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

Planting Seeds of Change Together

Melissa Tang, Director of Programs, CommunityGrows As San Francisco is dealing with the consequences of unequal economic growth and gentrification, there is a greater need for communities to band together in solidarity. I work for CommunityGrows, a small grassroots youth development organization grown out of the needs of residents from the Western Addition. Twenty-three…

Reflecting On 2017

Professor David Donahue, Director of the Leo T. McCarthy Center I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Sankofa, the African word that means we need to know and understand our past to head intelligently into our future. Sankofa is usually symbolized by a bird whose feet are moving forward but whose head is looking back….

Releasing our 2017 Annual Report

Each year the Center strives to honor the legacy of Leo T. McCarthy through programs and scholarship that promote public service and the common good. This includes undergraduate community-engagement learning, faculty and university-wide development, graduate engagement, and community partnerships at both the local and global level. We are excited to share our 2017 annual report…

An International Student Who Wants You To Vote

USFVotes student volunteers on Move-in Day The National Voter Registration Day is on Tuesday, September 26th, and I want you to register! That’s a wish that might appear paradoxical due to the fact that I’m an international graduate student. I had a wonderful civics teacher back in Sweden who kept saying that voting is…

Meet Our 2017 McCarthy Fellows

In this summer program, McCarthy Fellows spend 12 weeks in full time internships at Sacramento institutions that contribute to the California policy-making process. Student engage in everything from conducting legislative research to responding to constituent concerns to drafting policy memos. Concurrently, they participate in a California Politics course focused on exposing and analyzing the structures…

New MA in Urban and Public Affairs Program Combines for a Winning Formula

This spring the Leo T. McCarthy Center announced that it will be combining two former programs: the Master of Arts in Urban Affairs and the Master of Public Affairs into one robust program, the MA in Urban and Public Affairs (UPA). Professor Rachel Brahinsky, program director of UPA, has been apart of the process since its inception. …

Our 2016 Report Card — Community Partner Survey Summary of Results

In April 2016, the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good administered its third biennial survey regarding community partners’ use of USF and McCarthy Center resources and their general perceptions of the University (including the institution as a whole, as well as students and faculty) and its role in the community….

Bridging Two Homes at Starbucks: From Udaipur, India to San Francisco

Syona Puliady B.A., International Studies ’17 Syona traveled to India as a participant in the 2016 summer cohort of the Privett Global Scholars program. It’s 2 a.m. and I am sitting in a 24 hour Starbucks writing a final paper on something I didn’t feel extremely passionate about. I have been awake for quite a…