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RA Union, GU Fail to Reach Tentative Agreements in Fifth Bargaining Session Aamir Jamil and Maren Fagan Senior News Editors

The Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC), the organization that represents Georgetown University resident assistants (RAs) in collective bargaining negotiations, completed their fifth round of negotiations with university officials Nov. 21. During this bargaining session, RAs and the university continued talks on placement — the process by which RAs are assigned to work in specific university buildings — and rehiring; they also began discussing RA training. The two sides could not come to any tentative agreements during this session. This round of negotiations represented the fifth meeting between GRAC and the university since the RAs formally voted to unionize April 16, accepting

representation from Local 153 of the Oﬀice of Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU). Izzy Wagener (SFS ’26), an RA in Kennedy Hall and the interim vice chairperson for GRAC, said placement is a particular issue for the union. “Our position is that we think RAs should have more control over where they themselves want to work, especially for people who have been doing this role for multiple years,” Wagener told The Hoya. “We think that RAs should have some control over where they live and work, especially because RAs basically miss out on a lot of typical living opportunities.” The current hiring process allows RAs to rank where they would prefer to live — but even if an RA ranks a speciﬁc housing See GRAC, A7

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Georgetown University’s longest-tenured and first lay president, John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95), will step down effective immediately, with Provost Robert M. Groves serving as interim president during the search for a new president.

GU President DeGioia to Step Down Caroline Rareshide Contributing Editor

OLIVIA HOLMBERG/THE HOYA

The Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC) completed their fifth round of bargaining with Georgetown University.

John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) will step down as president of Georgetown University, eﬀective immediately. DeGioia, Georgetown’s longesttenured and first lay president, announced his decision in an email to community members Nov. 21. He cited his June 5 stroke and need to focus on continuing his recovery as his reasoning for stepping down. “I write today to express my gratitude for the opportunity I have had to lead Georgetown over these past 23 years and to share with

you the most diﬀicult decision I have ever made: I have informed the Board of Directors that I will be stepping down from my role as the President of Georgetown,” DeGioia wrote in the email. The email is the first news of DeGioia’s health since Aug. 15. The university has not released details about the severity of DeGioia’s stroke, and a university spokesperson did not respond to requests for details when asked in June and November. Robert M. Groves, the university’s provost who has been the unofficial interim president since June, will officially serve as interim president while the search for a new president

begins with an end goal of July 1, 2026, according to the email. DeGioia said he plans to serve as president emeritus of the university. The email additionally announced that Joseph A. Ferrara (GRD ’96), vice president of Georgetown and DeGioia’s chief of staff, would serve as the university’s senior vice president and chief of staff. “It is hard to put in words the depth of Jack’s impact at Georgetown. Since ﬁrst arriving on campus as an undergraduate student in 1975, Jack has spent his entire career at Georgetown and has helped shape every facet of the University,” Thomas A. Reynolds

(GSB ’74), chair of the Georgetown board of directors, wrote in the email. DeGioia began his tenure as president of Georgetown in July 2001, after serving in various administrative roles at the university. DeGioia was the first president of a U.S. Jesuit university to be a layperson, rather than a member of the Society of Jesus. DeGioia oversaw the formation of the first new school in nearly 60 years, the McCourt School of Public Policy, when it was established in 2013, a new campus in Qatar in 2005 and the development of the Capitol Campus. “In many settings over the years, I See DEGIOIA, A7

GUStudent, PrisonReformAdvocate Wins 2025 Rhodes Scholarship Patrick Clapsaddle Chief Copy Editor

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GU Pride hosted a vigil in Red Square to honor lives lost to transphobic violence between October 2023 and September 2024 on Nov. 20, Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Vigil in Red Square Remembers VictimsofTransphobicViolence Nora Toscano

Academics Desk Editor

GU Pride, a student organization that represents the LGBTQ+ community at Georgetown University, hosted a vigil Nov. 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, to honor transgender lives lost from October 2023 to September 2024. During the vigil, students and faculty members read aloud the names of transgender people who were killed in the United States this year as a result of transphobia, along with their ages and causes of death. Vigil participants held plastic candles around a transgender pride flag and stood for a moment of silence after the names were read. Gisell Campos (CAS ’25), the copresident of GU Pride, said they wanted the vigil to remind community

members to be there for one another. “It’s always going to be upsetting,” Campos told The Hoya. “It’s always going to be hard to have this event. The fact that we get to have and get to honor their lives is so beautiful, and especially over the next four years, I think this is an event that will only get heavier but only bring the community more together. So, yeah, I hope that people take away a sense of hope, but also a sense of responsibility to be there for each other.” Transgender Day of Remembrance was established in 1999 to honor Rita Hester, a transgender woman murdered in 1998. After 1999, it became a tradition to remember and mourn the transgender people lost to transphobic violence each year on the anniversary of Hester’s murder.

Jackie Early (CAS ’26), the director of outreach for GU Pride, said her hope for the vigil was to honor lives lost as more than a statistic. “The major impetus behind this is to ensure that trans lives lost this year and all years aren’t lost to a statistic,” Early told The Hoya. “I think a lot of people are used to encountering or finding out about trans violence as a statistic, right? We often see statistics of anti-trans bills and things of that nature, but this is the very tangible impact and personal impact of what this day does.” According to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, at least 36 transgender people have been killed because of their identity since last year’s

A Georgetown University student and criminal justice reform advocate won the 2025 Rhodes Scholarship, one of the most prestigious scholarships for students around the world, the university announced in a press release Nov. 17. Noa Offman (CAS ’25), a justice and peace studies major from Toronto, Canada, is one of 32 students who won the scholarship from the United States, joining dozens of Georgetown students and graduates who have also won the award since its 1902 inception, including three Hoyas last year. The scholarship provides recipients with two years’ funding for graduate education at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, including tuition, fees and a stipend for living expenses. Offman said she was thrilled to receive the scholarship and attributed her journey within the field of criminal justice to her time at Georgetown. “I was overjoyed,” Offman told The Hoya. “I would not be studying what I study and doing what I do if it had not been for Georgetown.” Offman arrived at Georgetown planning to study global health but switched her major during her first year after speaking with Colie “Shaka” Long, a program associate at Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative (PJI) — a university

See GOLDWATER, A7

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Noa Offman (CAS ’25) is one of the 32 students from the United See RHODES, A7 States to win the prestigious 2025 Rhodes Scholarship.

See REMEMBRANCE, A7

NEWS

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Banky Wellington (GRD ’25), a prominent Nigerian-American Afrobeats artist, enrolled in the McCourt School this year.

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