Campus Scenic

Campus Scenic

Beyond the Horizon

Stephanie Ramirez

Stephanie Ramirez

Community Engagement

Engaged Learning 

Community-engaged learning is woven throughout USD’s curriculum. Each year, courses, programs, scholarships and partnerships at the Mulvaney Center make it possible for USD’s faculty, staff and students to contribute more than 416,000 hours of community engagement locally and globally.

6.8k

students participate in community-engaged learning projects annually

96+

USD courses include a community-engaged component

416k

number of hours USD faculty, staff and students contribute globally

MUlvaney Exterior

MUlvaney Exterior

Honoring the Past

And Early Visionaries

What started as USD’s Center for Community Service-Learning, became the nexus for student volunteers. Founded in 1986, the center encouraged faculty members to weave service opportunities into their courses — allowing students to enhance what they learned in the classroom with what they learned while serving the community.

Girl Watering

Girl Watering

National Leader

Enhancing Student Experiences

USD is recognized as one of the top community-engaged learning programs in the nation for demonstrating a track record of integrating community engagement with academic study — to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities.

Carla Aguierre

Carla Aguierre

Committed to

Serving the Common Good

We earned the Carnegie Foundations’ Community Engagement Classification, honoring USD as one of only 76 campuses nationwide to receive the Community Engagement classification and one of 62 recognized by Carnegie for outreach and partnership with local communities.

Nina Schneider

Nina Schneider

Why We Do It?

The World Needs Changemakers

Due largely in part to the opportunities made possible through the Mulvaney Center, USD was the first campus on the west coast to be designated as a Changemaker campus and remains one of only 44 Changemaker campuses in the world.

Karen and Tom Mulvaney

Karen and Tom Mulvaney

Karen and Tom Mulvaney

Honoring
a Gift

USD Trustee Tom ’77 (JD) Mulvaney and his wife, Karen, were inspired to give a gift of nearly $3 million to endow the Center for Community Service-Learning in October 2014. To honor the gift, the center became known as the Karen and Tom Mulvaney Center for Community, Awareness and Social Action.

Scott MacDonald

Scott MacDonald

Donor Insight

From scott MacDonald

“College or university education in the United States should include a funding element for need-based students that empowers and allows students to have an impact on others. I have every expectation that the next wave of young people that are going through school empowered and directed and mentored are going to do wondrous things, not only during the time they’re in school but beyond that. It makes society a better place.”

Community Partner Highlight

User-Centered Design

The Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering works with the Blind Community Center of San Diego to learn how to design with the users’ needs in mind.

PeaceCorps

PeaceCorps

CommitMent to Service

Number One In Public Service

USD is proud to be ranked by Washington Monthly as the No. 1 university in the nation committed to public service! The publication calculated each institution’s performance on five different measurements — the number of students serving as members of the military, the institution’s dedication to community service, the voting engagement of students, the number of alumni active in the Peace Corps and the number of students who served in the AmeriCorps.

Your Horizon

Your Horizon

Beyond the Horizon

Looking Toward the Future

As we look toward what’s ahead on the horizon, the Mulvaney Center is raising money to expand and deepen our current projects, while bringing new and exciting long-term goals to life. We’re asking you to be a part of all that’s to come.