Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private research university in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher education in the United States. Located in Washington's historic Georgetown neighborhood, the university's main campus is noted for Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark. Georgetown's law school is located on Capitol Hill, and the university has auxiliary campuses in Italy, Turkey and Qatar.

Georgetown's founding by John Carroll, America's first Catholic bishop, realized efforts dating from the settlement of the province of Maryland in 1634 to establish a local Roman Catholic college in the face of religious persecution. The university expanded after the American Civil War under the leadership of Patrick Francis Healy, who came to be known as its "second founder," despite having been born into slavery. Jesuits have participated in its administration since 1805, a heritage Georgetown celebrates, but the university has always been governed independently of the Society of Jesus and of church authorities.

Comprising nine undergraduate and graduate schools, the university enrolls approximately 7,000 undergraduate and 10,000 post-graduate students from a wide variety of religious, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds, including 130 foreign countries Georgetown's most notable alumni are prominent in public life in the United States and abroad. Among them are former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, dozens of U.S. governors and members of Congress, heads of state or government of more than a dozen countries, royalty and diplomats.