J. Hunter Guthrie

The Reverend J. Hunter Guthrie SJ
J. Hunter Guthrie in 1949
42nd President of Georgetown University
In office 1949–1952
Preceded by	Lawrence C. Gorman
Succeeded by	Edward B. Bunn
Personal details
Born	(1901-01-08)January 8, 1901 New York City, United States
Died	November 11, 1974(1974-11-11) (aged 73) Wernersville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting place	Jesuit Community Cemetery
Education	Woodstock College (BA, MA) Pontifical Gregorian University (STD) University of Paris (Dr de l'U)
Awards	National Order of Honour and Merit
Orders
Ordination	June 23, 1930
Philosophy career
Era	20th-century philosophy
School	Existentialism, logical positivism, analytic philosophy, scholasticism
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Joseph Hunter Guthrie SJ (January 8, 1901 – November 11, 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.