Georgetown University Student Association


The Georgetown University Student Association is the undergraduate student government of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The GUSA bylaws state that the organization's mission is "to empower Hoyas by giving them control over resources, improve the student quality of life, safeguard Hoya rights, involve Hoyas in the governance of the University, and ensure that the University conducts itself in an ethical and responsible manner."

History

Georgetown University Athletic Association: 1874 to 1920

The earliest form of student government at Georgetown was the Georgetown University Athletic Association, which formed in 1874 in order to coordinate athletics amongst the students of Georgetown College. The Athletic Association was relatively informal in its structure and duties until 1889, when students drafted a constitution and began annual elections. Its leadership consisted of three elected students –– the Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer –– as well as the managers of each athletic team and a Jesuit advisor who held the symbolic title of "President." That symbolism was soon relinquished, however, and by 1900 the student leader of the Athletic Association was called its President. The Association's duties were almost entirely athletic in nature; it coordinated schedules for athletic practices and games, managed the sharing of athletic equipment, and raised funds in order to support activities related to athletics and school spirit.
The Athletic Association was also called "The Yard" interchangeably, in likely reference to the College Yard in which athletic games were played. Its annual leaders were thus referred to as the Yard President, Yard Secretary, and Yard Treasurer.

The 3 Student Councils: 1920 to 1969

In 1920, a College Student Council was formed with representatives from each class year. The Athletic Association continued to exist for the limited purpose of coordinating athletics, but the College Student Council supplanted it as the most important and authoritative elected body of the College and thus assumed the title "The Yard." Unlike the Athletic Association, the Student Council's duties were wide-ranging, including advocacy for student interests and the coordination of social life in the College. Students in the College continued to elect three executives each year –– the Yard President, Yard Secretary, and Yard Treasurer –– who oversaw both the old Athletic Association and the new College Student Council.
In 1940, the students of Georgetown College approved a new constitution for the College Student Council which included representation for the College's most significant student organizations alongside the representatives of each class. Over the next thirty years, the organizations represented on the Council would include the Georgetown College Journal, the Collegiate Club, the Glee Club, The Hoya, the International Relations Club, Mask and Bauble, the Philodemic Society, the Sodality, the Washington Club, and WGTB Radio.
Around the same time that the College Student Council was formed in 1920, the students of the newly-established School of Foreign Service founded an SFS Student Council. Like its original College counterpart, the SFS Student Council included representatives from each class year as well as the whole school and took on a variety of responsibilities including advocacy and social life. When the School of Languages and Linguistics was founded in 1949 and the School of Business in 1957, their student bodies were incorporated into the SFS Student Council's representative infrastructure. By the early 1960s, the group was called the "East Campus Student Council" or "Walsh Area Student Council" to reflect the fact that its constituency now included three undergraduate schools but that all three schools were located on Georgetown's "East Campus".
At some point in the 1940s or 50s, the students of the Nursing School founded the Nursing School Student Council, which, like its SFS counterpart, included class representatives and school-wide elected officers but not representatives of student organizations. The first women to hold elected office in student government at Georgetown did so on the Nursing School Student Council, since the school was originally open only to women.
Administrative collaboration and social interaction between Georgetown's five separate undergraduate schools began to increase in the 1950s and 60s, and by the mid-60s there was an unprecedented sense of shared community amongst students of the five schools. Students also began to recognize the practical benefits of university-wide collaboration on the issues that affected students in all schools equally. As a result, several attempts were made throughout the 1960s to unify the three disparate student councils. Unification efforts were finally successful in March 1968, when a referendum passed among the constituencies of all three student councils. In December 1968, students from all schools elected 40 delegates to a constitutional convention, which was charged with drafting a structure for the new, unified student government. The convention released its plans within a few months, and the first university-wide student government election was held in May 1969.

Student Government (SG): 1969 to 1984

Simply called the Student Government , the new unified institution included a President and Vice President elected by the entire student body, and a Senate with 5 students elected from each school and 5 from each class.

Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA): 1984 to present

In 1984, students replaced the SG with the Georgetown University Student Association , a new institution that over time came to be loosely based on the tripartite structure of the federal government of the United States. GUSA's executive branch included a President and Vice President, elected annually by the student body. Its legislative branch consisted of a 16-person Assembly, with 4 representatives from each class year––thus eliminating the last vestiges of differentiated representation for the five schools. After 1990, GUSA also had a judicial branch, consisting of a 3-person Constitutional Council empowered to resolve constitutional disputes within the student government.
The GUSA Constitution has been amended three times:

Legislative Branch

The Legislative Branch is made up of a 29-person Senate which can amend the GUSA bylaws, confirm executive and judicial appointments, and engage in advocacy through mechanisms that include resolutions and ad hoc committees. The Senate is led by a Speaker and Vice Speaker during the academic year, and a Transition Chair and Vice Chair over the summer. The current Speaker of the Senate is Eliza Lafferty and the current Vice Speaker is Patrick Walsh.
The Senate also controls the process by which more than $1 million is allocated to student organizations. The process is overseen by the Senate's Finance and Appropriations Committee, which allocates the sum total funds generated by the Student Activities Fee each year to five club advisory boards, the Lecture Fund, the Georgetown Programming Board, and other groups.

Executive Branch

The Executive Branch is made up of a President and Vice President, elected by the undergraduate student body each February, as well as an executive staff whose size and structure is largely up to the discretion of the President and Vice President. Since 2016, the executive staff has included more than 20 "policy teams" on issues from mental health to master planning. Membership on policy teams and other executive staff positions is application-based and open to all undergraduate students.
The President and Vice President also appoint student representatives to a variety of external boards and committees, including the Georgetown University Board of Directors Student Life Committee and the Speech and Expression Committee. All executive staff positions and external board appointments are subject to review and confirmation by the Senate.

Judicial Branch

The Judicial Branch is made up of a 3-person Constitutional Council, which oversees all internal GUSA disputes and is charged with the stewardship of the GUSA Constitution.

Legacy

Student government has been involved throughout its history in the establishment, expansion, and improvement of a plethora of student resources and services. This legacy includes the Georgetown University Transportation Shuttles system, which was founded in 1974 and expanded several times since then through the work of student government, and campus dining, whose improvement has been a focus of student government for decades. Other initiatives include:
Perhaps the most famous service established by student government is Students of Georgetown, Inc., also known as "The Corp," which was founded by SG President Roger Cochetti and Vice President Nancy Kent in October 1971. Until the early 1990s, the board of The Corp remained under the control of student government and the activities of the two organizations were closely linked. Today, The Corp operates seven businesses on Georgetown's campus and is considered the largest student-run nonprofit corporation in the world.
In addition to improving student resources and services, student government at Georgetown has long played a central role in the allocation of resources to student activities. This has been the case since at least the 1970s, but a notable change occurred in 2001 when a GUSA-led effort successfully established a "Student Activities Fee" to be collected from all students as part of undergraduate tuition, and disbursed to all student organizations by GUSA itself. Today, GUSA allocates more than $1 million per year to eight advisory boards, which in turn allocate their funds to over 250 student organizations.
Student government has traditionally remained focused on student life, but at times the organization has also contributed its voice to political debates on campus and around the country. In 1997, for example, GUSA vocally supported the controversial addition of crucifixes to university classrooms. And in 2011, GUSA President Mike Meaney organized a group letter from more than 100 student body presidents to President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner urging a bipartisan compromise on the national debt ceiling.

Notable Alumni

Many notable individuals in business, politics, religion, and the arts began their careers in Georgetown's student government, including: