President: 1825-1826
Fr. Stephen Dubuisson, S.J., served as Georgetown's 14th president from 1825-1826. Fr. Dubuisson did not want the job, an opinion shared by both students and their families, and resigned after only a year.
Early life
Stephen Dubuisson was born in 1786 in St. Domingo. After the Haitian Revolution broke out, Dubuisson fled to France where he joined the army and served as a member of Napoleon’s personal staff. When Napoleon imprisoned Pope Pius VII, Dubuisson resigned, moved to America, and joined the Society of Jesus in December 1815.1
Early Georgetown career
When Fr. Dubuisson came to Georgetown for his religious studies, he was appointed prefect in 1816 and again in 1817. During his second term as prefect, after Fr. Dubuisson published a set of rules, the students formed a plot to attack, and perhaps even kill Fr. Dubuisson. The administration thwarted the plan and six students were expelled.2 In 1825, when Fr. Benedict Fenwick left Georgetown to serve as Bishop of Boston, Fr. Dubuisson was appointed his successor becoming Georgetown’s fourteenth president.
Presidency
Fr. Dubuisson was reportedly terrified of serving as Georgetown’s president. He believed he lacked the necessary education, and he thought his monarchical views of both secular and sacred authority made him unfit to serve as president of an American college. Almost immediately after his appointment, he began appealing to the superior general in Rome to send a replacement. Students and parents, wary of his previous terms as a prefect, also began to ask for a new president. After a mere seven months, the superior general gave in and allowed Fr. Dubuisson to resign in May 1826. A few months later, he was formally succeeded by Fr. William Feiner.3
