President: 1912-1918
Fr. Alphonsus Donlon, S.J., served as Georgetown's 36th president from 1912-1918. Fr. Donlon oversaw the installation of the John Carroll Statue at the front of the campus and initiated the separation of the Preparatory School from Georgetown's main campus.
Early Georgetown career
Fr. Alphonsus Donlon first came to Georgetown in 1883 as a student in the Second Grammar Class of Georgetown Preparatory School. In 1884, he entered the College where he distinguished himself as a scholar and an athlete. He graduated with a high record of scholarship, including earning the Philosophy Medal, while playing as a regular on the football team in 1888 and the baseball team’s varsity shortstop. After graduation, Fr. Donlon studied Philosophy at Woodstock College, the Jesuit Seminary, before returning to Georgetown as Physics professor in 1895.
In 1898, Fr. Donlon became Faculty-Director of Athletics. Under his leadership, Georgetown’s baseball team enjoyed its best record, losing only two games of twenty in 1898. Fr. Donlon also reinstated football as a varsity sport and organized Georgetown’s first track meet. His work to elevate and extend Georgetown’s athletic program earned him the nickname “father of Georgetown athletics.”1
In 1900, Fr. Donlon returned to Woodstock where he completed his course in Theology and was ordained. He returned to Georgetown to teach Physics during the 1906-07 school year, before leaving for a position as Professor of Sciences at Woodstock, where he remained until 1911 when he was appointed Assistant Provincial of Jesuits in Maryland. In January of 1912, when Fr. Himmel’s worsening health forced him to resign from the presidency, Fr. Donlon was appointed his successor and assumed the role of Georgetown’s President on January 24, 1912.2
John Carroll Statue
In the first few months of his presidency, Georgetown gathered for the unveiling of the John Carroll Statue on May 4, 1912. Fundraising had begun in 1909, and Georgetown planned a three-day ceremony with speakers including Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, Attorney General George Wickersham, Speaker of the House Champ Clark, and Cardinal Gibbons. Unknown to the attendees, Georgetown was forced to substitute a painted plaster cast of the statue when the foundry announced a last-minute delay on the bronze statue. The real statue replaced the plaster cast weeks later, late at night.
At the ceremony, Fr. Donlon lauded the alumni whose generosity had funded the statue: “Happy that university when asked, what are her great resources; what, her riches; what, her endowment; if, like the Great Roman matron of old, she can point to her children and say, they are her jewels. So this university can point to her Alumni and say: ‘they are my riches, they are my glory, they are my jewels.”3 One of Fr. Donlon’s greatest accomplishments as President was the development of an alumni association. One colleague wrote, “Only a few know the thought and labor that were his in trying to build up a strong Alumni Association in every part of the country.”4
Georgetown Prep and Georgetown Visitation
Fr. Donlon also worked to separate Georgetown’s high school departments from the College by building a new Preparatory School at Garret Park in Montgomery County Maryland. The laying of the cornerstone for the new Preparatory School occurred on June 9, 1917. In the presentation address, the Hon. Justice Charles A. DeCourcy, LL.D celebrated Fr. Donlon who had “conceived and carried out the plan of building a preparatory school for preparatory students, in their own interest away from the College.” Fr. Donlon responded that “in truth his efforts had been merely initiative, and that the generous action and co-operation of the Alumni of Georgetown had produced the efficient realization of all proposals for the advancement of the new Prep. School.”5
Appointed their Chaplain in 1905, as President, Fr. Donlon continued to strengthen his relationship with the Sisters of the Georgetown Visitation Monastery. Fr. Donlon started an effort allowing the Sisters to receive their degrees from Georgetown, opened a summer school for their teachers, officiated all of their feasts, and was a frequent attendee of their debates, theater, and musical performances.6
Fr. Donlon’s term ended in May 1918, and he was succeeded by Fr. John Creeden. One of Fr. Donlon’s greatest concerns was the future of Georgetown, and he was determined to leave no additional debt. When he left Georgetown, Fr. Donlon had succeeded in paying for what was built during his presidency.7
- 1“Our New President.” Georgetown College Journal, Vol. 40 No.5. Feb. 1912, pp.174-76.
- 2Id.
- 3“The Unveiling: President Donlon’s Address.” Georgetown College Journal, Vol. XL, No. 8. May 1912, p.285.
- 4“Obituary: Father Alphonsus J. Donlon.” Woodstock Letters, Vol. LV, No. 3, 1926, p. 349.
- 5“Laying of the Cornerstone of New Prep. School.” Georgetown College Journal, Vol. XLV, No.8. June 1917, pp.487-88.
- 6“Obituary: Father Alphonsus J. Donlon.” pp. 349-50.
- 7Id.
