What is the origin of the "Hoyas" of Georgetown University?
Georgetown Hoyas
The University admits that the precise origin of the term "Hoya" is unknown.[3] At some point before 1893, and likely before 1891, students versed in classical languages combined the Greek hoia or hoya, meaning "what" or "such", and the Latin saxa to form Hoya Saxa!, or "What Rocks!"[4][5] This cheer may either refer to the stalwart defense of the football team, or to the baseball team, which was nicknamed the "Stonewalls", or to the actual stone wall that surrounds the campus.[6] Father William McFadden, S.J., campus Jesuit and the team's in-house announcer at the Capital One Arena, has disputed the Greek and Latin origin, suggesting the classical words were retroactively applied to a nonsensical cheer.[5]
History of Georgetown University
Freshmen hazing rituals, long tolerated by the administration, were banned in 1962 after one student brought suit against the school for injuries he sustained.[63] President Lawrence C. Gorman phased out restrictions on attendance by African Americans, and Samuel Halsey Jr. became the first black undergraduate in 1950.[64] The Black Student Alliance was formed in 1968, and in 1969 Georgetown named the first black member of the Board of Directors since Patrick Francis Healy.[65][66]