USD Magazine Spring 2026

CELEBRATING 25 YEARS CENTER FOR EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE

In 1999, a group of faculty members and a School of Leadership and Education Sciences graduate student identified the need for a dedicated center to uplift USD’s commitment to excellence in teaching and learning. Today, the Center for Educational Excellence (CEE) is guided by a cross-campus advisory board of faculty and a dedicated team of staff members who serve faculty across all academic disciplines and schools. Through workshops, confidential consultations, guest speakers, communities of practice, a biweekly e-newsletter and other engagement opportunities, the CEE creates spaces for faculty learning, sharing and growth. “As a close-knit Catholic university committed to the liberal arts, it is essential that we explore practices to enhance teaching and support student learning,” said CEE Director Regina Dixon-Reeves, PhD. “The CEE creates a community of educators who support the personal and professional needs of faculty members and help set them up for success in the classroom and beyond.”

FROM OUTLAWED TO CELEBRATED The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) released a new set of stamps celebrating lowrider cars, a collaboration with community leaders, including USD’s Alberto López Pulido, PhD, professor of ethnic studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. He’s spent decades documenting Chicano and Latino culture, telling people’s stories and archiving history. Lowriders, he said, are an important part of that. “It started in the streets, and now it’s an integral part of American culture,” Pulido said. “It’s all about the artistic value that comes from culture and history. Lowriding is nothing short of what I like to call canvases on wheels. It’s an art form. It’s personal expression.” Dozens of lowriders lined the streets in Logan Heights in March, when Pulido and the USPS held a first issue ceremony for the new stamps. The event was the realization of Pulido’s life’s work. This corner of the culture, which meant so much to him, had been outlawed and derided for decades. Now it was being celebrated by hundreds of people and government officials on the lawn of a public library.

CEE PROGRAMMING AT A GLANCE (2024-25) 63 opportunities offered 532 participants 1,360 Your Teaching Toolkit subscriptions

At the Forefront of Research Innovation

USD is part of an important new initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation, that will help institutions oversee key facets of research. It’s called ResDataNexus, and it’s being developed in partnership with Elon University and Pepperdine University. The infrastructure and analytics model is designed to help emerging research institutions (ERIs) more effectively monitor research outputs, expenditures and grant activity. ERIs often face critical analytical and administrative challenges in tracking research activity, benchmarking performance, supporting faculty proposals and strategically planning for growth. By providing a robust toolset to capture and forecast research productivity and grant activities, ResDataNexus addresses those pain points directly by enabling institutions like USD to shift from reactive to proactive research planning. In leading the ResDataNexus initiative, USD stands at the forefront of a new wave of research capacity building for emerging research institutions. By leveraging data-driven decision-making, the university and its partner institutions are strengthening the foundation for research excellence.

“We’ve come a long way,” Pulido said.

LEARN MORE about the first ever lowrider stamps. sandiego.edu/ newscenter/122000

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