Giving to USD School of Law
When, as the newly appointed dean, I welcomed my first group of new students in August, I spoke to them about what it means to be a benefactor, or “doer of good,” for University of San Diego School of Law.
Gifts from our alumni benefactors have done much good here at USD School of Law. In recent years, our alumni’s generous financial support has been crucial in enabling us to:
- Provide scholarship support to more than 40% of our students;
- Recruit and retain our distinguished, nationally-ranked faculty and to support their scholarship and teaching;
- Establish centers, such as the Energy Policy Initiatives Center, Center for Intellectual Property Law and Markets and Center for Corporate and Securities Law, that provide our students with specialized training, while strengthening our ties to the legal and business community;
- Fund clinics, such as the Technology Entrepreneurship Clinic and our Legal Clinics, that give our students valuable hands-on legal experience; and
- Support the work of the Children’s Advocacy Institute, which is dedicated to the health and well-being of California’s children.
I offer my sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed and whose generosity has made USD School of Law such a strong and vibrant law school.
I am also asking you for your continued support as we create a vision of what USD School of Law should be, and can become, over the next five to ten years.
While I am working to develop this vision, certain aspects are already clear to me:
- We must ease the financial burdens we are imposing on our students, who now graduate with debts that average well over $100K, by increasing the funding (other than by raising tuition) available for financial aid, and by also raising funding to establish a loan forgiveness program for our graduates who seek to do public interest law or other community service;
- We must to continue to build our faculty, by recruiting and retaining the best scholar-teachers, supporting their scholarship, providing them state-of-the-art facilities and the other resources needed to educate the brightest students; and
- We must give our students access to and training on the legal software and other tools and technologies that are increasingly important to their success.
We face challenging times. Our new students arrive here with great dreams and ambitions for their future as lawyers. Increased financial support from our alumni will be essential to ensure them a legal education that will prepare them to compete successfully in the changing legal marketplace and global economy.
With our history of notable achievements, we should not be modest about our ambitions or our vision for USD School of Law. These ambitions will require your continued and increased support. We owe this to our current and future students, as well as to our alumni, all of whom will benefit from the increased value of a law degree from USD.
With Thanks and Best Wishes,
Stephen C. Ferruolo
Dean and Professor of Law
