Expand co-curricular programming and skill-building resources

Our Institute of Politics and Public Service, or GU Politics, is devoted to developing the next generation of leaders, partly by helping students escape the echo chambers that often limit communication between people of diverse ideologies. GU Politics does this across their programming– from their Fellows program and discussion groups, which expose students to perspectives from across the ideological spectrum– to their Forum programs, which brings conservatives and progressives, moderates and media, to engage with students, and ideally, learn from one another. 

In the fall of 2023, the McCourt School welcomed 9 new faculty members, bringing unique expertise in computational social science, comparative politics, criminology, macroeconomics, public management and public health.

Professors Tyler and Milner Gillers lead a series of co-curricular workshops, events and discussions to help McCourt students develop the skills to understand and engage across differences, including:

• • Urban Renewal in DC with Historian CR Gibbs
  • Smithsonian Anacostia Museum trip
  • Getting Familiar with the DC Political Process
  • Derrick Musgrove, author of Chocolate City + 51 for 51
  • Dialogue Across Divides 
  • Managing Community Disputes
  • Intercultural Negotiation with Prof. Daniel Shapiro
  • Power of Dialogue: Deconstructing the Rural-Urban Divide
  • Gender and Decision Making Workshop

The McCourt Community Lecture Series is a public lecture series welcoming perspectives from leading scholars and thinkers examining critical concepts related to understanding and fostering inclusion, especially as they relate to democracy, politics, and policy. The goal of the series is to inform and provide a forum for community dialogue on how to foster a more productive exchange of a wide range of ideas.

McCourt’s Free Exchange with Michael Strain event series welcomes a range of leaders and experts to share their perspectives and engage in constructive dialogue on a wide range of policy issues. These events animate the McCourt School’s commitment to building a more inclusive environment and provide students opportunities to engage with diverse perspectives and develop the knowledge and skills to support productive dialogue.

The JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) weekly email lifts up campus resources and events for our students on topics related to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.

The Georgetown and the McCourt School communities offer rich and engaging intellectual opportunities for faculty. McCourt faculty can take advantage of a wide-variety of seminar series offered across campus, including our internal faculty seminar series which provides a space for faculty to engage with their colleagues and develop skills to better engage students inside and outside the classroom. In the spring of 2022, the McCourt School faculty will welcome to speakers as part of a new “Inclusivity Speakers Series”: Anita Woolley of Carnegie Mellon and Olúfẹmi Táíwò of Georgetown College.

McCourt faculty also benefit from campus resources related to teaching practice and technology, including workshops and programming from Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship.

The McCourt Community Discussions provides a space for students, faculty and staff to come together to discuss pressing campus topics and current events. These rapid response conversations are facilitated by associate professor of the practice Jasmine Tyler, the executive director of McCourt’s Policy Innovation Lab, and associate professor of the practice Rachel Milner Gillers, the director of Georgetown’s Conflict Transformation Lab, and co-hosted with our student group partners.

The McCourt School supports our thriving ecosystem of student organizations, from student government to organizations whose interest areas focus on specific policy issues like or regions of the world.