about but didn’t do in the first term.”

Alcindor said Trump’s second term has forced journalists to adapt as government officials become increasingly antagonistic.

“People are changing, the pool is changing,” Alcindor said at the event. “Everything is changing. And the people who are in the White House now, they feel like loyalists for President Trump — they really see the government as part of the problem.”

“That’s why you have Elon Musk and other people just slashing things left and right,” Alcindor added. “You didn’t see that the first time around.”

Trump restricted the AP’s access to White House press briefings because it did not adopt Trump’s change of the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The White House has also retaliated against organizations and individuals who have spoken out against Trump.

Alcindor said Trump’s attacks on journalists and individuals have made it more difficult to encourage sources to speak on the record about important issues.

“There’s this real fear that I get from talking to sources, whether

talking to a law firm, or talking to other reporters or talking to business people,” Alcindor said at the event. “I think there’s this real fear that revenge at the hands of President Trump and his allies could really come down on any American citizen at any time.”

The White House also announced it would determine which reporters to include in the press pool, where certain journalists get access to the White House to inform all news organizations, wresting control from the White House Correspondents’ Association, which has made the decision for over a century.

Baker said the White House’s new method is undemocratic and undermines journalists’ authority.

“Now they’re saying they get to pick, and that means that we’re not sending our representatives,” Baker said. “They’re picking and choosing, and it’s a part and parcel of a president who believes that he ought to be the one in charge.”

Kim said that when she is a member of the press pool, she feels a responsibility to think about other journalists and the public.

“That’s the whole point of a pool — we’re the eyes and ears for the rest of the press corps and, by proxy, the rest of the public, who can’t be

there with the President,” Kim said at the event. “So you always have to be thinking, what is the broadest interest to everyone?

Kim said she prioritizes the human aspects of her reporting when covering complex and difficult political topics.

“I just always think of how this directly affects the person who reads my story, how it affects their pocketbook, how it affects their daily behavior,” Kim said.

“I personally think that’s where the AP is strongest, because we have so many people across the country and across the world and can get those voices and get that sense of that impact very quickly.”

Alcindor said she and other journalists remain committed to their profession even as younger generations prefer social media like Instagram (IG) to traditional journalism.

“All those TikTok influencers or IG influencers, as good as they might be, as entertaining as they might be, as innovative as they might be, they are relying on journalists who are actually doing the work on the front lines,” Alcindor said. “I think I can speak for my colleagues to say, people who become journalists, it’s because you actually want to get information to people.”

DC Facing $1.1 Billion Budget Cut After House Inaction

Oz City Desk Editor

The House of Representatives did not address legislation needed to close a $1.1 billion gap in Washington, D.C.’s budget before it adjourned for a two-week recess starting April 15.

D.C. is facing a $1.1 billion budget shortfall for the 2025 fiscal year (FY) due to Congress’ decision to revert the city’s budget, which Congress sets annually, to the FY 2024 budget after the House refused to vote on a new proposal. The budget cuts could impact public transportation and public safety services for Georgetown University students.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), who finalizes the District’s budget pending congressional approval, invoked a 2009 law that permits the city to increase its budget autonomously.

Bowser also aims to reduce spending by $410 million, announcing further measures, including a hiring freeze and suspension of pay raises and overtime pay starting April 27, as well as potential furloughs and facility closures, in an effort to mitigate the impact of the cuts while the House finds a new solution. She urged Congress to restore the city’s full budget authority.

Bowser said in a press release that the proposed budget, which Congress refused to pass, is strategic and intends to create economic growth despite the shortage.

“We are a resilient city,” Bowser said in the statement. “We never give up. We know how to make a strong comeback. But our wins are also not accidental. We’re smart, creative, and strategic. That is the spirit of my fiscal 2025 budget.”

“This is a smart budget, it’s a responsible budget, but most important, this is a budget that will keep D.C. the best city in the world,” Bowser added.

In response to the cuts, City Administrator Kevin Donahue will submit a plan to Bowser by April 25, three days before the House returns from recess, to furlough government workers and shut down government facilities, excluding schools, homeless shelters and health care centers. The plan will include holds on pay raises, promotions, new contracts and select contracting or grant spending not tied to a public benefits program.

Joe Massaua (SFS ’25) — the former Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for 2E04, which represents the south side of Georgetown’s campus — said he is concerned D.C. neighborhoods that do

not get as much national attention will be heavily impacted.

“I worry if D.C. doesn’t have the money to fill budget gaps, not enough money to hire sanitation workers, that services might be cut back in places where they’re not seen and in places that have the most need,” Massaua told The Hoya

The freeze on overtime pay could have severe consequences for emergency services, police departments and fire departments, such as a lack of 911 operators who rely on overtime pay. Agencies can submit requests for overtime that may be approved, but no agency will automatically be exempt from the restrictions.

Zach Samuel (SFS ’26), who intends to work in government, said the funding cuts would reinforce the notion that the federal government does not prioritize the people in the District.

“The District has always been structurally underrepresented in Congress, and I think that the funding cuts represent that the residents of D.C. don’t necessarily receive the same attention or prioritization that other districts have,” Samuel told The Hoya

D.C. City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said at a Committee of the Whole council meeting that by delaying the vote, Congress is trying to cut funds

allocated to the D.C. government, which are not for federal use.

“Some people don’t realize this is all local money, not federal money,” Mendelson said. “This is not money that the federal government gets, or gets to keep or revert to the federal treasury. It doesn’t — it’s local money.”

“While Congress, through its mistake, mandated that we have to spend at FY 24 levels — that’s the $1.1 billion reduction — they’re not doing anything with the money,” Mendelson added. Samuel said he is disappointed by the budget cuts and hopes the larger FY 2025 budget will ultimately be restored.

“It is disappointing to hear that a lot of D.C. residents aren’t going to have access to the same resources that they may have had before, and I hope that this will quickly be reversed,” Samuel said. Massaua said he worries Congress will continue to neglect the District’s budget and the cut’s consequences. “I fear for the residents that will see their services cut, and it just seems like there is no plan, so congressional leadership should just fix the mess that they created in the first place because this $1.1 billion cut did not need to happen, and frankly, it was targeted at D.C,” Massaua said.

RAFAEL SUANES/GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan criticized high government spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid at an April 24 event at theMcCourt School of Public Policy.

Shira

Disability Studies Program to Launch Major Across Academic Disciplines

Pritika Patel Academics Desk Editor

Beginning in the Fall semester, students in the Georgetown University College of Arts & Sciences will have the option to declare a major in disability studies.

The major will build on the disability studies program’s existing disability studies minor and graduate certificate and will offer students tools to critically examine disability through lenses such as art, philosophy, education and public policy. The major will draw from classes across academic programs to demonstrate the intersection of disability studies with other disciplines.

Joel Michael Reynolds, director of the disability studies program, said the major will draw from courses across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences to reflect its interdisciplinarity and real-world application.

“Disability studies is fundamentally interdisciplinary,” Reynolds told The Hoya. “There are researchers across all of the fields in the humanities, social sciences and life sciences that utilize a disability studies approach, so we wanted the major to represent that wide kind of flexibility and kind of interanimation with lots of fields and lots of topics and lots of actual professions out in the world.”

Jennifer Natalya Fink, professor of English and a faculty member in the program, said Georgetown’s program combines education in disabilities disciplines and connection to social movements and cultural work.

“The major will help strengthen the intellectual and creative work of our undergraduates, providing them with the opportunity to do in-depth course work, creative work and research in disability studies and prepare for a wide variety of careers,” Fink wrote to The Hoya. “Disability studies not only offers students the opportunity to study disability in every possible context, but it also offers new ways of thinking about what it means to have a constantly changing body-mind.”

Reynolds said the disability studies major came out of student advocacy.

“One of the really exciting things about disability studies at Georgetown is how student-led everything has been,” Reynolds said. “There was student demand that led to the creation of a minor and a graduate certificate.”

Fink said the development of the major has been a years-long effort involving faculty members such as Libbie Rifkin, associate director of the disability studies program, that centered the voices and scholarship of disabled people.

“Together with Professor Rifkin and the other faculty, I helped bring disabled scholars and artists to Georgetown, and shared the richness of disability culture and scholarship with the wider community,” Fink wrote.

Drawing on her previous work, Fink said she is excited to expand on her interest in the intersection of art and disability studies.

“I am honored to continue my work as core faculty in disability studies, and offer core courses in ‘Disability and the Arts,’ and con-

tinue to share my own interactive and collaborative disability arts/ environmental justice projects such as Going Green to the community, as well as those of other disability artists,” Fink wrote.

Rifkin said she looks forward to helping prospective majors apply their studies in the broader world.

“I’m excited to do more outreach to students,” Rifkin told The Hoya. “It is so critical that students engage in this course of study right now, particularly as the systems and support for people with disabilities are being forcefully eroded.”

“It’s important that people come out of school and be committed to this work and figuring out ways to continue it,” she added.

Reynolds said the major reflects Georgetown’s broader commitment to holistic education and social justice.

“As part of Georgetown’s mission, there is a focus on cura personalis, there’s a focus on social justice and there’s also a focus on understanding what it means to be human,” Reynolds said. “Disability is essential, and is foundational to what it is to be human.”

Rifkin said the new major will foster a more inclusive academic environment by amplifying the perspectives of disabled people.

“We wanted to center the voices and experiences of disabled people who are doing work in scholarship and art and activism,” Rifkin said. “I’m excited to see what our students will do and how they’ll continue to make Georgetown a more inclusive and accessible place.”

GULC Appoints US Security Expert To Lead Its International Economic Law Institute

Daniel Schuker, an economic and security expert, is the new executive director of the Georgetown University Law Center’s (GULC) Institute of International Economic Law.

The Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) named a former U.S. security official and economic expert as the new executive director of its Institute of International Economic Law (IIEL) on April 11. Daniel Schuker is the former deputy policy director for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and a fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard University. After serving in the office of national security advisor for international economics under former President Joseph R. Biden, Schuker took over the role at IIEL from the interim executive director. Kathleen Claussen, IIEL co-faculty director, said the institute is focused on a wide range of international economics issues.

“There are over a dozen faculty who are affiliated with the Institute, each of us working on a different area of international economic law policy — like tariffs, just to name the one that people are thinking about — but also investment, finance, monetary law,” Claussen told The Hoya Claussen, who participated in IIEL’s hiring process, said Schuker’s broad and extensive experience will provide important perspectives to the university.

“Dan really stood out on the basis of his background and the many qualities he brings to the

role: his government experience across all three branches of government, as well as his expertise in the area of international economic law and policy,” Claussen said.

In addition to his experience in policy advising, Schuker served as general counsel for Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on the Senate Judiciary Committee, worked in the Office of General Council in the U.S. Department of the Treasury and clerked in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Gregory Shaffer, another co-faculty director at the IIEL, said Schuker’s comprehensive experience would benefit the IIEL’s mission and future.

“He has had a fascinating career, working with Larry Summers at Treasury, with Cory Booker in the Senate, with Mike Pyle on the National Security Council concerning international economic policy and with Kamala Harris, coordinating policy positions on her campaign,” Shaffer wrote to The Hoya. “He has wide-ranging experience on key policy issues in a world of considerable uncertainty as we reconsider the future of international trade, investment, finance, tax and international economic law more broadly.”

Since Jan. 20, President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to restructure international economic policy through sweeping tariffs. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), an international financial institution with near-global membership, warned April 22 that

New Hospital Opens in DC’s Ward 8, Aiming to Address Health Care Gaps

Annie Quimby Hoya Staff Writer

The Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center, a clinical integration between the George Washington University (GWU) Hospital and Cedar Hill Urgent Care, opened its doors to community members in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 8 April 15.

Cedar Hill, a full-service hospital, replaces United Medical Center (UMC), previously the only hospital in Wards 7 and 8, which includes much of southeast D.C.

The new hospital, the first of its kind built in the past 25 years, expands medical services previously only offered outside of the District and includes 136 beds and various departments, including trauma, maternal health and delivery.

Edilma Yearwood, a professor at the Georgetown University School of Nursing (SON), said Cedar Hill will likely address community disparities by including a maternal health facility.

“I think they’re hitting the right things: It’s cardiac, it’s mental health, it’s women’s health, it’s gastroenterology,” Yearwood told The Hoya. “It’s got a lot of the pieces that I think our community in Wards 7 and 8 absolutely need, and they don’t need to travel out of the area to get the care they deserve.”

“I’m glad they made the decision to make the hospital because it’s totally what’s needed,” Yearwood added.

According to a 2020 report by the D.C. Department of Health (DOH), Ward 8 residents had the lowest life

expectancy in the District at 70.5 years due to low-quality health care. Ward 8’s infant mortality rate is also four times higher than that of Ward 3 — the city’s wealthiest ward — and the rate among Black individuals is five times higher than among non-Hispanic white individuals, according to 2022 public data from the D.C. DOH.

The hospital fulfills D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 2015 pledge to build a full-service facility in southeast D.C. Bowser said in a statement that the new hospital provides vital service in Wards 7 and 8.

“Families will be able to get prenatal care and welcome new babies close to home, seniors and residents will have access to the specialists they need, and trauma patients will receive lifesaving care quickly,” Bowser said in the statement. “Today, I am incredibly grateful for all the teams and people who worked with us to make this happen and I am hopeful about the future of healthcare in D.C.”

In 2017, UMC’s board voted to permanently close its obstetrics ward after the DOH found the hospital had repeatedly failed to meet health and safety standards, leaving southeast D.C. residents without critical pregnancy care.

Mikayla Friedman (SOH ’27), who is studying global health and social disparities, said Cedar Hill’s expanded services will be crucial in addressing health care disparities in the area.

“This hospital has specific areas for trauma care or maternal health trauma incidents,” Friedman told The

Hoya. “That’s insanely important.” Yearwood, who also serves as program director for a five-year grant-funded project examining social determinants of health, said social conditions are inherently linked to health, noting the greater instance of poor living conditions among many disadvantaged communities.

“They’re dealing with insects, they’re dealing with rodents, they’re dealing with heating inconsistency,” Yearwood said. “We have a huge population of kids in lower-income families that are dealing with asthma, which could be triggered by some of these environmental things.”

Friedman, who works with D.C. Reads, a tutoring service under Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service (CSJ) serving elementary-aged students in Wards 7 and 8, said the hospital is an important part of addressing the community’s needs, but additional services are also necessary.

“This is amazing, but it needs to be in conjunction with other things: community health worker programs, primary care clinics,” Friedman said. “You need people going to get checkups and to vaccinate their babies.”

“I’m hoping they can really address a lot of the disparities in those areas,” Friedman added.

Yearwood said Cedar Hill should continue working with communities to ensure its services are meeting the needs of the city’s residents.

“I think that anything you put in a community like that should be informed by community voices,” Yearwood said.

GU Community RaisesThousands For Khan Suri’s Legal Defense, Family

Ajani Stella Senior News Editor

prolonging the uncertainty that has accompanied this move could harm the global economy.

Claussen said Schuker’s experience comes at a significant time for IIEL and international economics at large and will be key in pushing IIEL into a new era.

“It’s been a couple of years since we’ve had an executive director, so he’s really going to be the mover and shaker at a time where the faculty directors have been trying to lead that on our own,” Claussen said. “We’re really delighted to have Dan take this on. We’re going to contribute to important conversations that are now underway in the global space.”

Andrew Bellah (LAW ’25), an IIEL fellow, said he is hopeful about Schuker’s future contributions to the institute.

“I’ve appreciated the IIEL and look forward to his contributions,” Bellah wrote to The Hoya. “I hope the IIEL continues to engage with issues in international law and economic policy proactively and continues to welcome a diversity of opinions to speak at and attend its events.”

Claussen said Schuker’s addition to the faculty is already impacting the institute as he begins to spearhead programs and host events on international trade.

“He’s already off to a terrific start,” Claussen said. “We have a big program next week that he’s helping to lead called our Global Trade Academy and more in May.”

“We’re so thrilled to have him on board,” Claussen added.

A fundraising campaign for detained Georgetown University postdoctoral researcher Badar Khan Suri has yielded over $8,500 to support his legal defense.

An anonymous Georgetown group organized the campaign on the social-impact crowdfunding website Chuffed, aiming to fund Khan Suri’s legal defense and support his family while he awaits trial in a federal detention facility in Alvarado, Texas. As of April 23, the campaign has attracted over 200 supporters, raising $8,526 of its $25,000 goal.

The Georgetown chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which advocates for Palestinian liberation, and Zeytoun, which advocates for decolonization in the Middle East, promoted the campaign on social media. Members of the Georgetown Jewish community who organized a public statement against Khan Suri’s detention also sent the donation link to signatories.

Ian Crowley (CAS ’28), a donor who encouraged others to contribute on social media, said the campaign allowed him to take individual action since he felt the university administration was not doing enough to support Khan Suri.

“Seeing the administration’s lackluster, spineless response to the abduction of one of their postdoctoral fellows was infuriating to me,” Crowley told The Hoya. “I want to do everything I can as a student to help support Dr. Suri materially, but also to campaign even harder for his release.”

Interim university President Robert M. Groves said in an email to community members March

25 that Khan Suri’s detention was “troubling” and he is “concerned” about the legality of the federal government’s actions.

A SJP media liaison said the campaign is a way for members of the Georgetown community to express solidarity with Khan Suri.

“We felt it was important to amplify this campaign because he’s a part of our Georgetown community,” the media liaison told The Hoya “As always, we want to stand with members of our community that have amplified what’s happening, and we want to support him as much as we can.”

The media liaison added that the campaign was one of many ways for students and faculty to support Khan Suri and his family.

“Right now, he and his family are seriously struggling,” the media liaison said. “The situation that he’s in is just incomprehensible and this is just one way for us to support him as much as we can, considering that he’s a part of our community.”

SJP and other student and faculty groups have also organized protests demonstrating against Khan Suri’s detainment and advocating for his release.

Cowley said donating to Khan Suri’s legal defense helps safeguard against what he said are illegal actions taken against Khan Suri.

“There is no basis for him to be convicted or for his legal status to be stripped anyway and for him to be taken from his family,” Crowley said. “That’s going to set a precedent not only on Georgetown but across the country of who the Trump administration can go after.”

Arik Levinson, an economics professor who contributed to the campaign, said he donated because he be-

lieves Khan Suri has a right to political expression and fair judicial procedure.

“I may or may not agree with the content of Suri’s speech, but I wholeheartedly support his right to that speech,” Levinson wrote to The Hoya. “If he or anybody else has committed a crime, there should be consequences that follow from established procedures.”

“Nobody in the USA should have to worry about being detained or deported without due process,” Levinson added. “Certainly not by representatives of the federal government wearing face masks.” The SJP media liaison said the fundraising campaign shows how large portions of the Georgetown community are rallying around Khan Suri.

“This campaign isn’t from Georgetown University,” the media liaison said. “It shows how students and faculty members are willing to create something like this and are willing to amplify his situation and are trying to raise awareness and support what’s happening.”

“It really does just speak to how strong the Georgetown community is in wanting to support him as much as we can,” the media liaison added. Crowley said he hopes the fundraising campaign shows Khan Suri that the Georgetown community supports him and the protection of his rights.

“Having thousands of dollars of support pour in from your colleagues, from your students, from your coworkers, could be really moralizing to Dr. Suri,” Crowley said. “It’d show that even though there’s voices in the administration who are reluctant to come out and speak on his behalf and for his rights, there are people here at Georgetown who want to support him and want to fight for justice.”

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

An anonymous Georgetown University group organized a fundraising campaign to support detained Georgetown postdoctoral researcher Badar Khan Suri’s family and legal defense.

Emily Dabre

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Liv Villella Sports Staff Writer

The Georgetown University men’s lacrosse team (8-4, 3-1 Big East) defeated the St. John’s Red Storm (4-10, 0-4 Big East) 21-8 on the road Saturday, April 19 bouncing back from last week’s 3-7 loss to Denver and punching their ticket to the Big East tournament. Georgetown showed precision and pace from the opening faceoff, smothering St. John’s on both ends of the field with a relentless attacking barrage. The Hoyas struck first when first-year attacker Jack Ransom fired from distance with the Red Storm’s goalkeeper, Patrick Scarborough, out of position for the opening goal. Georgetown first-year faceoff specialist Ross Prince won the next faceoff, and Ransom took to goal with a fadeaway at the high crease and a low burying shot to make the score 2-0 in the first five minutes.

Georgetown’s offense remained unrelenting. A minute later, junior attacker Joe Cesare collected graduate attacker Aidan Carroll’s cross-crease pass and whistled a shot right past the goalie to make it 3-0. Two minutes of offensive control later, junior midfielder Patrick Crogan joined the scoring spree with a spin move around a Red Storm defender to sneak behind the crease and finish to make the lead 4-0, triggering a St. John’s timeout with 7:10 left in the quarter.

The timeout proved ineffective as Ransom completed his hat trick with 6:12 left in the first quarter and added another just 20 seconds later to give the Hoyas a dominating 6-0 lead. Carroll completed the quarter 9-0 with a rocket from distance, assisted by junior midfielder Lucas Dudemaine.

SOFTBALL

Hoyas Clinch Big East Tournament George Washington Revolutionaries Shut Out Hoyas In Crosstown Loss

The Hoyas shot 9 and 25 in the first quarter, tripling their goal output from last week’s loss to Denver in just the first 15 minutes of gametime.

St. John’s finally put up their first goal with 9:58 left in the second quarter. A defensive miscommunication caught the Hoyas off guard with Red Storm attacker Adrian Nowak free in front of the crease, bringing the score to 11-1.

Georgetown replied late in the quarter with a Carroll hat trick and St. John’s concluded the half with a goal from deep with just 42 seconds remaining to make the score 12-2.

The Red Storm opened the second half looking to chip away at their deficit, scoring twice in the first two minutes, but the Hoyas found their footing and reclaimed control. Carroll netted his fourth with a highlight-reel skip pass from Cesare.

Graduate attacker Fulton Bayman followed with a fadeaway top bar shot, making it look routine.

Ransom tallied his sixth goal and career-high with a jump shot and an assist from Crogan to make the score 17-5 with six minutes remaining in the third quarter.

St. John’s found the net early in the fourth, but the Hoyas answered with a momentous first: first-year attacker Zach Chari’s first collegiate goal from wide to create a 13-goal lead. After the Red Storm’s midfielder Sean Rice put up another goal, sophomore attacker Shuey Kelly put up 2 back-to-back goals to put the game away with about five minutes left in the game, the first goals of his collegiate career.

St. John’s midfielder Drew Wasserman snuck scored a consolation goal with 32 seconds remaining, ending the game at 21-8.

Ransom led the Hoyas with a career high of 6 goals and an assist, while Carroll tied his career high of 5 goals and an assist. Ransom earned Big East freshman of the week for his performance, and Carroll was recognized on the Big East weekly honor roll.

Ransom credited his teammates and said they put him in position to excel.

“We played together and engaged for sure and flew around the field, which I feel is something we haven’t been doing all season,” Ransom told The Hoya. “My success only came because of my teammates. They fed me inside, spaced the field and made the smart play almost every time they touched it.”

“I think we are looking good now and are going to turn some heads in these next upcoming games,” Ransom added.

After the game, Carroll moved to 22nd place on Georgetown’s alltime scoring chart with 127 points. Prince won 13 of 17 faceoffs and tied his career-high with 7 ground balls while sophomore goaltender Anderson Moore collected 9 saves, earning them both a spot on the Big East weekly honor roll.

First-year defender Robert Plath tied the Georgetown program record for most caused turnovers in a season by a first-year with 24, while sophomore defender Ty Banks tied the 8th place record holder in Georgetown history for turnovers caused with 42.

With the victory, the Hoyas moved to 3-1 in the Big East and secured a spot in the Big East tournament. Georgetown returns to the Hilltop next week to host the Villanova Wildcats (7-5, 4-0 Big East) for their final regular season game on Friday, April 25 at 7 p.m.

GEORGETOWN ATHLETICS

Both sophomore forward Drew Fielder and junior guard Jayden Epps entered the transfer portal, after being key contributors and starters for the Hoyas during the 2024-25 season.

LACROSSE MEN’S BASKETBALL

Breaking Down the Transfer Portal

Nate Seidenstein Senior Sports Editor

The Georgetown University men’s basketball team lost five players to the transfer portal with four new players joining the roster as of April 11.

Georgetown’s Additions

The Hoyas’ most significant addition in the portal is KJ Lewis, a guard from the University of Arizona, a dynamic and explosive player who was the sixth man on a sweet 16 team. Lewis went to high school at Duncanville (in Texas), where his head coach was David Peavy, graduate forward Micah Peavy’s father. The connections do not end there, though — Lewis profiles as a very similar player to Peavy as an exceptional defender and a high-leverage offensive player. He averaged 10.8 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 25.8 minutes at Arizona. He struggled from the three-point line last season, shooting only 18.8%, but he performed much stronger the previous year at 33.3%. Lewis is a versatile player who may be asked to play any position from the two to the four next season and should be a workhorse for Head Coach Ed Cooley. After injuries ended his 202324 season early and delayed the start to his 2024-25 season, guard Langston Love was an important rotation piece for Baylor University. Last season, he averaged 8.9 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 26.4 minutes, only appearing in 20 games. Love is an exceptional longrange shooter, with a three-point percentage above 32% in every season of his career. Next year at Georgetown, expect him to play a vital role as a spark-plug as a starter or coming off the bench.

Forward Isaiah Abraham was highly ranked as a recruit coming out of high school, but had an underwhelming season in his first year at the University of Connecticut. Abraham appeared in only nine games, averaging 1.6 points in 3.8 minutes. If he takes a significant step in development and is given the opportunity, Abraham could be a key rotation contributor for the Hoyas, especially if first-year center Thomas Sorber does not return.

Guard DeShawn HarrisSmith does not have far to go to join Georgetown. At the University of Maryland, HarrisSmith was a regular starter as a first-year, but he became the sixth man this season on a roster that went to the Sweet 16. As his utilization dropped this year, Harris-Smith went from scoring 7.3 points per game last season to 2.5, but remained an important contributor on a nationally competitive team. Reunited with Abraham, Mack and Williams, Harris-Smith may again settle into another sixth-man role or take on some of the extra guard minutes made available by the departure of junior guard Jayden Epps.

Hoyas Entering the Portal

Two years ago, as the Hoyas limped to a two-win season in conference play, Epps was the team’s lone bright spot. His decision to enter the portal is not all that surprising, given the addition of competition at the shooting guard position from Lewis, Love and Harris-Smith, but will leave a sizing hole for those transfers to fill. In his two years at Georgetown — after transferring from Illinois — Epps averaged 15.8 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. Forward Drew Fielder returns to his hometown of Boise, Idaho,

after two years in a variety of roles in the Georgetown frontcourt to play for Boise State University. After spending his first season as a key member of the low-block rotation, Fielder started every game, forming a frontcourt partnership with Sorber. After Sorber went down for the season with a foot injury, the Hoyas’ post offense ran through Fielder. This season, Fielder averaged 7.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1 assist per game.

In forward Jordan Burks’ only year at Georgetown after transferring in from the University of Kentucky, he was an important rotation piece, who transitioned into a starting role after Sorber’s injury.

Despite standing at 6-foot9-inches, he would also play center when Fielder sat towards the end of the season. He joins the University of Central Florida after averaging 5.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 0.6 assists.

Cooley’s first recruit, forward Drew McKenna, reclassed to join the team a semester early in the spring of 2024. Despite high potential, McKenna never truly found his footing at Georgetown and saw limited game action this season. McKenna drew high marks as a recruit, in his class’s top 150, and he will look to establish himself in a new program.

Guard Curtis Williams joined the Hoyas as a sophomore transfer from the University of Louisville. He announced he was transferring to Tulane University on his Instagram. This year, Williams played a key role as a spot-up shooter off the bench, providing key minutes as the Hoyas struggled with injuries, but seeing less of the court as the season went on. This season he averaged 4.7 points, 1.8 rebounds and 0.5 assists.

The Georgetown University softball team (10-27, 1-17 Big East) sputtered offensively and fell to the George Washington University (GWU) Revolutionaries (28-17, 12-8 Atlantic 10) on April 22 by a score of 2-0.

The Hoyas’ biggest problem this season has been their offense. Of Georgetown’s 10 wins, 8 of them were by 5 runs or more, yet the team has only scored more than 3 runs in 13 of their 37 games so far.

While playing GWU, Georgetown failed to score a single run. When they score, they win, and in this case, they could not score.

Revolutionary pitcher Anna Reed threw a shutout gem, allowing only 4 hits over seven innings. The Hoyas’ pitching was not as stellar. Senior right-handed pitcher Kayla Dunn started the game and gave the Hoyas three scoreless innings, giving up only 2 hits and 2 walks. Graduate righthanded pitcher Sage Hager came in as relief in the fourth inning and was taken out in the fifth, allowing two runs, one of which was earned. Senior right-handed pitcher Avery Wissmar replaced her and finished out the game, giving up only 1 hit and 1 walk.

Bright spots for the Hoyas’ offense included a triple hit by graduate shortstop Sammy Fenton in the sixth inning; sophomore infielder Brooke Rebhan, who went 2-for-3 with a double in the seventh; and junior outfielder Gabby Park hitting a single, going 1-for3. Despite these hits, the Hoyas were not able to build solid momentum at any point throughout the game, leaving a total of five runners stranded on base.

Both of GWU’s runs were scored in the fifth inning by outfielder Ashley Corpuz and infielder Madi Mays.

COMMENTARY

Corpuz, driven in by Mays’ single hit, reached base on a walk, while Mays scored on an error made by Fenton.

The Hoyas’ defense has been their only consistent strength throughout the season, having made no more than 3 errors in a single game, and consistently improving their defense. The Hoyas have played 11 games with no errors, nearly half of those in the past three weeks.

Despite making 2 errors in their game against GWU, one of which led to a run, the Hoyas made several key plays throughout the game. These included 2 caught popups behind the plate for sophomore catcher Hollie Pardini and a diving play made by junior outfielder Claire Turner in center field. The Hoyas also made a clean 6-4-3 double play to end the sixth inning.

The Hoyas had a very strong start to the season, winning 8 of their first 11 games, but their good fortune ground to a halt as they embarked on a 20game losing streak beginning March 1. The streak ended with a win against George Mason University (18-30, 9-11 Atlantic 10) April 9, and the Hoyas

picked up their first conference win against Providence College (20-25, 1110 Big East) April 17. Head Coach Karla Ross said the Hoyas’ momentum recently shifted, along with the attitudes and mindsets of both the players and coaches.

“I was very confident in us playing well, which we did play well, we just didn’t get the runs we needed,” Ross told The Hoya. “I think we’ve done a good job as coaches, but also the players shifting that mindset of last season doesn’t define us. This is

The Hoyas struggled to muster any run support, despite holding George Washington to just two runs, as they were shut-out.

Grand Slam Track Is Perhaps Not A Slam Dunk For the Running World

Senior Sports Editor

What sounds more exciting than watching your favorite track athletes race head-to-head around the track in pursuit of prize money? Watching the best in the world compete across disciplines? Getting to see 200-meter specialists toe the line with the 100-meter or 400-meter specialists? Watching 800-meter champs race 1,500-meter champs?

Maybe watching athletes race to season bests, personal bests and new national and world records, which is not something the newly debuted Grand Slam Track is set up to produce. Place — not time — is the deciding factor, leading to some less-thanideal race conditions.

The April 4-6 weekend marked an advent in the world of competitive running. Grand Slam Track, former four-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson’s attempt to bring elite running to the masses, held its first weekend of competition in Kingston, Jamaica. Athletes competed in doubles — two races over the weekend — across six disciplines for a prize pot consisting of $3.15 million, with 12 contestants taking home $100,000 first place checks. Kingston marked the first of four weekends of competition, with contests yet to come in Miami, Fla., May 2-4; Philadelphia, Penn., May 30 to June 1; and Los Angeles, Calif., June 27-29.

The six disciplines athletes compete in are short sprints (100 and 200), long sprints (200 and 400), short hurdles (110-/100-meter men/women and 100 sprint), long hurdles (400-meter hurdles and 400 sprint), short distance (800 and 1,500) and long distance (3,000-meter and 5,000-meter).

96 athletes compete at each Grand Slam event, eight across each division on both the men’s and women’s ends. Forty-eight of these athletes are “Racers,” contracted for all four weekends of Grand Slam Track, and 48 are “Challengers” who agree to participate in a single event. These challengers are meant to increase the depth of competition. Of the first weekend’s 12 champions, three were challengers. While these event-doubles do put athletes in direct competition

with those they may not usually face head-to-head, Grand Slam Track fails to fully explore this potential. We do not get to see the 100-specialists race the 400-specialists in the 200. We do not get to see hurdlers race sprinters in the 100 and 400. This all decreases the potential for grueling competition. In Grand Slam Track’s first weekend, U.S. hurdler Sydney McLaughlinLeverone breezed through both the 400 hurdles and 400 sprint. A long hurdles, long sprint race between McLaughlin-Leverone, Paulino, Naser and Thomas would have been far more exciting. And then there’s the issue of Grand Slam Track being purely running. Some of your favorite athletes like pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, shot putter Ryan Crouser, long jumper Tara DavisWoodhall and steeplechaser Lamecha Girma are all missing from the action. So too, obviously, are their events. Other notable runners and hurdlers are also missing, put off by the idea of needing to double. Dutch phenom Femke Bol is among these. So too are U.S. sprinters Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, U.S. hurdles specialist Grant Holloway, British 800-meter specialist Keely Hodgkinson, Kenyan three-time Olympic 1,500 champion Faith Kipyegon and the infamous Norwegian distance phenom Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Without some of these stars, the question of Grand Slam Track’s success looms higher. Fear not though, runners can compete as challengers in addition to the 48 signed on “Racers” at each of the four weekends. This brought in Emmanuel Wanyonyi, for example, a pure 800 specialist, who stunned in the 1,500 and came away with the weekend win in men’s short distance. Women’s long-distance winner Ejgayehu Taye — who destroyed most of the field with fellow competitor Agnes Ngetich — was also a challenger. Grand Slam Track offers an alternative, or rather an addition, to the existing professional track circuit, the Diamond League. In the Diamond League, athletes compete across both track and field disciplines in a series of one-day meets where they

work to win points and a spot in the Diamond League Finals. Success in the Diamond League depends on speed and strength, and the league regularly fields new world records.

Grand Slam Track seems to be operating in a different realm, with the main goal being to take home money. This creates race scenarios like the April 4 men’s 5,000, where the United States’ Grant Fisher won in a time of 14:39.14, nearly two minutes slower than his best time. Elite distance runners regularly run 5,000s in under 13 minutes. To this effect, the race in Kingston was almost a jog, with the only entertainment spanning from the kick at the end for the prize money. The inaugural 3,000 echoed this sentiment, with Fisher only putting in the effort to place third and secure the prize pot. The drive for money creates an environment where time is of little importance. Grand Slam Track does have some redeeming qualities though. It boasts a $12.6 million prize pool across the season and a chance to vie to be crowned racer of the year across all disciplines. This holds potential to increase competition across event jurisdictions. It has also taken a spot on primetime television on Peacock and The CW Network in the United States, in addition to securing broadcast deals in 189 countries. Compare this to the Diamond League which is often only available to stream on FloTrack, and you can see where Johnson’s Grand Slam Track is making strides. But the broadcast deals only go so far in painting the league’s success. April 4-6 marked the inaugural weekend of the league in Kingston — often colloquially referred to as the track capital of the world. Let’s hope location has nothing to do with success, as the 50,000-seat stadium of the world’s track capital remained mostly empty throughout the event. Next month, Grand Slam Track debuts from May 2-4 in Miami. This time, the stadium only seats 5,000. With a greater chance at a sold-out crowd, maybe Johnson will see his ideal atmosphere come to fruition. Maybe some fast races will happen, or maybe the draw for money will continue to drag down the promise of speedy splits and the pledged fantasy matchups will remain fables.

Madeline Wang

Kaylie Roberts Special to The Hoya

GEORGETOWN ATHLETICS

MLB, Support Baseball In A Global Audience

HERMAN, from A12

middle of March — smack in the middle of spring training.

While participating players do not have to miss the official beginning of the season, they lose valuable training time before the season begins. For pitchers in particular, an irregular preseason routine could be catastrophic.

Further, players’ future contracts depend on their health. “Injury-prone” is a label that players will do anything to avoid, so playing in unrequired baseball games can seem unpalatable.

The hesitancy of MLB’s top players to participate in the WBC is at the core of why the Classic has not yet reached its full potential in the U.S. market.

MLB must capitalize on the opportunity to play baseball in front of an international audience. While MLB calls its championship the World Series, that is a misnomer. Twenty-nine of its 30 teams play in the United States, and the last one plays in Canada. While players come from around the world, teams’ fanbases are often concentrated geographically around a team’s city. The WBC audience, on the other hand, is truly global, amassing an average of 32 million viewers worldwide — and MLB should take advantage.

As the WBC grows in popularity, it will lead to the growth of new markets and new stars. If MLB’s best players fail to board the train, the train will almost certainly leave them behind. On the other hand, if MLB stars can attract international attention, it could lead to considerable increases in the league’s viewership.

done, but it is certainly not an impossible task for the league.

First, MLB should provide teams with injury insurance for players who participate in the WBC. Typically, if a player becomes injured while under contract, the team is responsible for paying the player’s full salary. Shifting this burden onto the league would make teams more likely to encourage their players to play in the WBC, since any injuries that occur would not financially burden teams.

Also, MLB could consider delaying the season by one week during WBC years and playing 154 games instead of the usual 162. These alterations would mitigate the increased workload of players who choose to participate in the WBC and allow them to partake in most of spring training. The change in schedule would also draw MLB fans’ attention to the WBC, increasing viewership. Finally, WBC performance should be part of a player’s narrative considered by Hall of Fame voters — just as MLB playoff performance is. While playoff or All-Star statistics are not formally counted in official statistical records, voters traditionally take playoff performance into account when evaluating borderline Hall of Famers. WBC statistics should similarly boost borderline players’ chances at baseball immortality, which would encourage MLB’s top stars to play in the WBC. Captain America is no one without his Avengers. As superhuman as Judge is — batting over .400 a month since the season began — he cannot play all nine positions. MLB has 11 months to encourage about 24 superstars to join him — the clock starts now.

PROFILE

Sorber Considering NBA Draft, Return to GU

SORBER, from A12

NCAA tournament appearance since 2021 — an important boost for a still-rebuilding program.

Whether Sorber’s basketball career continues in the NCAA or the NBA, he said his freshman season highlighted his ability to adjust and improve his game quickly.

“I was getting bucked around for a couple games,” he said, remembering the physicality of early season matchups. “But then towards the end, I wasn’t getting bucked around as much.”

“The conditioning is way different,” Sorber added. “The game is way faster. You got to think way quicker.”

Beyond basketball, Sorber says his first year helped him become more disciplined and comfortable with who he is, both on and off the court.

“A lot of people would say ‘I’m goofy this, goofy that,’” Sorber said. “But, I learned how to love my own space. I can make an uncomfortable position into a comfortable position.”

Throughout his basketball career, Sorber has leaned on his family, especially his mom, who he said played a key role in his college choice and continues to be one of the people he trusts most as he weighs his future.

“She was a big part of my decision why I came to Georgetown,” Sorber said. “And it’s crazy because my family been through so much and it’s just like, it felt like a relief, because of where I’m at today.”

When online speculation or criticism comes to the surface, Sorber said he relies on the same support system.

“I don’t let the outside noise affect me as a person,” he said. “I just have a talk with my mom or my brother and they tell me just to keep pushing — just to keep fighting, ‘cause you a fighter.”

“Wake up with happiness — that’s why I get through,” Sorber added.

As he weighs his options, Sorber hasn’t set a strict deadline for himself, but envisions reaching a final decision in mid-May. Between now and then, he plans to continue listening to scouts, his family and himself.

“Hopefully, it’s somewhere that I feel comfortable and that I made the right decision, not having regrets,” Sorber said.

And no matter where Sorber goes, he said his mindset will follow him.

“You’ll never see a frown on Thomas Sorber’s face, unless something’s going really bad,” he said. “I’m just a genuine guy. On the court, I’m a beast.”

A Look on GU Athletic Career, Athlete Community

SENIORS, from A12

500-plus assists, 500-plus rebounds and 1000-plus points. She was named the Big East Co-Defensive player of the year last season and awarded the Big East Sportsmanship award this season.

Ransom added that she initially feared her skills at Georgetown would not be transferable past her collegiate athletic career but later realized her basketball career has molded her as a person.

“I realized that the traits of being a leader, communicating, prioritizing giving over than receiving, those are things that have transferred to being who I am,” Ransom said. “It was really, really motivating to know that those qualities that I thought were just stuck in the uniform that I wore for five years are actually who I am now as an aspiring professional athlete.”

Graduate middle distance phenom Abel Teffra, who is also planning to continue his athletic career professionally, was recently crowned NCAA indoor 1,500-meter champion and boasts a string of successes cementing him in the Georgetown record.

Teffra said Georgetown athletics — especially cross country Head Coach Brandon Bonsey — shaped his future.

wrote to The Hoya. “Bonsey was one of the very few college coaches that recruited me and took me out of Fresno. I’m thankful for that phone call he gave me because otherwise I have no clue what I would’ve been doing.”

Teffra said he also plans to continue running professionally after Georgetown and that he wants to focus on the present for now.

“I have received interest from a few different professional teams and shoe brands that are interested in sponsoring me as a professional runner,” Teffra wrote.

“Nothing is set in stone yet, but I am focused on the remainder of my eligibility in the NCAA.”

Graduate women’s golfer Megan Gormley has had a similar five-year experience on a small, successful team. Gormley, who was named the Big East female golfer of the year last season, also aspires to continue her professional athletic career while pursuing her master’s degree in sports business management.

“We wanted to bring the whole Georgetown student athlete community together, which we did,” Gormley told The Hoya Senior softball pitcher Kayla Dunn shared a similar love for the people she has met during her time in Georgetown athletics.

“People matter more than anything,” Dunn told The Hoya. “The relationships I have made have mattered a lot more than anything that has happened on the field. I’ve made some of my best friends on the team.”

One lesson Dunn credits to her time at Georgetown is how to deal with failure.

“I don’t know how much that is absorbed by people who don’t consistently go through failure and who don’t have to continuously work for every single performance that they have,” Dunn said.

fact that you can’t do everything at the highest level that you want to all the time,” Dunn said. “Something’s always going to give.”

Convincing MLB’s top players to play in the WBC is easier said than Hoyas Rising to Close if House Settlement

“Without Georgetown, I have no idea what my life would be like,” Teffra

Gormley has had a unique Georgetown athletics experience as she has been a member of the smallest team on campus with eight individuals, while also serving as the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) co-president. Gormley said her role as SAAC co-president alongside co-president senior field hockey forward Sophie Towne was rewarding.

Dunn said sports taught her how to take the criticism necessary for the athletic and professional worlds alike after having her miniature thesis published in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Policy Studies Journal and as she prepares to pursue a master’s degree in digital sociology at the University of Edinburgh.

“I would also say the biggest lesson that I’ve taken away from Georgetown that will apply to my future is the piece of balance, and not necessarily in the sense of balancing all several commitments but the

From accolades on the field, to performances on the pitch, to hours spent in the pool, to thousands of shots on the court, to excellence in the classroom, Georgetown athletes’ drive and determination shine through.

As the Class of 2025 prepares to leave the Hilltop next month, they will take with them the knowledge of their friendships, their dedication and their Hoya pride. Ransom said she will always remain a Hoya in some respects.

“There’s a lot of pride I have in being able to say I played at Georgetown for five years,” Ransom said. “I know past my professional career that’s going to be something I rest on is that I’m a part of the Georgetown student athlete alumni, and that’s something very, very special.”

And to leave you with some final words of wisdom, Dunn echoed the sentiment of other graduating athletes and said balance is the greatest skill she will take with her.

“Choosing how you balance the different things in your life and knowing that if you give a lot to something you have to take away from something is incredibly important to just being sane and living a happy and healthy life and being you in whatever capacity you show up in.”

HOUSE, from A12

The settlement would also reduce the maximum number of players permitted on each team but would allow schools to provide a full scholarship to each player, meaning some student-athletes, especially walkons on larger teams in non-revenue-generating sports, would lose their roster spots.

Kaira Brown (GRD ’26), a sprinter on the Georgetown University women’s track and field team, works for the National College Players Association (NCPA), an interest group that advocates for the rights of student-athletes, and has advocated for student-athlete rights before lawmakers.

Brown, who filed an objection to the agreement, said she opposed the agreement when Ramogi Huma, executive director of the NCPA, told her the settlement would not benefit athletes.

“I really trust Ramogi,” Brown told The Hoya. “When he says this isn’t something good for athletes, I do a little of my own digging, but mostly I believe him because this has been his life’s work since before I was born, and so that’s how I came to be an objector.”

One term of the settlement re-

quires the plaintiffs’ attorneys to join the NCAA in its efforts lobbying the U.S. Congress for an antitrust exemption, which would allow the NCAA to impose more broad restrictions without liability. Brown said student-athletes do not have as strong of an advocate for their interests — especially on non-financial issues — and should pursue forming a union next.

“NIL gets all the glitz and glam, and it’s also important to pay athletes what they’re worth,” Brown told The Hoya. “But my main issue throughout all of this has always been creating more gender equity and health and safety provisions for athletes.”

“Only if we use our collective power will we ever be able to measure up against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences,” Brown added.

The Big East was not a named defendant in the litigation, so the conference did not directly negotiate the settlement agreement. However, every Big East school opted into the agreement and will be bound by new NCAA rules that permit direct payments to athletes.

Big East men’s basketball, including Georgetown, is poised to benefit from the agreement since other large conferences

will likely direct their revenue-sharing budget toward football, contrasting Big East schools’ likely prioritization of basketball. With a higher percentage of their revenue-sharing cap space heading toward basketball, Big East schools will be able to field more skilled and competitive teams.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, summarizing the men’s basketball season, Georgetown Intercollegiate Athletics Director Lee Reed wrote, “The future is bright! We must enthusiastically embrace this new world of revenue sharing to achieve the competitive outcomes we all desire!”

Reed announced in an email to season ticket holders and donors obtained by The Hoya that Hoyas Rising, Georgetown’s collective NIL group licensing program, will close May 31 and the university will directly assume its obligations.

“As permitted by the House settlement, we intend to bring the structure for Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) opportunities into the university, as we anticipate many of our peers will do as well,” Reed wrote. Reed also observed donations to support NIL would be paid directly to the university, and thus tax deductible, which could stimulate more donations to fund rev-

enue-sharing or NIL by providing tax incentives for donors.

A Georgetown Athletics spokesperson said that, while the structure of roster limits is in flux, Georgetown is not one of the schools that has begun to cut players.

“No student-athletes have been cut from rosters due to proposed NCAA roster limits,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya The spokesperson, citing NCAA rules, declined to comment on if any recruits would lose their offers. Even if the agreement is adopted, litigation and legislative wrangling is poised to continue for many years. The NCAA continues to lobby lawmakers for an exemption from federal antitrust laws. Multiple athletes who opted out of the settlement, including former Villanova University basketball player Kris Jenkins, have filed other lawsuits against the NCAA and conferences.

The judge gave 14 days for the agreement to be modified, after which she will issue a final ruling. If the agreement is accepted, it is likely to be appealed, potentially becoming the latest case concerning student-athletes to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. If rejected, the case will proceed to trial at the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026.

MEGHAN HALL/THE HOYA

Sorber racked up accolades this season, as he put up a season statline of 14.5

JEFFREY HYDE/FLICKR

Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ superstar right fielder, was named captain of the U.S.’s 2026 World Baseball Classic team.

Sports

FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2025

MEN’S LACROSSE

The Georgetown University men’s lacrosse team cruised to a 20-6 victory over St. John’s in a dominant showing.

MLB’s Captain America Is A Brave New Classic

Eilat Herman Sports Columnist

Chris Evans. Wyatt Russell. Anthony Mackie. Aaron Judge. These are not just random names — far from it. All of these people have, at some point, been Captain America. The first three are actors. Boring. Judge, on the other hand, is the newly-appointed captain of the U.S. team in the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC), an international tournament and one of the most viewed sporting events in the world. Judge has a second job too, captaining the New York Yankees since December 2022. Simple math indicates that being Captain America should be considered more prestigious than being Yankees captain. The Yankees, after all, surely have a smaller fanbase than the entirety of the United States. Yet any baseball fan would tell you that captain of the Yankees is a greater honor. As much as I love the Yankees — and that is not to be underestimated — the simple reality is that captaining the WBC should be at least equally prestigious as captaining the Yankees. But it is not, partially because the WBC has failed to draw in Major League Baseball (MLB)’s brightest stars. This is understandable. MLB players sign a contract to play in MLB in a season running from March to November, with spring training beginning at the end of February. The WBC inconveniently takes place in the

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Georgetown @ Penn Relays

April 24-26

Philadelphia

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Only if we use our collective power will we ever be able to measure up against the NCAA and Power Five conferences. Settlement Objector Kaira Brown (GRD ’25)

After an award-winning first season, Georgetown forward Thomas Sorber declared for the NBA draft, but is still considering returning to the Hoyas and withdrawing from the draft. He was a unanimous selection to the Big East All-Freshman Team and an All-Big East Third Team selection.

Between DC & Draft, GU Still In Play for Sorber

Maddie Taylor Deputy Sports Editor

First-year center Thomas Sorber sent ripples through the Georgetown University basketball community when he announced he would “test the waters” of the NBA draft March 27. However, for now, he still has one foot planted on the Hilltop. Sorber finds himself in an enviable position — able to explore his draft options while maintaining his college eligibility — thanks to one of the best firstyear performances in the country, despite coming to Georgetown as a four-star recruit. Sorber can put off a final decision on his future until May 28, the NCAA’s deadline to withdraw from the draft. As speculation swirls about his decision, Sorber, who averaged 14.5 points and 8.5 rebounds, said he is looking for honest feedback from NBA teams, not just praise.

“The good and bad about Thomas Sorber,” Sorber told The Hoya. “What I can work on, but just to know what I can do to become that next-level player.”

After a season-ending injury Feb. 15, speculation he may return for another year in order to increase his draft spot grew; however, Sorber said he is not chasing a certain number but prioritizing his environment and long-term satisfaction.

“I want to be on the team that I can fit on perfectly,” Sorber said. “And I wouldn’t say the number of the draft really matters. It’s really just the fit.”

Sorber, a Trenton, N.J., native who attended Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia, Pa., doesn’t have a dream NBA team in mind. Yet, if he had to choose, he’d lean towards somewhere “close to home. Not that close. Somewhere near home. If you know, you know.”

Regardless of where he ends up, Sorber said he expects difficulties

with the transition to the next level as part of the process.

“Yes, it’s a challenge, but I’m going to have to get used to that challenge every single day, so it’s just going to have to turn into a lifestyle,” he said.

That mindset of embracing challenges as they come is something Sorber has carried with him throughout the season. However, the decision to take the leap to professional basketball is not a simple one. Sorber said how much Georgetown has come to mean to him has made his decision difficult.

“And coming back — I don’t ever have no problem coming back. I love Georgetown,” Sorber said. “That’s why it’s a hard decision for me to fully just go, rather than just come back. That’s why I’m taking my time, making sure what I really want.”

A perfect fit on an NBA team is hard to guarantee, but Sorber,

Seniors Reflect on Their GU Athletic Careers

Madeline Wang Senior Sports Editor

As the Class of 2025 prepares to conclude their undergraduate careers at Georgetown University, some took a moment to reflect on their experience in Georgetown athletics, sharing some of the key lessons they learned along the way. Whether it be skills of time management, communication, teamwork or resilience, each athlete had something valuable to take away from their collegiate athletic careers. As women’s soccer senior forward Maja Lardner said the lessons learned, the hard work required and the experience were all worthwhile.

“Being a student-athlete at Georgetown, you obviously have to learn time management and discipline, and you definitely have to sacrifice a lot,” Lardner told The Hoya. “But in the end, it’s all worth it.”

Lardner said that, during her time playing at Georgetown, she has worked to overcome injuries and undesirable coaching decisions. After she graduates next month, however, Lardner will return to Georgetown for her fifth year to pursue her master’s degree in real estate, something she is more than excited for. Throughout her time at Georgetown, Lardner has grown tremendously as a player. This past season, Lardner was named Big East offensive player of the year after leading the Big East conference in points and garnered a spot on the United Soccer Coaches’ Division I women’s scholar all-America team, showcasing her excellence on both the field and in the classroom — among other accomplishments. Ladner said her overwhelmingly pos-

itive experience at Georgetown made all the challenges worth it.

Owen Carapellotti, the baseball team’s senior catcher, echoed Lardner’s positive sentiment.

“It has been four of the most fun years of my life,” Carapellotti told The Hoya Carapellotti’s baseball career had been nothing short of impressive, from winning the first-ever Big East freshman of the year award for Georgetown as a first-year to breaking the program record for career home runs April 19, smashing his 50th.

Carapellotti said he has learned a lot from his time at Georgetown.

“There are so many things that playing a kids’ game is able to teach you about life.”

Carapellotti also shared his hopes to get drafted but said he is focusing on the present and enjoying his last months of college athletics.

“We’ll get there when we get there,” Carapellotti told The Hoya. “It’s still a couple months down the road.”

Kelsey Ransom, graduate guard on the women’s basketball team, said she hopes to continue her playing career

professionally either in the WNBA or overseas before finishing her graduate degree in higher education administration.

“I am pursuing my professional career, whether that’s in the WNBA or overseas,” Ransom told The Hoya. Like Lardner and Carapolletti, Ransom has had a stellar collegiate career and impact on the Georgetown record book with over 2,000 career points, the most assists in program history and being the only player to record

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who said he takes inspiration from the playmaking of Nikola Jokić and the defense of Bam Adebayo, has no doubts about his place with the Hoyas. Georgetown is more than the jersey he wears; it’s a place where Sorber said he felt embraced by the community from the moment he arrived.

“I was just proud to bring smiles to people’s faces,” he said.

“I really liked how everybody was cheering me on since the first day I stepped on the Georgetown court.”

More than hearing fans chant his name in Capital One Arena, Sorber added that playing was about proving something to himself.

“Making the people proud — and for myself, making myself proud,” he continued. “Before this year, nobody didn’t really think I was going to be in the position that I’m at today. It’s just a blessing.”

Beyond an emotional connection, Sorber said he sees the potential in what the program is building and what it could become next season. He said next season’s incoming transfers excite him.

“We got a lot of dogs,” Sorber said. “It brought a smile to my face, hearing that they signed with Georgetown. It’s helping the Georgetown decision a bit more, but I wouldn’t say it’s the main part.”

While Sorber didn’t go into specifics about new transfers, which currently include players like University of Arizona guard KJ Lewis and University of Maryland guard DeShawn Harris-Smith, he said if he returns, he would have one ambition in mind.

“My goal is to win as much as we can,” Sorber said. “Try and get Georgetown back on top.” With Sorber’s return, the Hoyas could contend for their first

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Nate Seidenstein Senior Sports Editor

A federal judge sent lawyers for the NCAA and a group of student-athletes back to the negotiating table over a settlement set to reshape college athletics — replacing scholarship limits with roster caps and allowing institutions to directly pay the players.

After four years of legal wrangling, both sides of the sprawling class-action lawsuit came to an agreement that would pay athletes that missed out on name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and allow universities to directly pay athletes in the future. The agreement would modify practically every aspect of the modern college athletics landscape and pay out almost $2.8 billion in damages. The judge, Claudia Wilken, stopped short of rejecting the agreement, commonly known as the House settlement, in her April 23 ruling but warned she would do so if the roster caps were not modified to protect current student-athletes who would lose their spots.

“That outcome is not fair to those class members, and that remains true even if other class members may benefit,” Wilken wrote in an order.

Wilken said every other aspect of the settlement was acceptable and did not need modification.

The NCAA has already adopted rule changes, and member institutions have begun to notify players who would stand to lose their spots, preparing for final approval of the settlement. Wilken was unconvinced this was enough to approve the settlement.

“Any disruption that may occur is a problem of Defendants’ and NCAA member schools’ own making,” Wilken wrote. Steve Berman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he would work to resolve the issue but stood ready to bring the case to trial.

“We will work hard to convince the NCAA and the conferences to address the court’s concerns,” Berman wrote in a statement. “If we are unable to do so, then we are off to trial and will return to fighting the NCAA in court.” Wilken suggested roster limits could be implemented gradually, grandfathering in current student-athletes to protect their spots. She also ruled the rest of the settlement did not need to be modified. Under the agreement, universities that opt in may participate in “revenue-sharing” with their players, capped at a maximum of $20.5 million annually across all sports. It would also require other NIL deals, from donors or boosters, to be at a “fair market value,” as determined by Deloitte, a prominent consulting firm.

GEORGETOWN ATHLETICS

Senior catcher Owen Carapellotti hit his 50th career home run, setting the Georgetown record.

ANTHONY PELTIER/THE HOYA