A Resource for Georgetown Faculty Collaborators: Visitor Lodging Right Outside the Gates

Most faculty members at some point in their careers spend time at other universities, refreshing their viewpoints on their own scholarship and meeting potential new collaborators. Once a collaboration is ongoing, periodic face to face meetings are highly desirable. Such meetings both can make important progress on the collaboration, and renew the excitement of a project in a way that is not possible on email, or Zoom, or other media.

Some universities have lodging facilities for visiting faculty – short-run apartments or rooms near campus where the visitor can reside during the visit. These are key resources for a university that seeks to increase the impact of their faculty in their fields.

I am overjoyed to report that we at Georgetown can now offer our collaborators such a resource.

One opportunity is a competitive one – the Georgetown University Distinguished Visiting Scholar program scheduled for Spring and Summer of each year. The scholar would be welcome to stay during a flexible time period between January and August in a given year, with a preference given to those here for longer periods of time. Nominations can include a time period within the next five years. For example, one may nominate a scholar to stay at GU from January through May of 2022.

What do the winning nominations provide? Free rent and utilities at a high quality, fully furnished, university-owned townhouse, one block away from the hilltop campus. The property, one block from the university, consists of two bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, is fully furnished, with rent and utilities covered. A $5,000, one-time stipend, provided by the Campus (Main, Medical Center, Law Center) most closely aligned with the scholar’s work.

The scholar would be expected to provide a university-wide lecture, and, to engage in research or other activities that will enrich the community.

For details on nominations see this page on the Provost web site.

The second opportunity is limited only by the capacity of the number of townhouses on 36th Street NW. This is for a Main Campus visiting scholar whose rent (approximately $4,400/month) and utilities are paid for by any one or combination of the following: the visiting scholar, the department, or the School that nominated her or him. The property is one block from the campus gate: it consists of three bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms and is fully furnished. This property is available year-round. The scholar would stay at a minimum of one month, with preference given to scholars staying at least one semester. The property can be booked up to two years in advance. Note that although the rent may appear high to those new to the DC area, the close proximity of the properties to campus would alleviate the need for our new colleagues to have a car.

For more information on this opportunity see this page on the Provost web site.

The long-run performance criteria of these programs are measures of whether Georgetown is viewed as supporting collaborations from scholars throughout the world and whether Georgetown faculty are able to increase the joint scholarship products of such collaborations.