Georgetown University’s Joyful Week

The neighborhood seems quiet now, but on May 17 Georgetown University began its commencement weekend with post-graduate and special programs on Friday and the main events of its College and School of Foreign Service on Saturday and its Law Center on Sunday. Add to those happy occasions a win for the university on “Jeopardy!” Friday and the recent installation of a John Dreyfuss lyre on its Doha, Qatar, campus of the School of Foreign Service, and you’ve something of an academic trifecta.

Sculptor John Dreyfuss installed his lyre, commissioned by the university two years ago. It was “in our gratitude to Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser and the Royal Family of Qatar,” said university president John DeGioia at the 2011 opening of the new building of Georgetown’s Foreign Service School in Education City. “We hoped to capture the essence of what you have made possible for this campus.” A image of a lyre is on the university’s seal and symbolizes learning and harmony and was invented by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, next to Qatar.

Georgetown’s Jim Coury won the “Jeopardy!” College Championship tournament for the Hoyas. A Foreign Service undergraduate, he claimed the $100,000 grand prize.

As for the commencement ceremonies, neighbors smiled at happy parents and graduates, who listened to Greta van Susteren of Fox News at the law school, where she studied, and saw Walter Pincus of the Washington Post given an honorary degree. Even Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskatie was there on Healy Lawn to speak to the Foreign Service School graduates.