✨ Get Involved In Graduate Student Life ✨

Graduate school is a big commitment — and it's also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand your horizons and your community network. The University of San Francisco and School of Education have robust graduate student organizations just waiting for you to get involved.

Click the links below to learn more about each organization:

L&I Doctoral Student Association
School of Education School Life
Graduate Student Groups
Graduate Student Senate

L&I Doctoral Student Association

The L&I Doctoral Student Association is a student-run organization whose primary mission is to support L&I students and enhance the doctoral program experience. The purposes of this organization are to:

Build community through distributive leadership
Institutionalize student leadership structure
Develop relationships within and across all SOE doctoral programs
Develop and maintain alumni relationships
Host events and workshops to enhance USF’s SOE doctoral programs
Enhance student experiences through feedback mechanism with faculty
Support student goal development and attainment

Each student cohort has a Cohort Representative who attends L&I Doctoral Student Association meetings and communicates back to their cohort anything covered during the meetings, in addition to conveying to the Association any requests and communication from their cohort student body.

School of Education School Life

At the School of Education, our graduates — whether coming straight from undergrad, or returning to school after years away — connect to our social-justice mission and rally around it. Through the School of Education, you can get involved in:

Community Engagement & Activism
- Center for Humanizing Education and Research (C-HER): Organization that promotes the generation, application, and diffusion of high quality, methodologically rigorous research that is conducted in solidarity with local and global communities to address pressing issues through humanizing frameworks.
- Educators for Social Justice: Organization supporting pre-service teachers in building relationships with peers and colleagues in the Bay Area.
Student Services
- Cultural Centers: The centers serve as both physical spaces on campus where you can build community, and as outlets for student run programs that explore social issues and identity.
- International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS): Promotes a global perspective for the USF community through educational and programmatic outreach while fostering the holistic development of international students/scholars by providing support services and immigration advising.
Phi Delta Kappa (PDK): An international association composed of men and women devoted to excellence in education.

Learn more on the School of Education School Life website.

Graduate Student Groups

There are many Graduate Student Organizations on campus in addition to the L&I Doctoral Student Association. Organizations that might be of interest to incoming School of Education graduate students include:

Black Graduate Student Association
Dismantling Walls
Organizations in the Culturally-Focused Clubs Council (CFCC)

Find them all on the Graduate Student Organizations website.

Graduate Student Senate

The Graduate Student Senate (GSS) exists to represent, lead, and unify the Associated Graduate Students of the University of San Francisco (AGSUSF), to achieve the betterment of the students in their professional and social interests, and to promote the coordination of activities and events for the graduate student population. Full-time graduate students at the School of Education are considered to be part of the AGSUSF.

Get Involved with a GSS Committee:

External Affairs
Finance
Internal Affairs
Mission Committee

Learn more and get involved on the Graduate Student Senate website.