Georgetown may have had the first black president of a university over 125 years ago, but this year will be the first year in Georgetown history that students will be able to graduate with an African American studies minor.

After years of discussion and work, Georgetown announced last week that students can now obtain a minor in African American Studies, following a trend in higher education that has spread from large state universities to small, private liberal arts colleges over the past three decades.

The African American Studies minor, under the wing of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, offers students the opportunity to explore the historical, cultural, political, economic, literary and social contributions and developments of blacks in the United States.

Lucye Rafferty/The Hoya Organizers of Take Back the Night set up tables of facts, stories and statistics, like this one in Sellinger Lounge, in an attempt to inform students about sexual violence and assault.

This year’s Take Back the Night week will involve a diverse array of student clubs and organizations, including College Republicans and the Knights of Columbus. The Women’s Center is spearheading events throughout the week for Take Back the Night to educate others about violence against women.

On Sept. 25, freshmen in the College elected five representatives to the College Academic Council. James Astorga (COL ’07), Eric Finkel (COL ’07), Andrew Gentile (COL ’07), Xiao Xiao Li (COL ’07) and Catherine Pontoriero (COL ’07) garnered the highest vote totals of the seven candidates in the online election.

“I’m so glad to be a part of the College, and I’m really happy that I was elected,” said Pontoriero, who will serve on the social action and communication committees.

The College Academic Council serves as the student government for the College and deals primarily with academic issues such as curriculum and academic policy changes.

Director of Georgetown University’s Communications, Culture and Technology Program and Research Professor Dr. Linda Garcia, Ph.D., received a Ford Foundation Grant to help further her study of communications policy earlier this month.

Dr. Garcia will use the $100,000 grant over a two-year period to study the evolution of communications policy interest groups and their advocacy positions. The study is focused on comparing a number of public interest groups in their “organizational fields,” on which their behavior or future success is contingent.

Law Center Dean and Executive Vice President for Law Center Affairs Judith Areen will step down from her leadership position and resume her faculty position at the end of her term in June 2004.

Dean Areen announced her decision to step down after three consecutive five-year terms on Jan. 10.

“[Fifteen years] is a very long time. I never expected to serve this long and it seems like the right time to give someone else the privilege,” Areen said.

Areen has been instrumental in numerous improvements to the Georgetown University Law Center since 1989. She expanded the size of the faculty to 101 full-time members, increasing the number of faculty by forty-five, and making it the nation’s largest law school faculty.

Georgetown University received $4 million $13.9 million grant from the federally funded GEAR-UP program on Wednesday. The money will be used to help the university’s Institute for College Preparation at the Center for Minority Educational Affairs.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams presented the grant on behalf of the GEAR-UP program, which provides money for programs that help prepare low-income high school students for college. GEAR-UP grants focus on groups of students, rather than on individual students, that start the program no later than the seventh grade.

Paul Hughes/The Hoya Smoke from grills cooking food for a picnic honoring D.C. firefighters, police and emergencypersonnel drifts away from the Observatory patio.

University President John J. DeGioia organized a picnic for area firefighters, law enforcement officers and members of emergency services as a show of appreciation for their commitment to the community. The picnic was held Friday afternoon on the Observatory grounds.

The event offered the various public servants and their families a chance to converse over a picnic lunch as student musicians played in the background.

Childcare workers played a crucial role in helping children and families deal with the aftermath of Sept. 11, according to a study conducted shortly after the attacks by professors from Georgetown in conjunction with the University of California at Berkeley. The “Who Stays? Who Leaves?” study of childcare workers in Alameda County, Calif., focused on the impact of the Sept. 11 attacks on 174 childcare teachers and providers and the children in their care.