In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson was president. American combat troops were first sent to Vietnam. The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction was a major hit. Brooke Shields was born, Winston Churchill died and University President B. Joseph White enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

The standard press photo shows White as a solemn public figure set against a studio background. But as a college student, White rented apartments with friends, studied for exams and worried about whether that girl on campus liked him just like any other college student today.

White said he spent three years in ROTC until a vision test in the summer of 1968 ended his military career. He said he also was a member of the crew team for two years, waking up at 5:30 a.m. to go rowing on the Potomac River. But he said friends and academics took up a major part of his university life.

“My big activity was studying,” White said. “I lived in mortal fear of flunking out.” He studied international economics and graduated magna cum laude, and said he now realizes his fear of failure was “overblown.”

He said friends sometimes had to drag him out to experience the culture Washington, D.C. had to offer. White said his friend, Don Abrams, always pushed him to go out and see influential speakers.

“When King Hussein (bin Talal) of Jordan came to speak, Don thought it was very important that I understand what was going on in the Middle East,” White said. “I thought I should be studying.”

Abrams said he and White met freshman year while living in the same dormitory.

“Most dorms were in a nice, cozy college environment, but ours was on the second floor above a gymnasium,” Abrams said.

Freshman year was difficult for White, who said he was homesick and lonely at first. His then girlfriend and current wife, Mary, had broken off their relationship just before college began.

“In order for us to have a good experience at college, we needed to see other people,” said Mary, who was attending the University of Michigan while her future husband was at Georgetown.

She told Joseph White that because they were at schools 500 miles apart, they shouldn’t waste their college days missing one another.

“I completely disagreed with that,” White said. “I thought that was way too sensible.”

White said Mary was correct, however, and he settled into life at Georgetown more easily as school progressed. White’s roommate Greg Waters said that Ted Kennedy lived only a few doors down.

“I never saw the Kennedys themselves, but we saw the tour buses go by,” White said.

The apartment of five male college students ran a tighter shift than most. White and roommate Pat McCarthy did all the cooking, and there were set schedules for cleaning duties. If there was ever a problem, White was the designated problem solver.

“Among five very strong personalities … he was always a consensus builder,” McCarthy said.

White said that they kept the place clean and cooked good food to impress girls. While the girls were welcome, freeloaders were not. White said moochers bothered him because they’d walk in like they owned the place, eat their food, drink their beer and watch their TV. White said he also had a sore spot for spoiled rich kids at Georgetown. He said they were the type of kids who played polo in Maryland on Saturday and owned 15 sport jackets.

“I went to Georgetown with like, three or four pairs of pants, a few shirts and maybe one blazer,” White said.

Another type of person who irritated him were the girls he liked, who didn’t like him back. But that problem was short-lived as he and Mary started seeing one another again in 1968. She graduated early and moved to the Washington, D.C. suburbs to take a teaching job.

In order to save money for an engagement ring, White worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission. This was in the days before fax and e-mail, so White’s job consisted of personally taking documents to lawyers and bankers in New York from Washington, D.C.

“I would take a taxi to National Airport, fly to New York City, then take a taxi to midtown Manhattan,” White said.

Then he would make a return trip to complete the workday. His efforts paid off, however, when Mary agreed to his marriage proposal.

White said his wife’s immediate reaction to his proposal was to run out the front door of her apartment. Mary said she went racing outside and jumped around in the parking lot out of joy before running back inside and accepting.

“I was a little worried when she ran out, and I was really glad when she came back,” White said.

Although he was in college during the Vietnam War, Abrams said the Georgetown campus was fairly conservative. Abrams said protests at the university were small acts of defiance, such as “not wearing coats and ties to dinner, not wearing socks with your shoes.” He said the university was two steps behind the rest of the country in that respect.

McCarthy said there were small, peaceful demonstrations later and since all five roommates were very tall, they sometimes volunteered as marshals, or crowd controllers, for the demonstrations.

“Joe was unusually tall,” said White, who was the shortest at 6-foot-2-inches tall.

White would later become a more active demonstrator at Harvard University, moved by the United States’ bombing of Cambodia, as well as the death of his ROTC captain in Vietnam combat in 1967.

His former roommates and wife all agreed he was a serious and bright student, but White said he wished he’d taken Abrams’ advice more often and found a balance between studying and going out to broaden his knowledge of the world. He said he advises current students to do the same and to remember that college is not easy all of the time, no matter how effortless some people make it look.

White will be inaugurated as the University’s 16th president on Sept. 22 at 2 p.m. at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Goodwin Ave.