Georgetown University celebrates the 200th anniversary of its congressional charter
This year marks a historic anniversary of GU-Q’s ten years of service in Education City, but it also marks another significant milestone for Georgetown. Two hundred years ago, the Congress of The United States of America issued the first federal university charter in the young nation’s history, officially sanctioning the mission, authority and activities of Georgetown University as an institution of higher learning.
The year was 1815, and Georgetown University, founded in 1789 by John Carroll, the first head of the Roman Catholic Church in America, quickly rose to prominence as a center of excellence through a deep dedication to education and values of service to community development. The congressional charter was a historic honor recognizing Georgetown’s significance as a place of higher learning, and also allowed the school to confer degrees, with the first Bachelor degree awarded two years after the charter.
The charter, signed into law by President James Madison on March 1, 1815, is considered a seminal event in university history. Today, out of thousands of degree-conferring institutions in the United States, only a select few are congressionally chartered universities.
A message from the president of the United States of America to Georgetown University
President Barack Obama salutes the anniversary of Georgetown’s charter
The President of the United States paid tribute to the university’s 200th anniversary of its charter with a message lauding the impact Georgetown graduates have made in this country and around the world.
“A lot’s happened in Washington over two centuries and Hoyas have always been at the center of the action,” Obama said in his tribute…Simply put, this country and this world benefit from your commitment to Jesuit principles, to being men and women for others. Here’s to the next 200 years. Happy Birthday and Hoya Saxa.” – President Barack Obama
The Charter
AN ACT CONCERNING THE COLLEGE OF GEORGETOWN IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
(6 Stat. 152)
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall and may be lawful for such persons as now are, or from time to time may be, the President and Directors of the College of Georgetown, within the District of Columbia, to admit any of the students belonging to said College, or other person meriting academical honors, to any degree in the faculties, arts, sciences, and liberal professions, to which persons are usually admitted in other Colleges or Universities of the United States; and to issue in an appropriate form the diplomas or certificates which may be requisite to testify to the admission to such degrees.
LANGDON CHEVES, Speaker of the House of Representatives
JOHN GAILLARD, President pro tempore of the Senate
Approved March 1, 1815, JAMES MADISON