President Harris’ Perspective

In the University’s vision, we state: “Strengthened by the Catholic intellectual tradition, we confront humanity's challenges by fostering peace, working for justice, and leading with love.”

“Leading with love” is a bold statement, so what do we mean when we say it? To me, leading with love has at least three elements: loving humanity, loving learning, and loving oneself. As a contemporary Catholic university, our goal at USD is to help our students grow in mind, body, and soul, ultimately preparing them to lead with love.

President Harris attending the 2024 USD Wine Classic

Loving humanity means becoming a compassionate servant-leader and at USD, we take our responsibility to serve humanity very seriously. USD faculty, students, and alumni actively and peacefully engage in the great issues of our time, by confronting humanity’s greatest challenges and working for peace and justice in the world. As one of the universities identified by the Vatican as a Laudato Si University, we are committed to Pope Francis’ call to demonstrate care for all of creation through our teaching, scholarship, and service to humanity. By studying the liberal arts, especially the humanities, we help our students develop compassion for others and a desire to help the most vulnerable amongst us.

The second element of leading with love is the love of learning. We want our students to become lifelong learners and leaders who are curious. At USD, we believe the best way to prepare our students for the future is through the liberal arts, grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition. In a time when we are all talking about artificial intelligence and its impact on society, there has never been a more important moment to be curious about what it means to be fully human. By inspiring an equal sense of curiosity about both AI and humanity we ignite the flame of lifelong learning in our students.

Finally, to lead with love is to love oneself. We are all children of God, and therefore we are all worthy of love. We must all do our part to ensure that everyone at USD has a sense of belonging and create an environment where we each can thrive and flourish. By recognizing the inherent dignity of every human being, we are acknowledging that everyone is worthy of love including the person we see in the mirror.