University of San Francisco

09/17/2024

Join us for USF's biggest weekend of the year .

This year, the Lucky Devils Band makes their debut at the food and music festival during CelebrateUSF. Enjoy high-energy live music over the Oct. 17-20 weekend with friends, alumni, and your community on Welch Field.

🎵🎸 Get your tickets and enjoy a festive weekend with us here: bit.ly/3XrwHZP

09/12/2024

Mr. Dominic Tarantino ’54 has created the Leona A. Tarantino Endowed Scholarship Fund at USF with a $1 million endowment gift to support future students who share his late wife’s passion for beauty and the fine arts.

On what would have been their 70th wedding anniversary, Mr. Tarantino spoke about his motivation to create a fine arts scholarship in Leona Tarantino’s name.

"Leona Tarantino would have wanted to bolster the USF experience for art students in the present day because she was an artist who believed that art should be seen and enjoyed by many," said Tarantino.

Learn more about Tarantino's gift » bit.ly/3AZ8FOp

09/10/2024

San Francisco’s lively streets are at the heart of the city’s vibrancy and diversity. As San Francisco works to counteract the "doom loop" narrative, Maro Guevara ’09's efforts are helping reshape the city's cultural resurgence.

Thanks to Guevara's efforts with organizations like Into The Streets SF, the city streets are being transformed into platforms for community building and revitalization.

Read more on how Guevara is energizing the city's future » bit.ly/3ZpdxX4
📷

09/06/2024

Ward Parkinson, co-founder of Micron Technology, will be speaking at USF on September 25.

As an entrepreneur, attorney, and key figure in the integrated circuit memory business, Parkinson will offer insights and share wisdom as an industry icon.

Don't miss this opportunity to hear compelling behind-the-scenes stories and advice from a CEO in the computer memory industry.

Free food and drinks with a Q & A led by Faisal Shah, founder and CEO of Tracer (formerly AppDetex).

🎫 Reserve your free ticket today: bit.ly/3ThdFUG

09/05/2024

There's a new horizon for the Health & Life Sciences Campus formerly known as the Blood Centers of the Pacific.

The new facility aims to provide exceptional training for nurses, clinical health professionals, researchers, scientists, and artists.

The proposed layout will include:
🤝🏽 Enable collaborations between programs
🌳 Host gardens and a terrace
🫶🏼 Allow USF to provide care for the greater San Francisco community
🔬 Bring new majors and new lab spaces to USF

Check out the vision for the new campus: bit.ly/3ATzrb6

08/28/2024

USF is one of 390 colleges and universities recognized this week by the Princeton Review as the top Higher Ed institutions in the United States. The Princeton Review includes approximately 15 percent of four-year colleges and universities in the U.S.

USF is also one of eight “standout schools” in this year’s list. The eight highlighted schools were recognized for excellence in areas such as most diverse student body (USF), most countries represented, most need-based scholarships, and highest four-year graduation rate.

In developing the list, the company surveyed more than 168,000 students across the country.

More at USF News: https://bit.ly/3X2gKcp

08/28/2024

🌟 : Your experience matters 🌟

There's still time to apply for the 2024-25 Alumni Mentor Program.

A mentor can empower a USF student by helping them navigate their career journey with greater confidence and workplace understanding. Your support and professional insights are invaluable to a USF student.

Be a mentor and lend a hand. Join the Alumni Mentor Program: bit.ly/AMPusfca

08/26/2024

USF's newest students have arrived on the Hilltop!

08/23/2024

Former host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah broke records at the sold-out Silk Speaker Series crowd during the first week of the school year.

The first Silk Speaker Series at USF to sell out in under 24 hours saw a full house in The War Memorial Gym at the Sobrato Center.

USF attendees enjoyed Noah's characteristically playful humor balanced with thoughtful and philosophical topics.

Didn't make it to the event? Relive the highlights with us here »

08/20/2024

Welcome to our newest students! Go Dons! 💚

08/19/2024

Didn't get a ticket to the sold-out Silk Speaker Series with Trevor Noah?

You don't have to miss the magic as virtual registration is open for the former host of The Daily Show and Emmy Award-winning comedian, Trevor Noah.

Register and stream the Silk Speaker Series with Trevor Noah happening this Thursday, August 22: bit.ly/3X5mVhb

08/15/2024

Movie night under the stars for USF’s new first-year students. ✨🎬

📷: Jen Hogan

08/14/2024

Ready to make a lasting impact? Become a mentor!

The Alumni Mentor Program is a chance to guide and inspire the next generation of leaders at .

Whether it’s through helping students with career development, interview prep, or navigating workplace dynamics, your mentorship can make a world of difference.

Be part of USF's tradition of mentorship. 💚 🤝🏼 💛

Sign up today and leave your mark: bit.ly/AMPusfca

08/13/2024

📣 Breaking news!

Viola Davis comes to the Silk Speaker Series stage at .

Hailed as one of the most talented actors of our time, the EGOT award-winning actress, producer, and New York Times bestselling author joins us on the Hilltop on October 19 for an insightful and thought-provoking conversation.

🎟️ RSVP for your spot and click through to hear from Viola Davis » bit.ly/3WMk7UT

08/12/2024

Move-in Day on the Hilltop! 🧳🌁

Fast facts: USF’s Class of 2028

🌁 1,307 students

🗺️ From 41 states and 56 countries

1️⃣ 38 percent identify as first-gen college students

08/09/2024

➡️🏡Tomorrow: Move-in Saturday for USF’s Class of ‘28! 1,307 new undergrads from 41 states and 56 countries are heading to the Hilltop.

Welcome to the USF community!

08/09/2024

Kemelyn Alvarado ’24 had an assignment: explore how USF could become a campus of refuge for immigrants. The goal? Create a list of recommendations.

Alvarado went well beyond a list. She approached the university and worked with an interfaith nonprofit to house 10 immigrants on campus this summer for eight weeks as they learn English and prepare to seek asylum.

“I’m in awe of Kemelyn and can’t think of a more impactful fellowship project,” said Richard Whipple, deputy director of the San Francisco Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs (OCEIA).

As a Leo T. McCarthy Fellow assigned to the OCEIA at City Hall last fall, Alvarado, a politics major, worked for Whipple, who suggested the housing project. She stayed on through the spring semester and created the program at USF with the support of the Office of Student Housing. She modeled it after a national effort called Every Campus a Refuge, in which campuses host refugees or immigrants.

“They get some stability, and the housing is a huge benefit. The example of USF extending hospitality and opening the doors and taking what people perceive as a risk serves to inspire others, and we appreciate it.” - Rev. Deborah Lee, executive director of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (IMHI)

More at USF News.

Kemelyn Alvarado ’24 had an assignment: explore how USF could become a campus of refuge for immigrants. The goal? Create a list of recommendations.

08/07/2024

August is National Make-A-Will Month. 🌟

Estate planning and planned giving has the power to help USF and its students change the world.

A future gift from a will, trust, or retirement plan can support the university’s mission to educate students and future leaders and promises USF’s continued success.

For more on legacy giving at USF, visit: giftplanning.usfca.edu

08/07/2024

Olympic Fashion: Sami Miro MA '10 is the creator of the bespoke jackets worn by Team USA's gymnastics athletes at this summer's Olympic Games.

From Harper's Bazaar:

"A 2023 CFDA Fashion Fund finalist beloved of style editors and It girls like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner, Sami Miro has been a bit of an IYKYK secret amongst fashion nerds. Now, her work is likely to captivate sports fans worldwide.

The designer, whose eponymous brand sources and repurposes deadstock and vintage fabrics, was approached by Nike to create bespoke pieces in the athletic brand’s first-ever collaboration of this kind. Miro was tasked with making jackets for the five gymnasts who qualified for the 2024 games at the trials in Minneapolis in June."

Sami Miro, who has dressed It girls like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner, created custom jackets for five of the athletes

07/31/2024

Today, we celebrate the feast day of Saint Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order in 1540. Three-hundred fifteen years later, USF’s first campus was established by the Jesuits on the south side of Market Street. The original college, known as St. Ignatius Academy, opened its doors to its first class in October 1855.

USF, in conjunction with Jesuit universities and organizations across the world, celebrated an Ignatian Year from May 2021 until July 2022. This period of reflection marked 500 years after Ignatius of Loyola was struck by a cannonball, an event which moved him to pray daily and examine his plans, hopes, and ambitions. He gave up his dreams of honors and riches and set out as a pilgrim to embrace a life of solidarity with those who were poor and marginalized.

“Whatever you are doing, that which makes you feel the most alive, that is where God is.” - Saint Ignatius

07/25/2024

Dons in Paris: Three former members of USF's cross country and track & field teams will compete at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, beginning later this week.

Two Dons, Lizzie Bird MA ’19 (Great Britain) and Lea Meyer (Germany) will compete in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, while Maor Tiyouri ’14 (Israel) is set to run her third marathon in the Olympic Games. All three competed in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

More at USF News: https://bit.ly/4cVF1I2

07/18/2024

Summer on the Hilltop ☀️🌸

07/12/2024

McCarthy Center Spotlight: The McCarthy Fellows in San Francisco program places USF students in semester-long internships in city government. Students earn six units, learn how government works, and help make SF a more inclusive and equitable city. Some recent student accomplishments:

Evan Cajigas ’24, a finance major and aspiring firefighter, helped develop SFFD’s Behavioral Health Unit, a confidential service for firefighters experiencing hardships such as chronic stress or PTSD.

Giuseppe Cannavó ’25, an engineering major, put his analyst skills into action for the Department of Public Works. He marked and studied the relationship between design, management, and construction costs on city projects. His data will be used for the California Multi-Agency Benchmarking Study, which analyzes the state’s use of federal funding.

Jade Carter ’24, an environmental studies major, interned with the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. She worked on planning and promoting the India Basin Waterfront Park project in Bayview-Hunters Point, which will turn an industrial zone into a 10-acre park.

More at USF News: https://bit.ly/4bFqej6

07/10/2024

This spring, a team of three USF undergraduate business analytics students placed 16th out of 600 teams, worldwide, in the Women in Data Science Datathon, hosted by Stanford University. The challenge focused on equity in healthcare. Coached by professors JC Sanders and Shivani Shuklahey, the team entered the datathon as part of USF's business analytics immersion class.

"My team and I applied our knowledge from classes, such as Business Analytics Immersion with Professor Sanders and Intermediate Business Applications of Analytics with Professor Shukla, to address real-world challenges like equity in healthcare. We explored machine learning techniques to develop a model predicting if patients received a metastatic cancer diagnosis within 90 days of screening."

- Jocelyn Luciani

"Working on the WiDS datathon with my team was a great learning experience. I was able to think critically about the demands of our project and apply the data analytics skills I learned over my four years at USF to build a machine learning model to gain insights on a meaningful, real-life issue."

- Meg Hoshino

"This project taught me more than ensemble methods and data exploration: I learned lessons in understanding women’s health, explaining concepts in simple ways to strengthen team dynamics, and the flexibility to change game plans on the fly.“

- Raphael Caleb Yao

07/09/2024

The San Francisco Pride Parade is one of the largest LGBTQ+ celebrations in the world, bringing in close to one million attendees from all over the world.

Nearly 100 students, alumni, faculty, and staff from USF gathered to celebrate in this year's parade.

Our contingent marched with:

50+ USF Pride t-shirts 🌈
10+ Posters 🪧
63 Pride flags 🏳️‍🌈

Thank you to the USF community for coming together to celebrate, honor, and march with each other.

🍭 See more highlights here: bit.ly/USFPride24

07/08/2024

Lizzie Bird MA '19, a former member of the USF women's cross country and track and field teams, qualified for the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics in the 3,000-meter steeplechase for her home country of Great Britain.

Fresh off her bronze medal performance at the 2024 European Championships held at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome in early June, Bird placed first at the UK Athletics Championships and Olympic Trials last weekend to punch her ticket to Paris. Her mark of 9:29.67 was a championship record and 21 seconds off her personal best in the event set in August of 2022.

Bird, making her second consecutive appearance in the Olympics, previously competed in the 2020 Summer Games held in Tokyo in July of 2021.

More at USF News:

Lizzie Bird, a former member of the University of San Francisco women's cross country and track and field teams, qualified for the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics in the 3,000-meter steeplechase for her home country of Great Britain.

07/05/2024

🌁 💭 USF Magazine: Did Someone Say Doom Loop? USF professors reflect on the state of San Francisco.

The story of a doomed San Francisco captured the nation’s imagination and held it for more than a year. Today, while a few say the city is struggling, others see San Francisco rising.

“San Francisco is definitely not in a doom loop,” says Billy Riggs, professor of public administration at USF. “San Francisco is exiting a down cycle and entering an innovation cycle.”

🔁 Riggs is trained as a city planner. He’s seen his share of cycles. As he speaks, he stands outside Good Luck Dim Sum on Clement Street in the Richmond District, the neighborhood that is home to USF and was named last fall by Time Out magazine as one of the 40 coolest in the world. He points to the west, toward the ocean, and then to the east, toward downtown. In both directions, the streets, shops, and markets teem with people.

📈 John Coughlan, director of the MS in Entrepreneurship and Innovation program in the School of Management, says the San Francisco Bay Area remains the No. 1 place in the world for venture capital investment. He cites the latest report from Ernst and Young: Greater San Francisco saw $9.5 billion invested in the third quarter of 2023 compared to $3.5 billion in greater Boston and $3 billion in greater New York.

Riggs adds that in some ways, the city is better now than it was before.

🌳 “It’s greener today than it was 10 or 20 years ago,” Riggs says. “You can walk from Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve to Golden Gate Park and out to Ocean Beach and then to open space in the Presidio — a national park inside the city limits.”

🚶In just the last three years San Francisco has become a lot more friendly to walkers and cyclists, Riggs says. During the pandemic, the city closed some streets to automotive traffic and created other “slow streets” on which pedestrians and cyclists had priority. Several of those slow streets are now permanent.

💻 “We are the AI capital of the world. We’re working on making the city clean, safe, and welcoming for everyone, and working with businesses to revitalize downtown,” said Mayor London Breed MPA ‘13. “We’re seeing tourism return to San Francisco, and our crime rates are hitting 10-year lows.”

More at USF Magazine: https://bit.ly/3Wbbhkj

07/03/2024

On July 1, Johanna Kalb began her tenure as USF School of Law’s 20th dean and its second female dean since the school’s founding in 1912. She arrived in San Francisco with her family from Idaho, where she was the first woman to serve as dean of University of Idaho College of Law.

Kalb has been recognized for both her scholarship and her teaching. Under her leadership at the University of Idaho, which has campuses in Boise and Moscow, the law school’s incoming classes grew to be the largest and most diverse in the college’s history.

Among the projects she oversaw were the acquisition of, and move into, a new building for the Boise campus; the design and implementation of a comprehensive plan for improving inclusion and belonging at the law school; and the college’s two most successful fundraising years. She also prioritized the creation of an extensive program for academic success and bar preparation that resulted in a 10 percent improvement in bar passage for recent graduates.

More at USF News.

On July 1, Johanna Kalb began her tenure as USF School of Law’s 20th dean and its second female dean since the school’s founding in 1912. She arrived in San Francisco with her family from Idaho, where she was the first woman to serve as dean of University of Idaho College of Law.

06/27/2024

With the first pick of the second round of today's 2024 NBA Draft, the Toronto Raptors selected USF forward Jonathan Mogbo. Picked 31st overall, Mogbo becomes the first USF NBA draft pick since 1982.

This season, Mogbo ranked in the top 20 of all Division I players in total rebounds (7th), field goal percentage (8th), double doubles (10th), rebounding (13th), and offensive rebounds (19th). He was named WCC Newcomer of the Year and earned an All-WCC First Team selection.

"Our entire USF basketball family is so proud of Jonathan being selected by the Toronto Raptors in the 2024 NBA Draft. Getting drafted is a testament to all his hard work and dedication during his time here on the Hilltop. He is a prime example of taking full advantage of his opportunities. We can't wait to root him on at the next level!" - Head Coach Chris Gerlufsen

06/26/2024

Just released!

Trevor Noah comes to the Silk Speaker Series on August 22.

The former host of “The Daily Show,” and Emmy Award-winning comedian joins us on the Hilltop this fall for an evening of laughs and insights.

Don’t miss this must-see Silk Speaker Series. RSVP: bit.ly/Noahfb1

Update: The event has sold out! We encourage you to sign up on the waitlist. All waitlist registrants will receive a web link to watch the livestream of the event.