USD Magazine Fall 2013

[by the numbers]

Alex Hermann ’14 had two requirements for a college: a palm tree on campus and proximity to a big city. Check and check. But what con- vinced Hermann to be the only student from his Balti- more, Md., high school to hit the West Coast was the excitement and enthusiasm in the people he met at USD. As the 2013-14 president of Associated Students, Hermann is generating that same enthu- siasm. With an ambitious set of goals for the year, he and his board hope to empower the student body to speak up, engage in their passions and express their Torero pride as Changemakers throughout the community. Goals for this year: “Our themes for this year include building a culture of Torero pride, exploring and imple- menting new communica- tion strategies, activating the USD community, engaging and involving the athletic community, empowering the senate, and advancing trans- parency between AS and the student body.” Favorite thing about USD: ”The people. Our campus is beautiful and the classes are challenging in all the right ways, but the people are what I look forward to most when returning to campus each September.” After graduation: “I plan to attend graduate school for broadcast journalism and pursue a career in the media industry.” H A I L TO THE CHIEF

under common themes, including: change; faith and reason; globaliza- tion; honors; intersection; natural world; social justice; space, place and sound; and sustainability. Students live among and attend classes with their fellow LLC resi- dents, including a preceptorial — a small core-curriculum course taught by a faculty member who also serves as a mentor. They discover that the intellectual conversation thrives between disci- plines and beyond the classroom. “These living learning communi- ties are a microcosm,” says Noelle Norton, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who with Mar- garet Leary, associate dean of students, led the LLC taskforce that launched the program in 2010 with three pilot communities. “They enhance the liberal arts because they help students think about a question with depth from all different disciplines.”

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FALL 2013