University of San Francisco

**Come Change the World** **FROM HERE** Like the city that surrounds it, the University of San Francisco offers you energy, optimism, and opportunity that you won’t find anywhere else. USF is a climb up Lone Mountain. USF is the poem you write for an engineering project. USF is small classes with professors who know their stuff and know your name. USF is late nights in Gleeson. USF is why? And why not? And says who? And what if? It’s ice cream with friends in the Mission. It’s boba at Baker Beach. It’s a ride on Muni. It’s an internship downtown. It’s shadowing a nurse in a neighborhood clinic. USF is a practice job interview with your career coach. It’s playing basketball in the fall and watching baseball in the spring. USF is an open door. USF is a place at the table. USF is you in the heart of the city that invents tomorrow, surrounded by people who care, working to change the world for the better. **OUR HISTORY** Ever since its beginning, the University of San Francisco has been different. The university was founded in 1855 as St. Ignatius Academy, a one-room schoolhouse on a cow path that would become Market Street. On opening day, three students showed up — for a student-to-faculty ratio of 1:1. By 1858, the number of students grew to 65. The State of California granted the college a charter in 1859. In 1880, the college moved to a new building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center (currently the site of Davies Symphony Hall). After the 1906 earthquake and fire, the college was moved to Hayes and Shrader Streets. The Jesuits acquired a small strip of property at the corner of Fulton Street and Parker Avenue, and in 1914, they completed the current St. Ignatius Church at that site. By 1927, to accommodate the growing student population, a building was built just to the east of the church and the college moved to its present location. In 1930, on the occasion of its diamond jubilee and at the request of alumni groups, St. Ignatius College was renamed the University of San Francisco. Like the city that surrounds it, USF is progressive. USF was one of the first racially integrated universities in the country. In 1951, when the USF football team was invited to play in the Orange Bowl on the condition that the team leave its Black players behind, the team declined. Lone Mountain was purchased by USF in 1978, extending the campus to 55 acres. USF is the only Division I university in San Francisco. In 2019, USF met its goal of zero net carbon emissions, 31 years ahead of its 2050 target date. Today, USF offers more than 80 undergraduate programs in the arts and sciences, business, and nursing and health professions, and more than 60 graduate programs in business, law, arts and sciences, education, and nursing and health professions. USF students come from 50 states and 111 countries. Grew up in 23 faith traditions. Speak 50 languages. USF has more than 117,000 alumni who live in 50 states, six U.S. territories, and 139 countries. They work in every field known to humankind. Wherever they are and whatever they do, everyone in the USF community shares one mission: Change the world for the better.