By the time they get to Georgetown, most Hoyas have identified a journey they’d like to take during their tenure on the Hilltop.

For some, it’s down a road of personal exploration. For others, it’s a trip that spans centuries of thought and four years of learning. Still others embark on a voyage across the sea, studying in France, Spain or Australia. For a few, their journeys at Georgetown take them down the road less traveled.

Ginny Leavell (COL ’05) has definitely chosen a path all her own during her time on the Hilltop. An activist, traveling protestor and out-spoken member of the Solidarity Committee, Leavell’s collegiate experience has been marked by a dedication to social justice and a search for a better Georgetown.

Even before she came to college, Leavell was a champion of activism, protesting the practices of the globalizing institutions as a high school student. The Charlottesville, Va., native attended high school in Alexandria, Va., and became active in the movement against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, attending protests and organizing fellow teenagers. Fighting poverty and structural injustice is a passion that eventually led Leavell to what she calls “the most definitive part” of her time at Georgetown: the Living Wage Coalition.

Upon arriving on the Hilltop, Leavell looked for a student organization with which she could continue her work in the anti-globalization movement. What she found was the Georgetown University Solidarity Commission, a “phenomenal group of amazing kids” that would shape her Georgetown career — affecting everything from her friendships to her coursework.

Early in her freshman year there began talk of a Living Wage campaign, aimed at providing fair wages to all university workers. Inspired by a similar movement at Harvard University, Solidarity members began to act, placing pressure on university administrators, talking to workers about their experiences and increasing awareness among students on campus. Four years later, the hard-fought success of the Living Wage Campaign is a source of pride for Leavell.

“Activism is challenging in so many ways. … How do you inspire people to act? Once you start something amazing, people will just jump on,” she said of her experience with the nine-day hunger strike for Living Wage.

And inspire people she did, spearheading a campaign that took the campus by storm. Realizing that making ends meet had become nearly impossible for many Georgetown workers, the spry, red-headed senior was one of more than 20 Hoyas who chose to forgo food for more than a week in the name of a fairer wage. When the university finally committed to its Just Wage Policy, which largely met the Living Wage Coalition’s demands, Leavell was overjoyed.

“I feel lucky to have been around to start and end the Living Wage Campaign — it’s been like bookends for me … a forced conclusion on something that I’d started.” she said. “To be so inspired by my peers second semester [of senior year] was really great.”

But Leavell’s inspiration neither stems solely from nor reaches only the Georgetown community. A Justice and Peace Studies major, she traveled to Thailand for her junior year, studying sustainable development through first-hand accounts and hands-on experience. She traveled through the South East Asian country, learning from villagers, employees of nongovernmental organizations and government officials, taking with her the valued and varied knowledge of each. Though it was uncomfortable at times and among the most intense months of her life, she says she wouldn’t have traded her experience there for anything — in fact, she’ll be returning to the program next fall. Leavell will be working on the other side of the learning curve, as an organizer and mentor for incoming students from universities throughout the country.

Before making another journey across the world, though, she’ll be making one across the nation, working to educate college students to effect the change the Living Wage Campaign was able to. With three other Georgetown alumni and a current Georgetown student, Leavell will spend the spring on the Living Wage Campaign Tour to “take the time and money that’s out there to really build on [what we’ve accomplished at Georgetown.”

Leavell’s relationships have been shaped by her quest for social justice, too. Her friends are as passionate and involved as she is; they’ve protested together, organized together and even been arrested together. Through holding cells and dance parties, they’ve been a foundation for Leavell’s passion.

Four years, a trip to Thailand, a tremendous social justice victory and a degree in Justice and Peace Studies later, Ginny Leavell has most certainly taken the road less traveled.

And she has made all the difference.