Sara Eyob (CAS ’27) dropped her dream major before the end of her freshman year.

After enjoying an introductory public policy class, Eyob planned to join Georgetown University’s new undergraduate public policy degree program, the Joint Program in Public Policy (JPPP). The degree, which the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and McCourt School of Public Policy offer together, requires students to spend their junior and senior years living downtown and taking the majority of their courses at McCourt on the university’s Capitol Campus. 

Though Eyob said she fell in love with public policy, she decided to change her major so she could stay close to the life she had built on the Hilltop.

“It really does just boil down to community for me, in addition to traditions and on-campus events,” Eyob told The Hoya. “It was really just a matter of the time going by so fast. I was like, ‘Oh my god, junior year is not that far away, and I don’t want to give up all of the connections that I have on this campus to go somewhere else.’”

Eyob, who is now pursuing a double major in government and Black studies, said her passion for public policy as a subject made giving up the major challenging. 

“It’s still, to this day, my favorite class that I’ve ever taken, and I got really interested in it,” Eyob said. “I was always interested in politics, but that got me interested in policy, like how you write bills, how you implement them and how you assess whether they achieved a goal. But I’m also happy with what I’m doing now.”

Since 2019, the university has significantly invested in developing properties on the Capitol Campus, renovating two office buildings for academic use, constructing a new building for McCourt and building and purchasing apartment complexes for student use along H St. NW.

Simultaneously, Georgetown’s academic offerings downtown have grown — especially after McCourt relocated from the Hilltop Campus to the Capitol Campus. At the undergraduate level, the university offers the JPPP alongside the bachelor’s of science in environment & sustainability (BSES) program, a collaboration between the College and the environmental studies institute Earth Commons which also requires students to spend their junior and senior years downtown. 

Currently, 17 undergraduate students live at the Capitol Campus through the Capitol Applied Learning Labs (CALL), a semester-long program launched in 2019 — though Capitol Campus enrollment numbers will likely jump this fall as the first upperclass students in both the BSES and JPPP degree programs move downtown. 

Long-term projections the university calculated in spring 2024 anticipate 1,000 undergraduates, including JPPP, BSES and CALL students, living and studying on the Capitol Campus by the 2029-30 academic year, though a university spokesperson said these calculations, based on estimates and student statements of interest, are subject to updates and adjustments as estimates change. The projections also showed the university taking a $91.4 million loss on the Capitol Campus between fiscal years 2025 and 2028, though the university’s full budget was net positive and the school will not lose money as a result of these investments.

Students living on the Capitol Campus have consistently expressed concern over limited opportunities to connect with peers living on the Hilltop and pursue academic interests. 

Goran Pope (CAS ’27), who is currently enrolled in the CALL for the Spring 2025 semester, said he has struggled to remain in touch with friends and community on the Hilltop during his time downtown.

“I come back here usually four days a week and, as nice as my apartment is, I don’t actually really end up spending all that much time there,” Pope told The Hoya. “Any free time I have, if I’m not doing homework, I come to the main campus to hang out with my friends because that’s where all my friends are.”

Emma Knebel (CAS ’28) said a visit to a Capitol Campus open house made her worry living downtown would limit her opportunities to explore the academic offerings and social experience on the main campus — leading her to withdraw from the BSES program. 

“They had a panel of five or six people who were trying to explain how good it is to be in the middle of the city for career purposes, and all of them were for the public policy majors,” Knebel told The Hoya. “It’s not clear why environmental science is up there. The vibe is more like ‘this is a public policy campus,’ and then also this program is there.”

“I kind of was just like, I don’t like this. I don’t want to do this. That’s when I decided it was too far away and it was not worth it,” Knebel added.

Though Knebel has since rejoined the BSES program in pursuit of her passion for environmental science and will live at the Capitol Campus starting in Fall 2026, she said few other students in her initial BSES cohort made the same choice. Of the 14 students that completed the program’s introductory course, Knebel said only two or three students, herself included, are continuing with the program. 

A university spokesperson said students in Capitol Campus programs will have full access to the university’s academic and social experiences.

“Capitol Campus undergraduate program students will begin their education on the Hilltop Campus and complete Georgetown’s signature liberal arts curriculum, gaining exposure to a broad range of disciplines and approaches to knowledge,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “At the Capitol Campus, students get the full breadth of life in Washington, D.C., and the full Georgetown experience, from being a part of lively student communities and clubs to cheering on the Hoyas at sporting events and exploring the enriching neighborhood and cultural experiences in our nation’s capital.”

Hilltop Faculty Express Skepticism

As a new cohort of CALL students settled into their apartments at 55 H St. at the start of the spring semester, interim president and former provost Robert M. Groves met with the Faculty Senate on Jan. 15 to discuss the downtown campus’s future.

Local regulations constrain the university to a maximum enrollment of 6,675 traditional undergraduates on the Hilltop Campus, according to the university’s 20-year Campus Plan, a document that regulates the university’s development and enrollment. As such, adding additional programs on the Hilltop would require reducing enrollment in existing programs.

In his presentation, Groves said the university consistently reaches this cap, limiting the university’s program offerings. He described the Capitol Campus as a necessary way to increase enrollment.

“If you compare us, if you benchmark us to others, we’re now offering fewer degrees and majors on graduate and undergraduate levels than our peers,” Groves said at the meeting. “We’re getting out-hustled a bit. We have an undergraduate cap that we’re faced with of 6,675 undergrads on the Hilltop campus.”

Groves said the Capitol Campus growth is a faculty-driven priority, allowing professors to develop programs that align with their academic and research interests.

“At the very abstract level, all of us are seeing in our fields that the knowledge base people are using to explore the questions that are motivating one’s field, those are changing,” Groves said at the meeting. “There’s a big reorganization going on. Our faculty, as well as faculty at other universities, want to work in new ways, putting together pieces of knowledge, building new programs.”

In a spring 2024 faculty job satisfaction survey, however, faculty largely disagreed with a statement about the Capitol Campus benefiting Georgetown.

Only 39% of the full-time faculty who completed the survey said they somewhat or strongly agree with the statement that “the new Capitol Campus will benefit Georgetown as a student-centered research university.” Among tenured faculty members, the number was even lower: 28% either somewhat or strongly agreed with the statement.

According to the faculty satisfaction survey, faculty approval of Groves’s stated priorities — including the Capitol Campus — has fallen from 3.66 out of five in 2014 to 2.58 in 2024. 

The university spokesperson said the university has received positive feedback on the Capitol Campus’s growth from faculty.

“Georgetown’s faculty members are critical parts of the Capitol Campus experience and we have been pleased to see so much excitement and forward thought from faculty about the new possibilities provided by the Capitol Campus,” the spokesperson wrote. “As more faculty visit, experience and contribute to the Capitol Campus, we expect cross-campus collaboration and interest to grow.”

Tad Howard, the associate dean advising CAS students on the Capitol Campus, said he thinks some faculty disapproval of the Capitol Campus may be due to a lack of experience working there.

“It’d be interesting to see the uptick from those who’ve actually done the Capitol Campus and whether they’d say something different, because I think those who’ve done it have really positive experiences and have seen the options for incorporating experiential learning into their work,” Howard told The Hoya. 

Curricular Concerns Continue

In the Fall 2025 semester, the university will offer 40 undergraduate courses at the Capitol Campus, including one biology course that meets the university’s Science for All requirement, an introductory history course and several one-credit pre-professional ‘workshops’ listed as university-wide cross-disciplinary (UNXD) courses through the CALL. The university is not offering any language courses on the Capitol Campus this fall. 

Course offerings include seven JPPP courses and eight BSES courses, alongside a handful of CALL courses meant to meet requirements for government, economics, justice and peace studies and women’s and gender studies majors. The university will offer one philosophy elective, taught by a full-time non-tenure-line faculty member, and one theology elective, taught by an adjunct, on the Capitol Campus this fall. 

A mix of adjunct professors, full-time non-tenure-line faculty and administrative staff will teach 33 out of these 40 courses. Though some of these non-tenured instructors have day jobs reporting on Congress for major publications or working cases as top attorneys, others primarily teach courses, without the wages or job protections afforded to tenured faculty.

Mark Murphy, the chair of the philosophy department, said he worries this adjunct-based structure will pressure departments that offer core curriculum courses, including his own, to hire increasing numbers of part-time, untenured adjunct faculty.

“Our view is that there’s already too much teaching in the philosophy core done by adjuncts, many of whom are excellent teachers,” Murphy told The Hoya. “But these aren’t folks who are full time, who can give this sort of attention and presence on campus to students that that our full-time faculty can.”

Murphy added that the university needs to commit additional full-time faculty positions to supporting the core curriculum.

“This is their job, working for Georgetown, and if we don’t do that, then I think Georgetown is behaving irresponsibly,” Murphy added.

Felicitas Opwis, an associate Arabic and Islamic studies professor, said she is concerned about opportunities for language instruction on the Capitol Campus.

“Any of the major languages will be disadvantaged by people having the students not being able to continue after the intermediate stage if they started in their very first semester with their language,” Opwis told The Hoya. “Yes, they fulfill their language requirements. But after the intermediate stage, that doesn’t mean you have proficiency, especially not in languages that are a little more complex.”

Georgetown most recently offered two sections of Spanish on the Capitol Campus in Fall 2024, enrolling a total of six students, with no language classes scheduled for the Capitol Campus this coming fall. 

Student and faculty bodies, including the College Curriculum Committee (CCC), a faculty legislative body that reviews academic policy in the College, have also expressed concerns. The CCC endorsed JPPP in September 2022 while expressing concern over the university’s plans for student and faculty growth at the Capitol Campus and identifying the potential for student attrition, a lack of academic flexibility in the two-campus structure and staffing the core curriculum as key issues.

The College Academic Council (CAC), an elected body representing students in the College, indicated similar concerns in a letter sent to College administrators, citing a lack of academic flexibility and access to extracurricular opportunities for public policy students.

Knebel said course selection has been challenging for her, as the courses offered at the Capitol Campus are limited and students at the Capitol Campus can only take up to two classes on the Hilltop each semester, but must request permission from their advising dean. 

“I’m only allowed to take one class on the main campus, and I want that to be my language because I want to minor in it,” Knebel said. “That means I can only take my four other classes on the Capitol Campus, but I don’t know if there’s going to be four environmental science classes for me to take.”

The university spokesperson said that the Capitol Campus will offer a comprehensive undergraduate curriculum, including exclusive minor programs like one in law, justice and society.

“Courses offered on the Capitol Campus will include a mix of major-specific courses, core curriculum courses and electives, including electives that could be combined to constitute a minor,” the spokesperson wrote. 

Farewell to the Hilltop

Han Li (CAS ’27), a public policy major, will be one of the first Georgetown undergraduates to spend two years on the Capitol Campus when he moves downtown this fall. Li said he is excited about the new undergraduate curriculum, though he will have to adapt to the move.

“The Capitol Campus definitely started out as a con, like a weird hiccup that I have to deal with,” Li told The Hoya. “But the more I’ve thought about it, I was like, ‘It is what it is. I want to do this program and I’ve got to live with the consequences of that.’”

“I’m not going to dwell on whether it’s good or bad. Rather, I’m going to figure out, obviously, how it’s going to change the way I live my life, and what do I do about it,” Li added.

Howard said he expects more students will become interested in Capitol Campus programs as the campus’s visibility grows, adding that its opportunities could become an added bonus for prospective students considering Georgetown.

“We’re seeing students who have the Capitol Campus as a part of the vision that they’re hearing about from the minute they research Georgetown,” Howard said. “I think that’s going to be part of a slow cultural change. In addition to us building cool new things that you can do there and making a strong case for it, I also think it’s about — we don’t want it to sound passive — letting the students kind of catch up and see that it’s a brave thing to make the leap.”

Li said he will make a conscious effort to stay in touch with his community and remain involved on the Hilltop campus.

“I think it comes down to just being very proactive with the things that I do here on the Hilltop — just saying I want to make a commitment in my mind, but also in my actions, to my clubs and friends,” Li said. “I want to be very proactive in getting that set up, instead of saying, as the wind blows, I’ll see my friends, because that’s no longer going to be the case. It really just comes down to how intentional I am with these things.”

Knebel said having the opportunity for academic exploration while at the Hilltop Campus allowed her to make a more thought-out choice about her major.

“I think it helped me make a more informed decision about the fact that environmental science is what I want to do,” Knebel said. “I think I would have really regretted it if I didn’t do those electives and just stayed on the environmental science path.”

As Knebel solidifies her plans to move to the Capitol Campus in Fall 2026 with the rest of her BSES cohort, she said she remains apprehensive. 

“Honestly, I try not to think about it because it makes me kind of sad,” Knebel said. “I’ll definitely be on the Hilltop for clubs and to see friends, so I think I’ll still be connected to life on the main campus, but we’ll see if I can make it work.”

Though she has come to terms with her decision, Eyob said she would have pursued a major in public policy if she could have had the option to continue living on the main campus.

“I’m passionate about what I’m doing now,” Eyob said. “But definitely, there’s no question that if I could stay here and do public policy, I would be doing that.”