community engagement | Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good

Farewell USF

In this week’s blog, we share a warm farewell to our Communications Assistant, Aisha Williamson-Raun ’23, as she ventures onto her next journey post-grad. After being with the McCarthy Center for 2 years, find out where she will go next and where her passions lie for the future. I spent the last 4 years with…

5 Things You’ll Learn as a CELT Fellow

In this week’s blog, Star Plaxton-Moore, Director of Community-Engaged Learning, shares her wisdom with five main takeaways that a Community-Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT) Fellow will learn during their program. Find out what key aspects of teaching are necessary in fostering a meaningful, community-engaged learning course across all disciplines. In my 17 years at USF,…

Supporting Student Leaders

For USF’s Day of the Don Celebration, we are reprinting a pre-pandemic post highlighting alum and supporter of our Center, Evelyn Fernandez Pedraza ’21, who became a dedicated social justice advocate through her experience as a her experience as a McCarthy Center Community Empowered Activist (CEA), Esther Madriz Diversity Scholar (EMDS), and Public Service and…

Come to Fellowship with the Fools

This week’s blog is from Silena Layne ’14, (center) Program Director at Faithful Fools and a long-time community partner of the Center. Learn about her experience with community-engaged learning classes at USF and how it influenced her current work in non-profits throughout San Francisco. Change is hard and when USF introduced student service-learning programs in…

Leo at the Creation

In this weeks blog, the Center’s founding director, Richard Spohn, recalls working alongside the Lt. Governor and the motivation behind creating the center. A rare privilege it was to work with Leo McCarthy in setting on a solid foundation and off on a true trajectory the Center for Public Service and the Common Good. Genial,…

Working for our Essential Workers

This week’s blog is a reprint from the May ’21 issue of the USF Magazine. Miriam Uribe ’17, former Advocate for Community Engagement (ACE), is another McCarthy Center alum named on USF’s 30 Under 30 list! As an ACE, Miriam served as a year-long liaison between USF students, faculty, and our community partner, Generation Citizen,…

An Embodiment of our Values

(Interview reprinted from USF News 10/07/20.) As a McCarthy Center Community Empowered Activist (CEA), Evelyn Fernandez Pedraza ’21 embodies the university’s core values as a dedicated social justice advocate. In addition to majoring in Sociology and minoring in Public Service and Community Engagement, she’s also been an Esther Madriz Diversity Scholar (EMDS), a Resident Advisor,…

Voting as a Value

San Francisco McCarthy Fellow, Maya Lawton (’21), reflects in this week’s blog on the importance of casting your vote. Through her work as a Fellow and as a part of USFVotes, Lawton acknowledges the necessary engagement, responsibility, and community building that comes with political activism. Read more for her take on the empowerment voting entails….