October 2006

Spotlight on Staff: Jane Lingo

Jane Lingo celebrates her 50th anniversary as a GW staff member this year. RIGHT: Jane Lingo (right) with GW classmate Margaret Truman in 1945.

When Jane Lingo, assistant director of University Relations, first came to
GW, Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, World War II was raging, and the film Casablanca was premiering in theaters. The year was 1942, and Lingo was a freshman in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.

After graduating from GW in 1946, Lingo spent a decade traveling and performing volunteer work, including a stint as a French translator for the Red Cross, before returning to the University as a staff writer in 1956. Fifty years later, Lingo has the distinction of being the University’s longest-serving staff member. In an interview with ByGeorge! she looks back on more than a half century at GW.

Q: What made you choose GW first as a student and later as an employee?
A: I had planned to attend Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania, but a student visit I went on at GW changed my mind and I never looked back. At GW, I majored in French and served as president of the French Club. I was also a member of the Glee Club, Mortar Board, and Phi Beta Kappa. In 1956, I was back on campus taking some classes when I ran into an acquaintance who worked at GW. She told me the University was looking for a staff writer, and the rest is history.

Q: Where is your hometown?
A: I’m a lifelong Washingtonian. I still live in the house where I grew up in the city’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. My father had a career in the
Navy and my mother was the director of the Washington, D.C., United Service Organization, or USO, the organization created by President Roosevelt to provide morale and recreation services to the troops during World War II.

Q: Where was your first office at GW, and what was your position?
A: I first worked as a staff writer, crafting press releases and other public relations materials, in a row house on H Street. My office was upstairs in back, where the GW band practiced. The band moved out, and I moved in. Since then, I’ve had offices on Pennsylvania Avenue, in Gelman Library, and now in Rice Hall. My responsibilities over the years have included coordinating the Commencement ceremony, organizing public relations events, and enhancing community relations.

Q: What do you like most about GW?
A: I like the atmosphere, the people, the students, and the feeling of doing something worthwhile. One of the most memorable experiences has been seeing the many world leaders who come to campus, including Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. I also enjoy working with Columbian Women, the University’s oldest scholarship support group. It was founded in 1894 after a fire at Ford’s Theater killed the father of one of the original 13 women to attend GW. The young woman’s friends established a scholarship that made it financially possible for her to continue her studies.

Q: What is the most significant change you’ve witnessed at the University?
A: The tremendous expansion of academic programs and the beautification of the campus, the school’s increasingly prestigious reputation as reflected in national rankings, and its increasingly prominent alumni.

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not working?
A: I like going to the theater, the opera, staying home and relaxing, and also traveling. My favorite places to travel are New York City and Nelson County, Va., an area south of Charlottesville where my mother was born.

“Spotlight on Staff” is a new ByGeorge! column profiling GW staff members. To nominate a co-worker, e-mail bygeorge@gwu.edu.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu