President: 1905-1908
Fr. David H. Buel, S.J., served as Georgetown's 34th president from 1905-1908. Fr. Buel's tenure was defined by his disciplinarian policies, which provoked significant backlash from the student body.
Early academic career
Fr. David H. Buel converted to Catholicism during his sophomore year at Yale, before entering the Society of Jesus in November 1883. In 1885, Fr. Buel served as an assistant prefect of discipline at the College of St. Francis Xavier before departing to teach Latin and Greek at the College of the Holy Cross. He then studied philosophy at Woodstock for three years before teaching at Fordham and then again at St. Francis Xavier. In 1895, Fr. Buel returned to Woodstock to study theology, and he was ordained on June 28 1898. In 1901, Fr. Buel arrived at Georgetown where he taught as a professor of mechanics and physics before becoming vice-president in 1905. When Fr. Daugherty’s health began to fail, Fr. Buel succeeded him as Georgetown’s thirty-fourth president in 1905.1
Campus construction and renovation
During his presidency, Fr. Buel oversaw the construction of the Ryan Gymnasium and a Maguire Hall renovation that divided the third and fourth floors into separate bedrooms. The curriculum of the medical school was also adopted as the standard of the American Association of Medical Colleges and the law school faculty was expanded. President Theodore Roosevelt presided over the 1906 commencement distributing diplomas and pinning medals on winners’ lapels.2
Controversies and firing
However, Fr. Buel’s legacy is that of a stern disciplinarian who sought order and a strict balance between academics and extracurriculars. He immediately instituted a number of athletic reforms including deprofessionalizing football, baseball, and track. Full scholarships for athletes were no longer offered, and Fr. Buel required athletes to remain on top of their schoolwork.3 He reinstituted a harsh attendance policy for class, study hall, meals, and daily religious exercises with a demerit system for absences.4 One student was expelled for overstaying his leave in order to participate as a godfather at his niece’s christening. The student’s father sued to have his son reinstated, but the court upheld Fr. Buel’s right, as president of a private university, to establish rules regarding his students’ conduct.5
At the start of Fr. Buel’s second year, only seventy-seven students were enrolled at the college, but his new policies remained in place. In the spring of 1908, Fr. Buel rejected the senior class president’s request for a holiday in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Angered by this rejection, students gathered their crockery and tossed it from their windows littering the lawn with shattered washbowls, pitchers, and vases and old shoes. Some students seized control of a fire hose on the first floor of Healy and knocked over several students and a priest with its blast, flooding the corridor. With Fr. Buel standing by his decision, over 150 students ignored the denial and celebrated St. Patrick’s Day when it arrived a few days later. They took to the streets parading up and down F Street, disrupting the deliveries of dairy wagons, storming a street car, attending the theater and only returning to the University at night. Fr. Buel expelled twenty of these students and the remaining 130 were suspended.6
At this time, the Jesuit provincial superior reported to Rome of “an armed neutrality” between Fr. Buel and his students. A faculty member similarly pleaded, “a substitute for Fr. Buel must be found as soon as possible. Three more years of the present administration will leave little of Georgetown to be cared for.” In August 1908, Fr. Buel’s presidency was terminated, and he was replaced by Fr. Joseph J. Himmel.
- 1“Obituary Record of Graduates Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1920.” Bulletin of Yale University. New Haven: Yale University. 1921. pp. 735–37.
- 2Nevils, Coleman. “Miniatures of Georgetown, 1634-1934, Tercentennial Causeries.” Georgetown University Press.
- 3“Buel Quits College.” The Washington Post. Aug. 29, 1908.
- 4Emmett Curran, Robert. “Toward a Greater Georgetown, 1889–1928.” 2010, p.46.
- 5“Buel Quits College.” The Washington Post. Aug. 29, 1908.
- 6“Students on a Strike: Boys Rebel Against Head of Georgetown University, Resent Denial of Holiday.” The Washington Post. March 18, 1908.
