Georgetown Learning Community – Course Descriptions for Spring 2025

John Pfordresher attended Georgetown College from 1961 to 1965 and after earning a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota he joined the Georgetown English Department in 1973. After forty-seven years of teaching which included participation in the Catholic Studies program and serving as Faculty Member in Residence at the Villa le Balze he retired as Professor of English Emeritus in June of 2020.

Frank Ambrosio is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Georgetown University. After studies in Italian language and literature in Florence, Italy, he completed his doctoral degree at Fordham University with a specialization in contemporary European Philosophy.

He is the founding Director, with Edward Maloney, of the Georgetown University “My Dante Project” a web-based platform for personal and collaborative study of Dante’s Commedia. In 2014, he acted as lead instructor for the launch of an ongoing web-based course (MOOC) on Dante offered by EDX
(dante.georgetown.edu) which currently has been utilized by over 20,000 students. He has received five separate awards from Georgetown University for excellence in teaching. He is the former Director of the Doctor of Liberal Studies Program, and in 2015, he received the Award for Faculty Achievement from the American Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs. His most recent book is Dante and Derrida: Face to Face, (State University of New York Press). In 2009, The Great Courses Program issued his 36-lecture course, Philosophy, Religion and the Meaning of Life.

Alison L. Hilton is Wright Family Professor of Art History in Georgetown University’s Department of Art and Art History and founded and directed the university’s innovative Art and Museum Studies master’s degree program. She previously taught a class supported through the Berkley Center’s Doyle Seminars project. Prior to joining Georgetown, Hilton held teaching positions at the University of Connecticut, Indiana University, and Wayne State University and curatorial and research positions at the Hillwood Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Focusing her research and publication on Russian and Soviet art, she has held several fellowships and academic exchanges in Russia at Leningrad State University, Moscow State University, and the State Tretyakov Gallery. Hilton’s publications include a book on Russian folk art and articles and chapters on Impressionism, nonconformist art, and women and gender issues in Soviet art, with a forthcoming work on Russian impressionism and on myth and modern art. Hilton holds a B.A. from Vassar College and M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Professor Roe directs the Law Center’s D.C. Street Law Project and specializes in educating the public about the law. In the Street Law High Schools Clinic, law students teach practical law in high schools in the District of Columbia. In the Street Law Community Clinic, law students teach in community and correctional settings, such as the D.C. Jail, homeless shelters, addiction treatment centers and juvenile correctional settings.

He also teaches the Literacy and Law seminar in fall semesters, examining how emergent readers develop their legal culture. Prior to joining the Law Center faculty full time in 1983, he served as Program Director of the National Institute for Citizen Education in the Law and Executive Director of the Coalition for Law Related Education in Washington, D.C., and as an adjunct professor in the former Street Law Corrections clinic. He also conducts numerous workshops throughout the country and the world on teaching about the law to the public. Since 2000, he has consulted with Street Law programs in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, England and Cambodia and has participated in several international conferences in the field. He is the co-author of the high school textbook, Great Trials in American History. He has reviewed upcoming arguments in Preview of Supreme Court Cases, written several articles for Update on Law Related Education, edited the ABA publication “Putting on Mock Trials” and is the author of “Valuing Student Speech” in the California Law Review. Professor Roe founded and directed the D.C. Family Literacy Project, which taught prisoners and homeless families how to read with their children and other developmentally appropriate practices. His present research focuses on learning theory and its implications for law and law teaching.

Susan Martin held the Donald G. Herzberg Chair in International Migration and founded and led the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Previously. Dr. Martin served as the Executive Director of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, established by legislation to advise Congress and the President on U.S. immigration and refugee policy.

Prior to joining the Commission’s staff, Professor Martin was the Director of Research and Programs at the Refugee Policy Group, a Washington-based center for the analysis of U.S. and international refugee policy and programs. She was Assistant Professor at the American Studies Department of Brandeis University and Lecturer in the History of American Civilization Department at the University of Pennsylvania.

Her recent publications include A Nation of Immigrants, Women, Migration and Conflict: Breaking a Deadly Cycle (ed.); Mexico-U.S. Migration Management: A Binational Approach(ed.); Managing Migration: The Promise of Cooperation; Beyond the Gateway: Immigrants in a Changing America (ed.); The Uprooted: Improving Humanitarian Responses to Forced Migration; and Refugee Women.
Dr. Martin earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.A. from Douglass College, Rutgers University. She is the immediate Past President of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration and serves on the U.S. Comptroller General’s Advisory Board, the Academic Advisory Board of the International Organization for Migration, and the Board of the Advocacy Project.