University of San Diego

On a mesa above Mission Bay, the University of San Diego occupies one of the more visually arresting campuses in the American West. The buildings are styled after the Spanish Renaissance architecture of Alcalá de Henares in Spain, all white stucco and blue tile domes, and the effect looking out from Linda Vista Road is something between a hilltop monastery and a village transplanted from Castile.

The university was chartered in nineteen forty-nine through an unusual collaboration. Bishop Charles Francis Buddy of the Diocese of San Diego and Mother Rosalie Clifton Hill of the Society of the Sacred Heart each wanted to establish Catholic institutions of higher learning in the city. They agreed to share a site. The Society's College for Women opened in nineteen fifty-two and the bishop's College for Men in nineteen fifty-four. They operated separately on the same campus for nearly two decades before merging into a single University of San Diego in nineteen seventy-two.

The School of Law opened during the same period and became a significant force in Southern California legal education, producing judges, senators, and public defenders alike. The university today enrolls roughly nine thousand students and remains formally affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church while drawing a diverse, ecumenical student body.

What distinguishes USD academically is a sustained commitment to the liberal arts tradition at a moment when many institutions have retreated from it. Philosophy, theology, and the humanities sit at the center of the undergraduate core rather than at the margins. The Kroc School of Peace Studies, founded with a major gift from Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, brought an internationally recognized program in conflict resolution and peacebuilding to the campus. In a region defined by military bases and defense contracting, it is a striking institutional counterweight.