Beyond the Horizon
The Karen and Tom Mulvaney Center
for Community, Awareness and Social Action
The Karen and Tom Mulvaney Center for Community, Awareness and Social Action makes it possible for Changemakers to partner with, serve and engage with partners to make a lasting difference in communities locally, across the nation and around the world.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“There will be a legacy that goes beyond our children, our family and friends. It will be alive through the work we have done and what we have valued, which will continue to be seen and felt at local levels and beyond borders.”
— Karen and Tom Mulvaney
Current Initiatives
Today, the Mulvaney Center’s legacy of community engagement is stronger than ever.
The initiatives below highlight the center’s commitment to the community.
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
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.
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.
Fundraising Initiatives
The Mulvaney Center is committed to promoting social change and justice. Your support, and your gift, allows our work as Changemakers to be broader, to go deeper and to make an impact that will last for generations to come.
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.
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.
The Mulvaney Center
5998 Alcalá Park
Maher Hall, #218
San Diego, CA 92110
(619) 260-4798
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