Leo J. O'Donovan

Succeeding Timothy S. Healy, he was the first alumnus of Georgetown to be named president since Alphonsus J. Donlon, whose presidency began in 1912.

Several academic components were reorganized during O'Donovan's tenure.

Leo Jeremiah O'Donovan III (born 1934) is an American Catholic priest, Jesuit, and theologian who served as the president of Georgetown University from 1989 to 2001.

Born in New York City, he graduated from Georgetown, and while studying in France, decided to enter the Society of Jesus.

He went on to receive advanced degrees from Fordham University and Woodstock College, and received his doctorate in theology from the University of Münster, where he studied under Karl Rahner.

Upon returning to the United States, he became a professor at Woodstock College and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, before becoming the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and a senior administrator in the Jesuit Maryland Province.

Leo Jeremiah O'Donovan III was born in 1934 to Margaret and Leo J. O'Donovan Jr. in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, in New York City, New York.

Growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, his family belonged to Corpus Christi Church in Morningside Heights and O'Donovan attended the Corpus Christi School, where he was educated by the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters.

For high school, he attended Iona Preparatory School in New Rochelle, New York, graduating in 1952.

O'Donovan then enrolled at Georgetown University with the intention of becoming a psychiatrist.

However, halfway through his undergraduate studies, he quit the pre-medical program, and double-majored in English and philosophy.

While at Georgetown, he wrote for the student newspaper, The Hoya, and was editor-in-chief of the Georgetown College Journal.

He graduated summa cum laude and first in his class in 1956.

O'Donovan received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Lyon in France, where he decided to enter the Society of Jesus in 1957.

He also received a Danforth Fellowship.

Upon his return to the United States, he studied at Fordham University, where he received a Licentiate of Philosophy.

He then studied at Woodstock College in Maryland, earning a Bachelor of Sacred Theology and Licentiate of Sacred Theology.

He was ordained a priest there in 1966.

Following his ordination, he went to the University of Münster in West Germany, where he studied under the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner and received his Doctor of Theology degree in 1971.

He then spent time at the University of Chicago Divinity School as a post-doctoral scholar.

In 1971, O'Donovan became an assistant professor of theology at Woodstock College, then located in New York City.

After three years, he left to become a professor of theology at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, specializing in systematic theology.

While there, he professed his final vows in 1977.

From 1981 to 1982, O'Donovan served as the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

He took a leave of absence from Weston from 1985 to 1988, during which time he was the provincial assistant for formation for the Jesuit Maryland Province.

He then returned to Weston as professor for an additional year.

In 1989, O'Donovan was named the president of Georgetown University.

His administration saw a significant improvement of the university's finances, which included tripling its endowment and selling the university hospital, which was in substantial debt.

The number of applications for admission increased, and Georgetown became among the most selective universities in the country.

At the same time, the faculty, administration, and student body became increasingly diverse.

His tenure was not without controversy, as he was ordered by a Vatican ecclesiastical court to withdraw funding for a student abortion rights group.

O'Donovan was appointed the president of Georgetown University, and assumed office on September 23, 1989.

In 1994, under the provost's direction, the School of Languages and Linguistics was subsumed into Georgetown College, with the exception of its linguistics faculty, which became part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The departments of economics, history, and government were also relocated from the School of Foreign Service to Georgetown College.

O'Donovan devised a new master plan for the university's physical campus, which had undergone rapid and often haphazard growth during the previous two decades.

The plan called for all new buildings to be architecturally cohesive with that of the historic portion of campus and the surrounding Georgetown neighborhood.

He also served as a director of The Walt Disney Company from 1996 to 2007.

Following the end of his presidency in 2001, O'Donovan returned to teaching, continuing to do so until 2013.

He has remained active in national higher education organizations, and in 2016, became the director of mission for the Jesuit Refugee Service USA.

A longtime friend of President Joe Biden, O'Donovan delivered the invocation at Biden's 2021 presidential inauguration.