Donna Schaeffer, director of the degree program in information systems in the College of Professional Studies, and Tom Lucas, S.J., head of the university’s new visual and performing arts program in the College of Arts and Sciences, were honored for their ethical and aesthetic contributions to the university at the president’s convocation address Nov. 18.
Schaeffer was awarded the Sarlo Prize, which recognizes excellence in teaching based on the moral values underlying USF’s identity. Fr. Lucas was awarded the Ignatian Service Award which recognizes exceptional service to the university and community at large.
Schaeffer is the director of the country’s first information systems program that incorporates ethics courses as the capstone class at both the master’s and bachelor’s levels. This year marks the graduation of the program’s first master’s degree cohort. The class has already reported exercising its ethical lessons in the real world, from seeking better work-life balances to refusing to sell to clients computer software they know is not yet ready for market, Schaeffer said.
“We’ve taken the university’s mission and prescribed it in our courses,” Schaeffer said. “We get people to look at the pros and cons of how information systems are implemented, we teach them to be self-aware, to understand how technology affects our lives and to seek the common good.”
Fr. Lucas this year successfully launched a new visual arts program on campus after USF decided to end its years-long cooperative contract with the California College of Arts and Crafts. New space in the basement of Xavier Hall was remodeled to make arts studios and currently 100 students have declared themselves arts majors. Five years ago he also started the Thacher Gallery in the Gleeson Library/Geschke Center.
“This is beyond our wildest dreams,” Fr. Lucas said. “Arts are exploding on this campus.”
Fr. Lucas was also recognized for his own art contributions, ranging from the design of several chapels in St. Ignatius Church to creating the stained glass in the Loyola House and Lone Mountain chapels. He has also been asked to help design the restoration of the St. Ignatius Cathedral in Shanghai, China.
