The new year always marks a good time to look back over the past year, and the close of a decade is the perfect time to recall even further. This raises an important question: What exactly has the last ten years meant for GW?
First, an obvious disclaimer: I have only been at GW for the past three years, and have no real connection to the University before then. But the truth is that students are in a rotation that moves faster than ten years, and that fact alone should not keep us from evaluating the progress of our school.
In the last decade, the nation has rediscovered Washington D.C., and GW has found itself defined by that story in many ways. From the shock of the 9/11 attacks, to the disenchantment and anger that characterized much of the Bush presidency, to the unbelievable passion that propelled the first African-American to the highest office in the land and finally, to the sobering realization that the challenges only started with his historic inauguration, GW has been front and center to these grand narratives.
Looking back at 9/11 – arguably the most important event of the past ten years – GW was paralyzed by the attack on the Pentagon, only across the river from campus. Classes were shut down, and a Hatchet editorial echoed the passion felt around the country for revenge, demanding a “swift and strong response.” But two wars and seven years later, GW students turned out in anti-war demonstrations reminiscent of the Vietnam era.
Much of that passion translated into the 2008 presidential campaign, and most specifically to the Barack Obama campaign. Many GW students worked tirelessly in Northern Virginia offices of that campaign, and helped turn the historically Republican state blue (in fairness, students also campaigned vigorously for McCain). The fervor soon faded as credit markets imploded, stocks plummeted and everybody from world leaders to Fortune 500 CEO’s rushed to Washington (often right in Foggy Bottom) to find solutions and bailouts. From the anti-government rhetoric of Reagan-era politics to the realization that Washington is perhaps the most important arena of our security and economic concerns, GW has been part of that history maybe more than any other single college.
At the heart of this story is the fact that GW sits in the heart of our nation’s capital. It is true that much of our identity stems from our location. The Daily Beast named GW one of the decade’s hottest schools, writing that GW has transformed “the urban Washington, D.C. campus into an asset rather than a liability.” It is possible that this will be the legacy of Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s tenure.
The almost unreal capital expansion that SJT brought to GW was accompanied by an emphasis on our strengths. Among the new buildings purchased in the last ten years are 1959 E St. and the Media and Public Affairs building. GW grew in the areas that it naturally excels at: international affairs, politics, journalism, and to a lesser extent, the medical school and hospital that has served some of America’s most influential people. This strategy propelled GW to new notoriety, but it simultaneously created a painfully obvious deficit between the different schools. One look at the difference between Duques and Corcoran Hall demonstrates this disparity. The cost of the rapid expansion also dramatically increased tuition and solidified the reputation of America’s most expensive school, GW’s least favorite superlative.
Enter President Steven Knapp. Perhaps the audacity of SJT inspired GW to choose the much tamer Knapp as its 16th president, as with Knapp comes a focus on fiscal and social responsibility, sustainability, reducing the rate of tuition increases (if not lowering tuition altogether), and increased research.
GW’s current work reflects the legacies of this decade. The school plans on building a Science and Engineering Complex to create parity for our science education and research capabilities. However, with a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars, some wonder if continued expansion is the right direction. Being nearly a billion dollars in debt at a time of credit crunches and shaky economic forecasts is perhaps another way in which the larger plots of our nation have lined up with GW’s own fortunes. We have come off of the rapid expansion and easy credit of the early decade, only to find ourselves more wary of increased growth. We’ll still build the SEC, but capital expansion is no longer our priority.
In the next decade, GW will have some soul searching to do. This last year especially, GW has tried to bolster its image as a community-serving institution. But there is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of our image. GW often contributes some of the largest numbers of students to groups like Peace Corps and Teach for America, but we remain a school prohibitively expensive to many of those we aim to help. The two sides can’t coexist; we need to know that while we are an institution that helps the disadvantaged, we are not one that does so from a place unreachable to them.
The next decade will be spent reconciling these sorts of deficits. We will seek to be a well-rounded institution, but one that still touts its location as its biggest asset. It will be important for GW to further demonstrate that the unparalleled access to the nation’s capital for students will translate into later success, otherwise our talk will not line up with the realities our alumni face. All of these things will need to be accompanied by improvements to the concerns most directly related to the student experience: fixing the advising system, addressing dining concerns and raising the academic prowess of our school.
We know that our school is now more than ever tied to the biggest stories of our times, and this is the strength of GW. We are a campus at the epicenter of the national discussion. At the same time, we have our own issues to address. The last decade held a number of challenges for GW, but often we found ways to turn those into opportunities. Hopefully, that will be the story of the next decade as well.
