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

Administrative Office

University Center, Room 300

Phone: (415) 422-5662

Fax: (415) 422-5641

Patrick Murphy, Director

The Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good provides a forum for education, service and research in public policy-making and programs for the common good. It supports undergraduate academic programs, provides service learning, government and community service experiences for students and generates publishable research. A curriculum that blends rigorous intellectual training with fieldwork experience prepares students to articulate and promote the common good of all society's members through careers or service in government, non-profits or the private sector.

The Center sponsors courses for students interested in pursuing careers in public service and leadership, in both the public and the private sectors, providing the analytical, organizational and advocacy skills and preparation needed for sophisticated public service. Center-sponsored programs and courses are open to students in all majors. It is a tenet of the McCarthy Center that public service and the common good should be pursued in all career endeavors of USF graduates.

The Center conducts research and service projects on topics of pressing public importance, as well as offering colloquia, conferences, publications, distinguished speakers and other opportunities to explore aspects of public service and the common good.

The McCarthy Center involves experienced and distinguished public figures as lecturers, guest speakers or mentors in its courses and programs. Center participants learn first-hand from real world practitioners, coming to understand the competing and often conflicting pressures found in the environments in which public policy is made. They also come to appreciate how sound public policies and the common good are developed and achieved in diverse private sectors, both profit and non-profit. They learn that they cannot affect or alter government decisions without grasping the crosscurrents that reflect the varied interests of American society.

The University's Office of Service-Learning and Community Action (OSLCA) is an integral component of the Center. Students are offered learning experiences in non-profit organizations working on important public policy issues, in public offices in all three branches of government, and in appropriate for-profit settings where the common good is a conscious objective of the enterprise. The USF in DC Program offers students a semester-long internship at our nation's capitol.

In all of its programs and offerings the Center seeks to prepare students to be public service leaders. A core theme is how political and economic power is exercised, by whom, through what processes, on behalf of whom and with what results. In all Center activities the perspectives of the poor and the marginalized are honored and incorporated.

The McCarthy Center encourages and equips students who pass our way to embrace passionately some mission in public service of the common good. There is a distinct role in public service for each of us throughout our adult lives. The Center will encourage students to search for that role and prepare them to fulfill it.

The Center strives, in the words of St. Ignatius Loyola, to "pour into society graduates in numbers large enough to leaven it for good."

The Office of Service-Learning and Community Action (OSLCA) helps to coordinate and support service-learning courses and associated projects. The staff works with community partners, students and faculty to develop community-based learning opportunities and to strengthen connections between classroom learning and direct experiences with marginalized populations. OSLCA works to match the issues and capabilities of the community with the resources of the university in order to form a mutually beneficial partnership. The Office maintains a database of potential community partners and is available to assist USF students, faculty and staff to work with others in the community to learn about and address issues of local and global importance. For more information, contact (415) 422-2156, stop by University Center 300, or visit the Office of Service Learning and Community Action web site at http://serve.