Remarks at 2025 New Student Convocation
Provost Colbert, Members of the Faculty, delegates of the Alumni Association, new students of Georgetown, families and friends, good morning.
I thank Provost Soyica Colbert for her leadership, and extend my thanks to our student speaker, Isra Satiar, and our faculty speaker, Professor Pireddu.
I have great reverence for this ceremony. I want to give a special shout-out to our robed alumni here, many of whom are parents, some who come repeatedly over the years to welcome new members into our community.
To the families, we are honored by your trust in allowing us to care for your student over the next few years. We take seriously your hope that we will nurture and guide your student to become ever more knowledgeable, wiser, and kinder than they are already.
As we assemble here, many exhausted from moving into new quarters, meeting new people, and anticipating changes ahead—I ask us to stop for a moment.
I want you to reflect on what we believe makes Georgetown a bit different from other research universities—I call this the “why” of Georgetown, not the WHAT or the HOW of Georgetown, but its “WHY.”
Georgetown Is Like Other Research Universities
In many ways, Georgetown resembles other elite universities. Our students are extremely talented, the best of the best. We attract unusually gifted faculty, like those seated behind me, who wish to teach such students. They offer rigorous academic courses that require the best of both themselves and their students. They are experts, who devote their lives to digging deeper, trying to discover new insights into how the world operates, or how the human body is organized, or how international trade affects income distributions, or how words can evoke emotions, or what is the nature of consciousness, and almost every critical question facing humanity.
We try to push the boundaries of human knowledge through our research. We have a wide range of departments and schools, allowing students and faculty to explore different domains of knowledge. All of these are within the framework of a liberal education, where students explore knowledge with a wide lens. The students here can prepare for many different life courses.
Universities provide a unique service to society—the unbridled search for truth. We acknowledge that this quest will never fully succeed. But we are also devoted to pushing the frontiers of knowledge forward.
To students seated in front of me, we hope that you will be involved in this search, because the joy of discovery and invention is one of the great gifts that humans can experience.
The data on this are clear; a chance to work side by side with faculty over an extended period of time in original inquiry cements a joy of learning that lasts a lifetime.
Intellectual quests over your next four years can shape your life’s work.
We think we do this well at Georgetown. But, honestly, any president of any university would say the same about their institution.
All of this concerns the development of your mind, your cognitive skills, your ability to function in the high-paced world, your lifetime earnings.
How Georgetown Is Different From Other Universities
So, back to my bold assertion that Georgetown is different from other universities?
The secret sauce of Georgetown is not What we do but “Why we do what we do.” It’s not what we do, but the reasons that we do it—The Why Of Georgetown.
Since the 16th century Jesuits have dispersed throughout the world building schools, often in areas quite hostile to their efforts.
In 1789, this land right here was part of the state of Maryland.
The school was boldly formed open to all religions, an attribute newly permitted by the state of Maryland and made permanent in 1791 with the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Since then, we have maintained an openness to all religious beliefs and no beliefs at all.
For some decades, the Church has asked the Jesuits to lead efforts at inter-religious dialogue, bringing together groups with different beliefs.
The Jesuits believe that when we encounter those from different faiths, cultures, and ideas, we can come to know ourselves better and become closer to God. Their work serves the greater glory of God and the welfare of humankind. Our mission statement says that “serious and sustained dialogue among persons of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding.”
This is the “why” of Georgetown. This is the “why” of all of our work.
So to do this, Georgetown has built the largest set of faith leaders at any US university. Since 1968, the first full-time Rabbi at a Catholic university; for 25 years, an Imam; Jesuit and Orthodox priests, Protestant ministers, a director of Dharmic Life and Hindu spiritual advisor. This is our world-renowned “Mission and Ministry” group, led by Fr. Mark Bosco.
To encounter even more groups with diverse beliefs, we’re also global in our mission.
Go to Qatar—there is Georgetown.
Go to Kenya—there is Georgetown.
Go to England, Italy, Indonesia, Dubai, Haiti, Eswatini—there is Georgetown.
So, we celebrate here the fact that we seek to immerse ourselves in different beliefs; different ways of thinking and approaching the world and each other—thought diversity in modern parlance.
We believe that every person we encounter who is different from us is a gift to us, to help us learn.
We treasure that because we believe that by interaction with others, we can enrich one another’s lives.
This “why” demands that we are devoted to free speech on campus. We need to hear the voices of these other folks. Hence, Georgetown does not disinvite speakers with controversial views—how else we will learn of new ways of thinking about the world?
The antidote to controversial speech is more speech.
Yes, we are devoted to free speech on campus but we know that hurtful speech threatens real dialogue, so we aspire to civil discourse, while freely exposing ourselves to different perspectives. Our discourse is about ideas. We strive to separate attention to ideas from the people espousing ideas. In Jesuit fashion, we assume others are acting with good will and we focus on our joint work of understanding.
But the “why” of Georgetown demands that we train ourselves to listen, really listen, to what others are saying.
So, you see, the Jesuit values that you see displayed on banners throughout the campus are not just slogans.
They’re reminders of how we aspire to behave. And while we call them Jesuit values, those of you from other faiths will recognize them as fully within the aspirations of your own beliefs. I hope those of you with no faith at all will find comfort in them and follow your curiosity to reflect on them.
I believe that our troubled world needs these values more than ever—that Georgetown is needed more than ever before, that this is Georgetown’s moment in history.
By actively encountering alternative perspectives, we develop life-changing skills. We learn how to encounter people very different from ourselves. We learn how to engage them. We learn how to listen to them. We need to endeavor to see the world as they see it—to really understand their beliefs.
But wait, the why of Georgetown embedded in these values has a purpose.
We aspire to live these values because of the outcome we seek.
That outcome is our aspiration to be “people for others.”
We believe that the students in front of us today will become global leaders imbued with a set of values and life skills that will offer the way forward for our troubled, polarized world. We cannot effectively be people for others if the “others” are abstractions.
Through interacting within such a community, we aspire that you discover the unique way that you can leave the world a better place, one with less suffering and desolation.
We all must discover a purpose much larger than ourselves. The Jesuits’ commitment to the human dignity of all persons guides us; we are seeking to find God in all things and all people. We believe that we become whole persons, authentic to ourselves, when we discover our individual way of serving others. That is work requiring life-long discipline and courage. But it’s joyous work. And we aspire that each of you discover that joy.
By incorporating the “why” of Georgetown, over the years, Georgetown graduates have led in every sector of society. They are kings, prime ministers, elected government leaders, famous playwrights and actors, novelists, scientists, CEOs of large enterprises, spiritual leaders.
Regardless of their worldly success, to my great delight, many of them have a side gig, some way of giving back, their way of being people for others—whether it is support for housing, schools, or job creation for disadvantaged populations throughout the world.
So what is my message?
Yes, Georgetown is a research university.
The academic courses you will pursue have a level of rigor that will challenge you. You will work harder than you now imagine you can work. But our caring faculty will nurture you into deeper and deeper understanding of complex knowledge.
We are proud of this academic rigor.
So, the What we do here is important work that will occupy your full attention.
But my main message is about the Why of Georgetown.
It is the Why of this work that I pray you students absorb.
The why is always there, often just below the surface; I urge you pay attention to it; seek it out.
Because, you see, quite simply, the why, the why is the ingredient of Georgetown that will change your life.
Class of 2029, welcome to Georgetown!