J. Hunter Guthrie

Joseph Hunter Guthrie (8 January 1901 – 11 November 1974) was an American academic philosopher, writer, Jesuit, and Catholic priest. Born in New York City, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1917, and began his studies at Woodstock College. Following his undergraduate and graduate work there, he taught at Jesuit institutions in the Philippines until 1927. Following his ordination in 1930, he received doctorates in theology and philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Paris, respectively. He then returned to the United States, where he became a professor of philosophy at Woodstock College and Fordham University.

In 1943, Guthrie became the chairman of graduate philosophy at Georgetown University and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In this role, he admitted the first women to the school on equal terms as men. For twenty years, he promoted the belief that intellectuals must play a central role in combatting the ideologies that led to World War II. To that end, he was a member of the drafting committee of the UNESCO charter, was a co-founder of an American academy of Catholic intellectuals, and travelled the world with the U.S. State Department, for which he received honors from several countries and organizations.

Guthrie became the president of Georgetown University in 1949, and a major decision he made was to abolish the university's football program, believing it to be inconsistent with the educational purpose of a Catholic university. He also oversaw construction of McDonough Gymnasium. His tenure ended abruptly in 1952, when he did not return at the start of the academic year. His resignation resulted from illness, as well as frustration with senior administrators who resisted his attempts to centralize governance of the university. In his later years, he taught at Saint Joseph's College in Philadelphia, and died in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, in 1974.

Early life Joseph Hunter Guthrie was born on January 8, 1901, in New York City, to parents Jacob Francis Guthrie and Mary Guthrie (née Ross). He enrolled at Fordham Preparatory School in 1913, and graduated in 1917. On July 30 of that year, he entered the Society of Jesus at the novitiate of St. Andrew-on-Hudson. Guthrie began studying science and philosophy at Weston College in Massachusetts, and completed his undergraduate education at Woodstock College in Maryland, where he graduated in 1923 with a Bachelor of Arts and in 1924 with a Master of Arts.

Guthrie began work on his doctorate in philosophy, studying at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the University of Freiburg, and the University of Paris. During this time, he became ill with tuberculosis, which required that he be treated in Asheville, North Carolina. He then returned to the University of Paris to defend his dissertation on phenomenology, for which he was awarded a with highest honors in 1937.

Following his education, Guthrie taught philosophy at Woodstock College from 1937 to 1940. He became a professor and chairman of the department of graduate philosophy at Fordham University in 1940, remaining in the position for three years. He was also an assistant editor of The Journal of Philosophy, Thought, and Philosophy Abstracts, and was a prolific author. Later, he also was named the chairman of deans of the university. The president of the university, Lawrence C. Gorman, described this action as initially experimental and as a "wartime concession" that proved successful. Guthrie sought to revitalize the graduate school, and recruited prominent faculty who fled Europe during World War II,

The reputation and quality of academics in the graduate department of philosophy, which had a separate location and faculty from its undergraduate counterpart, was greatly improved during his term, and it was said that the graduate school "firmly established" itself for the first time.

Worldwide academic advocacy Following the end of World War II, Guthrie became a proponent of making academia a key instrument in securing future world peace by combating ideologies of nationalism, totalitarianism, and scientific racism. To that end, he became a member of the U.S. Commission on Restructuring Education, which met at Princeton University in 1940, alongside British academics, to implement democratic principles in education. He was also a member of the chartering committee of UNESCO, which met in Nice in 1945. This occurred in the context of many American think tanks and intellectual organizations, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, reevaluating their purposes and missions, so as to ensure that another world war would never happen again. The body's twofold mission would be "reconstructing Catholic intellectual life" in the aftermath of the war, and maintaining a "presence in the total work of the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization." Eventually, the academy came to fruition, and he became a co-founder of the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (CCICA) in 1946. He was also a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and the Medieval Academy of America. He was a polyglot, being fluent in four languages and able to read in four more. Guthrie received the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit of Spain in 1948 for his writings on the Spanish philosopher Francisco Suárez, and lectures at the University of Barcelona, University of Madrid, and University of Salamanca. He received the Freedoms Foundation Award in 1950, the National Order of Honour and Merit of Haiti in 1954, and the Air University Award in 1958 for casting a tie-breaking vote to create the Air University. Film director Samuel Bronston consulted with Guthrie in the 1950s on films set in Ancient Greece and Rome. Under his leadership, McDonough Gymnasium was built, with construction starting in 1950, and the building opening in December 1951. One of Guthrie's first actions was the revival of the board of regents in April 1949, whose purpose was to advise the president and participate in fundraising and promotion of the university. Another of his primary goals was to centralize the university administration under the office of the president. At the time he took office, the schools of medicine, law, and foreign service operated close to autonomously in their governance, finances, and academics.

Much of Guthrie's philosophy of education was motivated by his support for scholasticism.

Guthrie's presidency came to an end abruptly in 1952. In the summer of that year, he left for the American West for a retreat and to fundraise. He did not return at the start of the academic year, prompting many rumors on campus. He submitted his resignation to the university board of directors the following October, and it was announced that the Jesuit authorities in Rome had selected Edward B. Bunn as his successor. One historian later determined that Guthrie's ousting was not entirely voluntary, but rather was due to a combination of factors. In July 1952, his health had begun to deteriorate; he moved in with his mother in Annapolis, Maryland, and soon thereafter was treated at hospitals in Baltimore, Maryland and Charlotte, North Carolina. Additionally, he had become frustrated with the fact that each of the university professional schools was headed by a Jesuit regent. They vigorously opposed his attempts to centralize the administration of the university, and when Guthrie tried to invoke the authorities in Rome to support his effort, he felt that he did not have their backing.

Abolition of football

"Into football goes a stupendous outlay of time, money, and manpower, accompanied by the raw passions of greed and slavish devotion, the ignoble emotions of spite, bitterness, and sly cunning." — J. Hunter Guthrie Financial considerations also motivated Guthrie. He disapproved that collegiate football had become "big business." As a result, Georgetown became the most prominent of 38 schools—many of them Catholic—to drop their football programs by 1951, and the university saw a gradual de-emphasis of sports in general. Guthrie's decision prompted a strong backlash from alumni, and the football program was restored 12 years later. He also advocated for the creation of a Latin American studies program at Saint Joseph's, which was created in 1960. His body was returned to Georgetown University and was buried in the Jesuit Community Cemetery.

Writings