Title:‘We can be connected to Georgetown from anywhere’

GUAA Executive Director Julia Farr (C’88, Parent’19, ’21, ’24) talks with the new GUAA President Kelly Mulvoy Mangan (SFS’91, Parent’25)

What are some of your favorite moments at Georgetown?

One definitely was senior year when the Hoya basketball team made the Big East final. The final game was played on Sunday afternoon back then. However, Saturday night was senior night at the Pub, so we stayed at the Pub until closing (2 a.m. I think) and then several of us drove to my parents’ house in Rye, New York. My parents fed us bagels and then we drove to Madison Square Garden for the game. Unfortunately the Hoyas lost to Seton Hall, but cheering on our classmate Dikembe Mutombo (SLL’91, HON’10, Parent’19, ’22, ’25) was amazing. Another special memory was being an Agape retreat leader in the spring of my senior year. Watching the sunrise at the Lincoln Memorial the morning of graduation is a memory I will never forget. And now I have to add taking a picture with my husband and son in Healy Circle after his freshman convocation. I couldn’t even have dreamed of that when I graduated.

Tell me about your experience in the School of Foreign Service.

I loved SFS. I was challenged to look at history and current events from different perspectives and through different lenses. It made me realize the importance of stopping and thinking about issues before jumping to a conclusion. It also made me see nuance and gray areas. It’s hard to describe what it was like to be an SFS student when the Berlin Wall fell and the first Gulf War started. Living history and being taught by the professors who were explaining it to the rest of the world was just remarkable.

Why have you stayed engaged with Georgetown all these years?

I joined the Georgetown Club of Boston while I was in law school, and really enjoyed having a way to stay connected with Georgetown. I met great Hoyas and had the opportunity to do community service and get to know Boston. When I moved to New York, I joined the New York Club right away. Everyone was incredibly welcoming and excited to get people engaged and involved. I became active in Club leadership and was president of the New York Club when we hosted the John Carroll Weekend in 1998. Then I joined the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association. What’s been really wonderful is that my Georgetown family just keeps getting bigger. I have so many Hoya friends—and so many of them were not on campus when I was there. I’ve also been actively involved with the Class of 1991 since we graduated. So many friendships are stronger now than they were when we were students. I love feeling like I’m helping Hoyas connect with each other and remain connected to Georgetown.

How has the Alumni Association evolved since you began your service?

Though our mission is the same, the GUAA leadership has become much more representative of the incredible diversity of our alumni population—whether you look at that by gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or geography. We’ve worked really hard to make alumni aware that while serving on the Board of Governors of the GUAA really is a pinnacle of their service to Georgetown, there are lots of different ways to get there and the door is open to anyone who is dedicated to Georgetown. As a result of that, our programming, communication, and ways of engaging with our alumni have also become much more robust and differentiated.

What do you wish every Hoya knew about the Alumni Association?

I want every Hoya to know that the Alumni Association is their Hoya Home. We are here to engage with them where they live and to provide them with support through their professional and personal lives. We are keeping them connected to Georgetown and the entire Hoya community. We are celebrating their successes. We have a place in the Alumni Association for every member of our Hoya family.

What are your priorities as president?

Three areas of focus for the GUAA under my leadership are engagement, DEI, and communication. We are going to continue providing our alumni with access to meaningful programming, volunteer opportunities, and resources. Through our work in the area of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we will build and expand our GUAA communities, alumni alliances, and affinity groups. We want every Hoya to know that every part of who they are is recognized and celebrated by the association. And, like everyone else, we are going to be figuring out how to best operate in the new COVID normal. We had some alumni tell us they felt more connected to Georgetown than they had in years because of the huge array of virtual alumni programming we created during the pandemic. We don’t want to stop doing what helped us meet our mission during the past two and a half years. Of course there’s nothing like being on the Hilltop or anywhere around the world in a room full of other Hoyas, but we know that we can be connected to Georgetown from anywhere.