J. Havens Richards (November 8, 1851 – June 9, 1923) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit. Born to a prominent Ohio family, he was secretly baptized as an infant by his father, an Episcopal priest who converted to Catholicism. Richards studied at Boston College and Woodstock College. In 1888, he became the president of Georgetown University. For the next decade, he instituted reforms that helped transform the school into a modern, comprehensive university. He enlarged the graduate programs, medical school, and law school, established the university hospital, improved the astronomical observatory, and oversaw the completion of Healy Hall and construction of Dahlgren Chapel. Richards also managed tensions with the newly founded Catholic University of America, located in the same city, and fought anti-Catholicism in the Ivy League, particularly at Harvard Law School. In his later years, he held senior positions at Jesuit institutions throughout the northeastern United States. (Full article...)