Page 23 - Georgetown Preparatory School Alumnews Winter 2021

FOR THE GREATER GLORY CAMPAIGN
GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY
Georgetown Preparatory School held a small, socially distant groundbreaking ceremony to kick off the Campus Center, Residence Hall, and New Athletic Facilities project on December 20.
Rev. James R. Van Dyke, S.J., Georgetown Prep’s President, offered Mass in the Chapel of Lourdes of Lourdes for the invited guests. After Mass, the group walked over the future site of the Campus Center, Residence Hall, and New Athletic Facilities. The construction of the building began in late December.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Fr. Van Dyke welcomed the honored guests and added, “I’m grateful to the many of our benefactors who worked hard to make the Campus Center, Residence Hall, and New Athletic Facilities project possible. In particular, I would like to thank, again, our anonymous donor who began this project for us. And, also, I would like to thank the Bidwill Family who will allow us to bring it to completion with their endowment of the stadium.”
Fr. Van Dyke then blessed the field site and the site of the new building.
CAMPUS CENTER, RESIDENCE HALL AND NEW ATHLETICS FACILITIES
As the only Jesuit boarding school in the United States, Georgetown Prep offers a unique program for a multicultural, multiethnic, diverse socio- economic educational and formational community. Our Residential Program has been an integral part of Prep’s identity and mission as a diverse, culturally rich Ignatian community since its inception in 1789.
Boland Hall, our main residence facility, is over 100 years old and is inadequate to provide the communal areas, comfort, and personal care that Prep’s young men need for spiritual and intellectual growth. Its current infrastructure
is outdated, inefficient, wasteful, and expensive to maintain. In addition, our current premises currently offer substandard accommodations for adult residential supervisors; this hinders the development and retention of qualified residential staff.
Reviews of our overall program, while laudatory,
consistently point to the underappreciation of the Residential Program and the need to integrate the Residential and Day School programs. Our current facilities inhibit this goal.
The Campus Center and Residence Hall and its location, coupled with the New Athletics Facilities, will accomplish this integration on many levels and provide
Prep with two world class facilities simultaneously. The
new Campus Center, Residence Hall, and New Athletic Facilities project will allow Prep to begin renovation of several academic facilities. In particular, the additional space in Boland and Gunlocke Halls will allow for the renovation of MacKavanagh Hall and the creation of science and arts spaces and other needed academic facilities. Building these new facilities will recommit Prep to fulfilling its mission and distinguish its unique position in the secondary education market (cf. Strategic Plan, 2015).
Turn page for more renderings of the renovations >
FOR THE GREATER GLORY | 2019-2020 21
AS OF DECEMBER 2020