Georgetown established the School of Medicine in 1851 and the Law School in 1870. Patrick F. Healy, S.J., the university’s president between 1873 and 1882, was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. and the first to head a major U.S. university. Healy dramatically reformed the university’s curriculum with a new emphasis on history and the natural sciences and started construction on the Flemish Romanesque-style Healy Hall in 1877.
Joseph Havens Richards, S.J., president from 1888 to 1898, established graduate courses in the arts and sciences and built new facilities for the law and medical schools. The university’s expansion continued into the 20th century, with the opening of the School of Dentistry in 1901, School of Nursing in 1903 and the School of Foreign Service in 1919 under the direction of Edmund Walsh, S.J. The School of Dentistry closed in 1990.