Graduation at Georgetown recalls nearly 220 years of tradition that links many thousands of alumni across the country and around the world. Student's experiences at Georgetown prepare them for many paths, which for four graduating seniors means across the Atlantic to the respected halls of Oxford University.
Graduating seniors David Fajgenbaum, Zoe Marks, Jonathan McLaughlin and Rebecca Miller are all going to Oxford in the fall, joining a long line of accomplished Georgetown alumni who have pursued graduate studies at the British university. All four have received a scholarship recognizing their leadership, academic excellence, and service to others during their time at Georgetown.
"Over the past quarter century, Georgetown has expanded the scope of its curriculum in astonishing ways," said University Fellowship Secretary and professor of English John Glavin. "These four students strikingly image the success of that expansion."
Georgetown football player David Fajgenbaum will be attending Oxford on the Joseph Allbriton Scholarship, an award that recognizes academic excellence, character, public service, and interest in the well-being of others. A human science major in the School of Nursing & Health Studies, David plans to study public health at Oxford, an interest that stems from his work with the National Students of Ailing Mothers and Fathers Support Network (Students of AMF). In 2004, David founded Students of AMF, a national organization that supports and raises awareness about the needs of grieving college students.
"My central obsession, and I use the word judiciously, is to refocus our health care system on prevention, particularly the prevention of cancer," David wrote in his application for the Allbritton Scholarship. "I look to Oxford and beyond, because I want to be one of the links that pull together best practices, both curative and preventive, from around the world."
Zoe Marks, a government major in Georgetown College, will be joining Fajgenbaum at Oxford as this year's recipient of the Timothy S. Healy, S.J. Scholarship, an award that commemorates the life of the late university president. During her time at Georgetown, Zoe promoted diversity education through her work on Georgetown's student association and as co-chair of Leaders in Education about Diversity (LEAD). Zoe volunteered with Mercy Corps and taught English to primary school students in Ethiopia during her junior year. Her experiences at Georgetown and as a volunteer with Mercy Corps in Ethiopia inspired Zoe to dedicate herself to expanding multi-ethnic understanding in African societies. To that end, Zoe plans to pursue two masters while at Oxford, one in African Studies and the other in Social Anthropology.
"I've grappled with the inherently asymmetrical relationship between Western development workers and African societies," Zoe wrote in her application for the Healy Scholarship. "I plan to face it with consciousness and candor."
A testament to the growth of Georgetown's Department of Classics, two of this year's Oxford bound seniors are classics majors.
Jonathan McLaughlin plans to pursue his passion for studying ancient civilizations with a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, an award intended to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries. At Oxford, he hopes focus the desert communities of Egypt in Late Antiquity. Studying the interactions between Christian Byzantines and Muslim Arabs, he believes, may bring to light sources of the tension between the West and the nations of Islam today. "Perhaps through a better understanding of the past," wrote McClaughlin in his statement of purpose, "we can learn to better understand each other in the present."
Rebecca Miller will focus her time at Oxford on Greek literature during the Roman Empire. Miller will attend Oxford under the American Philological Association's 2007 Pearson Fellowship, one of the most prestigious awards for undergraduates in the Classics disciplines. The association recognized Miller for her outstanding scholarship at Georgetown where she served as a research assistant for Classics department chair Alex Sens.
David, Zoe, Jonathan and Rebecca will join a long list of fellow alumni who have traveled to Oxford for their graduate studies. Professor Glavin credits the late Georgetown President Timothy Healy, himself an Oxford graduate, for this lasting tradition.
"Father Healy urged the importance of a living connection between the oldest of all English-speaking universities and the oldest Catholic university in America," said Glavin. "Both stand for excellence, and they both share the same focus -- keeping faith with an ancient and venerable tradition of learning while turning out leaders trained to face the pressing problems not only of the present but of the future."
Georgetown University's will celebrate its 208th Commencement exercises from May 17 through May 20, 2007. Approximately 1,670 undergraduates will graduate in the class of 2007.
