By The Huffington Post News Editors
Leaked emails about a secret society at Georgetown University sent shockwaves through the campus in recent weeks, and many believe the revelations in them prevented at least one student ticket from winning the presidency of the Georgetown University Student Association.
First, some background for anyone outside of the 20057 zip code: Georgetown is the oldest Jesuit university in the country and doesn’t have any Greek houses. Though secret societies are different, they’re about as close as the university can get to them.
The most well-known group, the Society of Stewards, was originally set up a century ago as an all-male organization to make sure Georgetown didn’t lose its Jesuit values. When the Georgetown Voice, a student publication, wrote about the Society of Stewards in 1988, it was the first significant confirmation of the group’s existence, and prompted the group to announce that it would dissolve. It’s unclear what exactly the group has done in the intervening years, but at some point another group was formed, known as the Second Stewards Society — which is either a sequel or a splinter group. The Voice reports that in 2001 the Speaker of the Stewards, Adam Augustine Carter, published an article in The Georgetown Academy that explained the purpose of the group(s) was “to inspire service to our school, and aspire to the building of character in young men.”