Our Values
At USF, excellence is the standard for teaching, scholarship, creative expression, and service. Individuals from all faiths or with no religious affiliations contribute to the diversity of perspectives and experiences that are essential to our truly global education.
Care of the Whole Person
Cura personalis — care of the whole person — is a Jesuit tradition that inspires our distinct style of education. One in which intellect is only one part of an individual’s full development.
Jesuit education offers a distinctive pedagogical framework for educating the whole person (cura personalis) in which this connection between interior wisdom and exterior knowledge is made explicit."
Vincent Pizzuto, Associate Professor, Theology and Religious Studies
Women and Men for Others
Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., in his speech to the Tenth International Congress of Jesuit Alumni of Europe, called for action. He challenged Jesuits to reflect on what they believe in and how they act. And, in doing so, inspired generations of men and women to be proactive in their service to others.
Anyone who lives only for his or her own interests not only provides nothing for others. He or she does worse. They tend to accumulate in exclusive fashion more and more knowledge, more and more power, more and more wealth; thus denying, inevitably to those weaker than themselves their proper share of the God-given means for human development."
Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.
USF students are inspired by this Jesuit tradition to confront the things that degrade human dignity and to expose the voices of the underserved, disadvantaged, and poor.