Students and Alumni | Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good

Civic Engagement Through an Outsider’s Lens

Franchesca Rugayan ’26 Politics major, started her political engagement early on in the Philippines, knowing that voter engagement was on the forefront of her mind. This summer as a McCarthy Fellow in Sacramento worked at the California Democratic Party, furthering her passion for advocacy. My application process for the McCarthy Fellows in Sacramento program began…

Congratulations to our ’24-’25 Holstein Scholars

Congratulations to our 2024-25 Robert Holstein Memorial Scholarship awardees. The scholarship is awarded to students who are deeply committed to scholarship, public service, and policy-making programs for the common good. Read the profiles our five deserving recipients, who are participating in one or multiple programs including the Public Service and Community Engagement Minor, USFVotes, Community…

The Light of the West End is in the Bayview

Traveling 3,000 miles away from home, Ashton Green ’26 , has been able to find his home away from home. Through the McCarthy Center’s Equity Intern program, he feels a close relationship between his hometown Atlanta, Georgia, and educating the youth of our future. Slowly intertwining within the Bayview community through this opportunity made me…

My Passion for Education

This summer, Equity Intern Kennidie shares how her work with young Power Scholars in the Western Addition has provided an opportunity to question her future role as an educator, the education system, and the teaching work field. Her recent classroom experience here and in her ancestral homeland of Guam reinforce her belief in the need…

Helping to Reach New Heights

Maxwell Ayiko Edmonds Drati, a rising senior majoring in Politics and minoring in African American Studies is spending his summer working at USF’s McCarthy Center as an Equity Intern. With a mission to diminish the education gap in San Francisco, Maxwell is dedicated to supporting marginalized communities in the Bay Area. His work at Rosa…

Advancing Educational Equity

Anne-Marie Cross is a senior at the University of Delaware, majoring in Elementary Teacher Education with a concentration in Middle School English Language Arts. This summer, she joins UD’s Biden Institute, the University of San Francisco, and the YMCA of San Francisco as an Equity Intern, to learn how to advance educational equity through a…

So long, McCarthy Center

Recent graduate, Priana Aquino ’22 reflects on her student experience at the McCarthy Center as a staff member and a program participant in the Public Service and Community Engagement Minor. She takes away a number of life long lessons on her next steps to law school and a move to the East Coast. For the…

Learning From Students

In this week’s blog, Equity Intern, Sarah Chavez ’24 reflects on her experience working with students in the YMCA of San Francisco’s Power Scholars Academy. Read on for why Sarah sees relationship building and empathy as key components for teaching and learning from students. The Equity Scholars Internship Program aims to help reduce the achievement…