Working Group 4

Chairs:

  • Ellen Ryder, Vice President, Office of Marketing Communications
  • Christine Yeh, Professor, School of Education

Members:

  • Jonathan Allen, Professor, Social Media Manager, Office of Marketing Communications
  • Derick Brown, Senior Director, Leo T. McCarthy Center
  • Daniel Erwin, Director, Marketing Strategy, Office of Marketing Communications
  • Elliott Gentile, Assistant Director, Digital Fundraising and Annual Giving, Development
  • Brandon Graves, Associate Athletic Director of Development and Leadership Annual Giving
  • Alice Kaswan, Professor, School of Law
  • Maleeha Khan, Associate Director, Data Management and Operations, School of Management
  • Mary McInerney, Editor, USF News and USF Magazine, Office of Marketing Communications
  • Mohammed Nadeem, Assistant Professor, School of Management
  • Ed Shirhall, USF alumnus
  • Indre Viskontas, Associate Professor, Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences
  • Seth Wachtel, Professor, Program Director, Art + Architecture, College of Arts and Sciences
  • Chadwick Woodard, Associate Director, Development Communications, Development

SPAC Ambassadors:

The Working Group on Extending our Visibility, Prominence and Accessibility is a widely-representative group tasked with implementation of initiatives that will enhance the visibility, prominence and accessibility of USF through strategic partnerships, public programming, and community outreach and extend the reach of our faculty's creative works and scholarship by highlighting USF's public intellectualism.

These initiatives will be studied in the context of existing university communications channels, activities and resources.  Priority audiences for each initiative will be determined, and will likewise be studied and measured to track success and impact.  Depending on the initiative, audiences could include prospective students and their influencers (parents, counselors, discipline experts), academic peers, the media, thought leaders in multiple sectors (business, government, public health, local communities, etc.). 

The group will engage the USF community -- including various centers and academic and administrative units with expertise and relevant current projects -- to facilitate dialogue on this goal, coordinate with units to advance, develop and refine proposals, making them more concrete and actionable where needed, provide updates to the community, work collaboratively across the other working groups as needed, and generate recommendations for how best to implement the actions and objectives outlined in this goal.  Specifically, the working group is asked to develop recommendations that achieve the following:

  • Develop concrete and actionable next steps for extending our visibility, prominence and accessibility
  • Prioritize the objectives and action items to achieve goal #4
  • Establish ways of assessing progress and success (KPIs or other quantitative or qualitative metrics)

The working group will provide periodic feedback on its progress to the Strategic Planning Advisory Council and submit its final report and recommendations to the Council to be integrated into the broader strategic plan implementation process.

Goal 4

EXTEND OUR VISIBILITY, PROMINENCE, AND ACCESSIBILITY through strategic partnerships, public programming, and community outreach that extend our reach as people for and with others.

Objectives Actions
1. Increase USF’s visibility in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond through a comprehensive awareness campaign, strategic investments in facilities and technologies, and community outreach.
  1. Launch a comprehensive awareness campaign and revitalize institutional branding to boldly reflect USF’s mission, identity, and promise.
  2. Complete the creation of the USF Social Change Museum as a gateway to USF, showcasing USF’s living history as an agent for equity, diversity, and social justice and using community-based co-design by faculty, staff, students, and community members to ensure that the museum is responsive, welcoming, and dynamic.
  3. Re-envision the physical and digital technology spaces that welcome visitors, prospective students, alumni, and the broader community to our campuses, with design and services that are accessible, responsive, and showcase USF’s mission, identity, and contributions.
2. Become a leading destination for career acceleration, lifelong learning, and both virtual and on-campus programming related to social justice, sustainability, health equity, and innovation.
  1. Develop a structure to support cross-university collaboration and resource-sharing for certificates, badges, and other career acceleration programs.
  2. Boost public engagement with cultural and scholarly events, programming, and digital content, and track and set targets for annual participation.
  3. Cultivate an intergenerational learning environment and broaden our university revenue streams by growing an age-diverse student body via expansion of age-friendly related programs, teaching, research, and community engagement at USF.
3. Partner with educational and community organizations serving K-12 students to extend college access and civic-engagement opportunities for local youth and USF students.
  1. Extend the Rising Dons Mentorship program and other programming for youth from under-resourced, resilient communities in multiple sites in San Francisco and at our regional locations.
  2. Generate more first-generation college students by providing pathways to USF, and to college in general, in partnership with San Francisco Bay Area middle and high schools and community-based organizations.
4. Create incubator spaces where USF students, librarians, staff, and faculty, as well as industry and community partners, can unleash creative and collaborative ideas and generate daring solutions.
  1. Partner with industry and community-based organizations to develop incubator and accelerator spaces at our multiple locations, offering a range of opportunities such as co-working, maker spaces, hyflex conference rooms, labs, cafes, and mentoring opportunities.
5. Leverage reciprocal local, national, and global partnerships to boost visibility, advance the common good, extend access to USF’s programs, and enhance civic engagement and professional development for students, alumni, and community members.
  1. Establish an Internship Lab to strengthen student learning, mission engagement, and employment success through greater integration of curricula and first-hand learning experiences benefiting educational, business, and non-profit organizations locally and globally.
  2. Extend the Alumni Mentor Program and develop a Digital Alumni Hub technology to increase mentorships and experiential learning opportunities between students and alumni, focused on solutions to the world’s most critical challenges.
  3. Increase internship and employment opportunities for international students through initiatives that enhance employer relations and employment pipelines.
  4. Leverage and enhance our community-based organizations’ data and alumni digital technology infrastructure to increase community stakeholder access and foster collaborations between students, faculty, alumni, and community partners.
  5. Deepen partnerships with community colleges to streamline the transfer process, provide greater transitional support, and enhance transfer student success.
  6. Develop new industry, government, and community partnerships to provide access to USF’s hybrid and online degree programs and professional certificates for their employees locally, nationally, and globally.
  7. Strengthen San Francisco Bay Area partnerships — for example, the Community Research Collaborative — to provide African-centered and anti-racist education, research training, and program evaluation to Black students and community stakeholders to study endemic racism and pathways to improve social and economic outcomes.