Education abroad Georgetown University

Post-Civil War expansion[edit]
The U.S. Civil War greatly affected Georgetown as 1,141 students and alumni enlisted in one army or the other, and the Union Army commandeered university buildings.^[20] By the time of President Abraham Lincoln's May 1861 visit to campus, 1,400 troops were living in temporary quarters there. Due to the number of lives lost in the war, enrollment levels remained low until well after the war. Only seven students graduated in 1869, down from over 300 in the previous decade.^[30] When the Georgetown College Boat Club, the school's rowing team, was founded in 1876 it adopted two colors: blue, used for Union uniforms, and gray, used for Confederate uniforms. These colors signified the peaceful unity among students.^[31] Subsequently, the school adopted these as its official colors.

Union soldiers on the Potomac River across from Georgetown University in 1861
Enrollment did not recover until during the presidency of Patrick Francis Healy from 1873 to 1881. Born in Georgia as a slave by law and mixed-race by ancestry, Healy was the first head of a predominantly white American university of acknowledged African descent.^[c] He identified as Irish Catholic, like his father, and was educated in Catholic schools in the United States and France. He is credited with reforming the undergraduate curriculum, lengthening the medical and law programs, and creating the Alumni Association. One of his largest undertakings was the construction of a major new building, subsequently named Healy Hall in his honor. For his work, Healy is known as the school's "second founder."^[32]

Patrick Francis Healy helped transform the school into a modern university after the Civil War.
After the founding of the Law Department in 1870, Healy and his successors hoped to bind the professional schools into a university, and focus on higher education.^[24] The School of Medicine added a dental school in 1901 and the undergraduate School of Nursing in 1903.^[33] Georgetown Preparatory School relocated from campus in 1919 and fully separated from the university in 1927.^[34] The School of Foreign Service (SFS) was founded in 1919 by Edmund A. Walsh, to prepare students for leadership in diplomacy and foreign commerce.^[24] The School of Dentistry became independent of the School of Medicine in 1956.^[35] The School of Business was separated from the SFS in 1957. In 1998 it was renamed the McDonough School of Business in honor of alumnus Robert E. McDonough.^[36]
Besides expansion of the university, Georgetown also aimed to expand its resources and student body. The School of Nursing has admitted female students since its founding, and most of the university classes were made available to women on a limited basis by 1952.^[37] With the College of Arts and Sciences welcoming its first female students in the 1969–1970 academic year, Georgetown became fully coeducational.^[38]