Grounded in a 450 year Catholic, Jesuit tradition of intellectual excellence, ethical awareness, and community engagement, Santa Clara University (SCU) pursues its mission to educate leaders of competence, conscience, and compassion. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara regularly collaborates with corporations, research centers, and community organizations that are major actors in the U.S. economy. More than half of SCU’s 77,000 alumni reside and work in the Bay Area, driving the innovative and pioneering spirit essential to high technology, biotech, and sustainable energy industries.
Established in 1851, Santa Clara has the distinction of being California’s first operating institution of higher learning; SCU offers rigorous undergraduate curricula in the arts and sciences, business, and engineering to over 5,000 students; Santa Clara enrolls nearly 3,500 in nationally recognized graduate and professional schools in business, law, engineering, education and counseling psychology, theology, and pastoral ministries.
UNIVERSITY – RANKINGS AND RECOGNITIONS
U.S. News and World Report ranked SCU #2 among master’s universities in the West for the 20th consecutive year;
Santa Clara achieved the second highest undergraduate graduation rate (85%) among master’s universities nationally;
Santa Clara achieved the highest freshman retention rate (93%) of master’s universities in the West;
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine identified SCU among the country's best values in private universities.
SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES – RANKINGS AND RECOGNITIONS
U.S. News and World Report listed SCU’s School of Law as the 10th most diverse in the United States and ranked its intellectual property 8th nationally;
BusinessWeek ranked Santa Clara’s undergraduate business program #32 in the nation;
U.S. News and World Report ranked SCU’s part-time MBA program No. 10 and the executive MBA program ranked No. 15 in the nation. The part-time program, which has been in the top 20 every year since such rankings began in 1995, moved up three positions from last year, the fourth consecutive year it has achieved a higher ranking;
Santa Clara’s undergraduate engineering school ranked 19th nationally among programs that primarily grant baccalaureate and master’s degrees;
SCU’s School of Engineering has the second highest percentage of women on faculty among engineering programs nationally.
COMMUNITY & GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT – POINTS OF EXCELLENCE
SCU was named to the 2008 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for community service programs and student involvement;
More than 1,000 undergraduates participate in service learning placements in the community offered through SCU’s Arrupe Partnerships each year;
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching chose SCU as a pilot site in 2006 for a new category within the foundation’s Classification of Institutions of Higher Education: institutions committed to community engagement;
Santa Clara University’s School of Law supports several prominent public interest clinics, including: the Northern California Innocence Project, the Center for Social Justice and Public Service, and the Katharine and George Alexander Community Law Center;
Through the University’s Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI), promising social entrepreneurs in developing countries receive intensive business mentoring, networking, and venture funding. Tens of thousands of people are positively impacted worldwide;
SCU’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute engages more than 600 local senior citizens in thoughtprovoking coursework, activities, and outings each year;
SCU’s Learning Commons, Technology Center, and Library offers access to 800,000 volumes and 650,000 government documents for students and members of the public.
SUSTAINABILITY – POINTS OF EXCELLENCE
In 2007, Santa Clara University's president became a signatory of the American College and Universities Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), committing itself to climate neutrality;
In 2009, the University’s Sustainability Council and Office of Sustainability completed SCU's first Climate Neutrality Action Plan;
Sustainability has become a major curricular emphasis on campus, especially across science and engineering fields;
An undergraduate team from SCU’s School of Engineering earned 3rd place in the 2007 and 2009 DOE Solar Decathlon competitions, which challenged the best engineering schools to design, build, and test off-grid solar houses. Numerous SCU team members have gone on to work in green technology startup companies after graduation;
SCU now purchases 8,040 megawatt-hours (MWhs) of clean renewable energy from Silicon Valley Power. This is equivalent to the annual output of two and a half large-scale wind turbines and makes SCU the largest purchaser of clean power in Santa Clara, CA;
The University is installing a one megawatt rooftop solar array across three large campus buildings. This capacity will satisfy about 6% of the University’s total energy needs and 20% of summer daytime demand—when stress on the power grid is highest.