Dean’s Letter: Helping Our Community Navigate the Future
Dear College of Arts & Sciences Hoyas,
In this period of rapid transformation, the value of a liberal arts education is as important as ever. This past year as Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences has shown me countless examples of that fact.
The stories featured in our Spring 2026 digital magazine offer lessons in resilience, hope and optimism for the future. They deliver advice and solutions.
In March, we announced that students will be able to enroll in a nine-credit undergraduate certificate in artificial intelligence starting this fall. As part of the program, students will learn about the underlying technology, as well as how to ethically and responsibly engage with it.
Our community is guided by the Jesuit values of cura personalis — care for the whole person — and being people for others. This is exemplified by the students in the Baker Scholars Program, who spent time this February visiting businesses in the DC area and learning from local industry and social impact leaders, and by Ethan Barkalow (G’28), a Ph.D. candidate in history who is spending a year immersed in Japanese language, history and culture through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It’s also embodied by our First Fellows Program supporting first-generation students and by courses like Defining Ourselves: Failure as Opportunity and Confronting Perfection. These programs and courses, taught by our faculty members and advising deans, help normalize both great success and heartbreaking failure as part of the learning process for students.
Our remarkable, award-winning faculty members reinforce the qualities that make the College distinct. In her expert advice column, Nicoletta Pireddu, director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, provides a portable, future-proof toolkit on how the humanities prepare people to enter any space with cultural awareness, insight and creativity. The Pre-Health Advising Office has a new home on campus, where our advisors can expand on the work they do serving hundreds of students and alumni. Dagomar Degroot, an environmental historian, teaches us how the value of history lies in the ability to inform what comes next and help us find potential solutions.
We also talk to two extraordinary alumni of the College — Monica McNutt (C’11) and K’sean Henderson (C’12, L’18) — who demonstrate that success comes from resilience and advocating for others.
Our students and alumni, faculty members and staff exemplify our Jesuit values of discernment and people in service to others. I am proud of the work we do as we prepare for what’s ahead.
Hoya Saxa,
-David
David M. Edelstein, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Arts & Sciences
Professor of International Affairs & Government
Georgetown University
(Top photo by Rafael Suanes for Georgetown University)