McCourt School of Public Policy

Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy

Seal of Georgetown University
Type	Private
Established	1990 (GPPI) 2013 (MSPP)
Parent institution	Georgetown University
Affiliation	Roman Catholic (Jesuit)
Dean	Edward B. Montgomery
Students	450
Location	Washington, D.C., USA
Campus	Urban
Nickname	MSPP
Website	mccourt.georgetown.edu

The McCourt School of Public Policy (MSPP) is one of nine schools of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The McCourt School offers master's degrees in public policy, international development policy, policy management, and policy leadership as well as administers several professional certificate programs and houses fifteen affiliated research centers. The McCourt School has twenty-one full-time faculty members, ten visiting faculty members, more than one-hundred adjunct faculty members and approximately 450 enrolled students across the various degree and executive education programs.

The school is based in Old North, the oldest academic building on the main Georgetown University campus. Formerly known as the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI), the McCourt School became Georgetown University’s ninth school in October 2013 as a result of a $100 million gift from Georgetown University alumnus Frank McCourt.

The school is led by Edward B. Montgomery, who became Dean of GPPI in August 2010. Montgomery was preceded by interim Dean William T. Gormley.

Establishing a public policy school in Washington, D.C. originated as an idea in the Georgetown University Department of Government and Economics in the late 1970s.

In 1980, the Government Department instituted a certificate program and in 1982 hired two junior faculty members to teach courses in public policy. For the next five years, the Public Policy Program expanded, granting a master's degree program in government with a concentration in public policy to approximately 15 students. In 1985, the Government Department hired the first part-time director to help establish the framework for the Public Policy Program. By the late 1980s, enrollment in the program had grown to about 75 students.

In 1990, the new president of Georgetown University, Father Leo O'Donovan, S.J., prioritized the expansion of the Public Policy Program under the direction of the program's first full-time director, Colin Campbell S.J., a Georgetown professor of philosophy and politics. Dr. Campbell was charged with the task of significantly expanding the program's faculty, students, and facilities.