President: 1928-1935
Fr. W. Coleman Nevils, S.J., served as Georgetown's 39th president from 1928-1935. Fr. Nevils's presidency featured substantial on-campus construction, though the Great Depression hurt student enrollment and hindered Nevils's vision for campus construction.
Early academic career
After pursuing a degree in classical studies at St. Joseph’s College, William Coleman Nevils joined the Society of Jesus in 1896. He studied philosophy at Woodstock before teaching Latin and Greek at Boston College High School and Loyola High School until 1908. He then finished his theology studies at Woodstock and was ordained in 1911. Fr. Nevils then taught as a philosophy professor at Holy Cross before joining Georgetown’s faculty as a sociology professor.
Fr. Nevils held several administrative positions before becoming President of Georgetown. In 1918, he was appointed Dean of Georgetown College, a post he held until 1922. Between 1919 and 1924, he served as Vice President and, in 1920, he was also named a regent of the School of Foreign Service, a role which he held until he left the University in 1924 to serve as dean of Shadowbrook House of Jesuit Studies.
Appointment as president
On August 27, 1928, Fr. Nevils returned to Georgetown where he became the University’s thirty-ninth president and succeeded Fr. Charles Lyons.1 In October 1928, Fr. Nevils was formally inaugurated, in the first ceremony of its kind for a Georgetown president, with representatives from eighty-five American colleges and universities and twenty-five learned societies in attendance.2
Administrative and academic reforms
Fr. Nevils began by reviving the Board of Regents and opening positions up to non-alumni including James Farrell, George McNeir, John Drum, (a San Francisco banker who had been president of the American Bankers Association), and Richmond Dean, Vice President of the Pullman Corporation. Fr. Nevils also built up connections between Georgetown and the greater Washington, D.C. community. He regularly entertained ambassadors and he became a fourth degree member of Knights of Columbus.3
During his tenure, Fr. Nevils imposed a four-year bachelor of science requirement for all students entering the Medical School. He also worked hard to raise the University’s Dental School to a class A rating. The Dental School began to offer a one-year course for dental hygienists in 1929 open to women with high school education.4 In 1933, the dental school raised the entrance requirement to include two years of pre-dental college work. That same year, the students started a student-edited journal, the Georgetown Dental Journal, which ran until 1964.
Campus construction
Fr. Nevils immediately revived the Greater Georgetown Plan that had been abandoned by Fr. Lyons. Construction of the Medical-Dental building began on January 3, 1929, a mere four months after he took office. The new building cost an estimated $1 million, and opened for classes on February 3, 1930.5
Fr. Nevils the turned his attention to the Edward Douglas White Quadrangle which he renamed the Andrew White Memorial Quadrangle. Rome authorized construction of a $660,000 dorm in early 1930. With the dorm’s estimated cost of $662,000 and an additional $80,00 for pilings and steel, Fr. Nevils raised the additional funds via the endowment. The Great Depression resulted in lower building costs allowing the completed dorm to come in $125,000 under budget. Copley Hall opened in February 1931 with five stories, 148 suites, a chapel with a capacity of 200, and a reading lounge.6
A year later, Fr. Nevils had raised the funds to build another feature of the quadrangle.7 White-Gravenor was completed in November 1933 for only $400,00, again a far lower cost than expected because of the Great Depression. However, the Great Depression curtailed the remainder of Fr. Nevils’s Greater Georgetown Plan which included relocating the law school to main campus and a 4,000 seat gymnasium.8
The Great Depression
The Great Depression also caused a significant drop in student enrollment at the undergraduate level. By 1933, college enrollment had dropped almost 50 percent, and the School of Foreign Service lost a quarter of its students. Fr. Nevils responded by releasing several lay instructors, hiring the remaining lay faculty on a month-to-month basis, reducing salaries, decreasing tuition, and allowing students to pay on a deferred schedule.9
Fr. Nevils also de-emphasized the role of sports in University life. He abolished the athletic director position and the financial “supplementary support” previously given to cover athletes’ expenses. The football team began to win fewer games, and after Fr. Nevils encouraged the departure of the track coach by cutting his salary and White-Gravenor construction took over the old athletic field, track and baseball suffered a similar fate. By 1933, Fr. Nevils had cut the athletic budget in half, down to $29,000.10
Retirement
Jesuit presidents traditionally served two three-year terms, but as the end of Fr. Nevils’ second term approached in the late spring of 1934, forty-three faculty, alumni, and political dignitaries petitioned the superior general to extend Fr. Nevils’ term. The superior general agreed to a one year extension during which a successor would be prepared. In late 1934, Fr. Nevils spent four months in Japan as a representative of the Red Cross. In his absence, Fr. Arthur O’Leary, a former philosophy professor and the University librarian, served as temporary leader of the University. When Fr. Nevils retired in 1935 after an unprecedented seven year term, he was succeeded by Fr. O’Leary. 11Even years after his term ended, the University students still looked fondly on Fr. Nevils remarking, “when his term of office expired, Georgetown lost perhaps the greatest President in her history.”12
- 1“Rev. W.C. Nevils, Educator, Was 77.” The New York Times. 13 Oct. 1955, p.31.
- 2“W. Coleman Nevils, S.J., Inaugurated as President of Georgetown Tonight.” The Hoya. 27 Oct. 1928, p.2.
- 3Emmett Curran, Robert. “Toward a Greater Georgetown, 1889–1928.” 2010, p.147.
- 4“To Offer Course in Dental Hygiene.” The Hoya. 25 Apr. 1929, p.6.
- 5Francis X. Ballman, "Medical-Dental Building," Building Outlines Campus Buildings, 1789 – 1995, Father Lawrence Hurley Memorial Edition, Francis X. Ballmann and the Division of Facilities, 1995, p. 65.
- 6“Toward a Greater Georgetown, 1889–1928.” 2010, pp.149-51.
- 7https://dev-hoyapedia.pantheonsite.io/white-gravenor-hall
- 8Id. at p.153.
- 9Id. at pp.155-56.
- 10“Toward a Greater Georgetown, 1889–1928,” pp.140-41.
- 11“Fr. Arthur O’Leary Appointed Rector: Named During Month of July to Succeed Rev. Coleman Nevils, S.J.” The Hoya. 9 Oct. 1935, p.1.
- 12Georgetown University (Washington, DC), Ye Domesday Booke, 1939, pp. 46-47.
