Santa Clara University

Student Life

CAMPUS MINISTRY

What is Campus Ministry? Campus Ministry is a place and people, committed to spiritual and personal growth.

• In support of the University’s mission to “development of the whole person,” Campus Ministry offers a variety of programs and pastoral presence to support that development, particularly the spiritual and personal aspects.
• Campus Ministry is a place: a welcoming environment where faith may be explored, discovered, and developed; a place where there is always someone to talk to about anything, and a place where people meet for small groups, prayer, reflection, and learning.
• Campus Ministry is also the people. More than 500 students attend weekly worship, and even more students are involved in campus ministry programs. In addition to seven campus ministers, there are also resident ministers living in residence halls on campus.

What does Campus Ministry have to offer?

• Worship: Three Sunday liturgies in the Mission Church, daily noon Mass in the Mission, University celebrations, prayer services, and ecumenical (Christian) and interfaith services throughout the year.
• Leadership opportunities: Campus Ministry offers paid internships in the areas of liturgy, social justice, faith formation, Christian diversity, resident ministry, vocation discernment, interfaith ministry, retreats, and public relations. The internships encourage students to develop their interest and skills in ministry.
• Retreats: Santa Clara students, faculty, and staff are offered a number of retreat experiences over the course of the academic year. Offerings include a silent retreat, Search retreats, an Ignatian retreat, and vocation discernment retreats. Retreats are offered to persons of all faiths.
• Reflection groups: In addition to small groups such as Christian Life Communities and DISCOVER groups, Campus Ministry also partners with various organizations on campus to deepen reflection opportunities. The weekly Interfaith Council dinner discussion is one example.
• Faith formation: Campus Ministry offers several opportunities for students to learn, to reflect and grow in regard to their faith through Scripture reflection, forums and presentations, and Sacraments of Initiation.
• Social justice awareness and action: Campus Ministry provides students with a variety of opportunities to respond to the Gospel call to actively live out a faith that does justice. Some key focus areas include: weekly meetings of the Faith, Justice and Spirituality group; addressing the needs of the local, national, and global communities; action, education, and reflection about current events; and experiences of solidarity.

Is Campus Ministry for everyone? Yes! We welcome the participation of anyone—student, staff, or faculty—interested in spiritual and personal growth, regardless of faith tradition.

CAMPUS RECREATION

Campus Recreation is committed to the Jesuit ideal of developing the whole person through a broad range of recreational, educational, and competitive opportunities that seek to enrich the lives of students, faculty, and staff. Informal recreation opportunities include drop-in use of the weight and cardiovascular equipment and gymnasium in the Pat Malley Fitness and Recreation Center, lap swimming in the Sullivan Aquatic Center, and playing tennis at the Degheri Tennis Center. Noncredit Lifetime Recreation fitness classes are also provided for a nominal quarterly fee to all members. Available classes include Yoga, Pilates, kickboxing, cycling, step aerobics, and more. Organized intramural sports leagues provide competitive opportunities in flag football, tennis, volleyball, badminton, basketball, soccer, table tennis, and softball against fellow Santa Clara students, faculty, and staff. Competitive club sports, open only to students, represent Santa Clara against teams from other colleges and universities. Current club sports include boxing, cycling, equestrian, men’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s rugby, men’s and women’s ultimate Frisbee, men’s and women’s club volleyball, paintball, sailing, shotokan karate, swimming, triathlon, and women’s field hockey.

CAREER CENTER

The Career Center provides students with a variety of services and resources to encourage self-discovery, provide a meaningful vocational journey, and educate for the continuous process of career and life development. Students explore their majors and career choices with counselors to reflect on attributes such as personality, skills, interests, and values and learn to represent those attributes effectively on resumes, in cover letters, during interviews, and throughout the life of their careers. To help students develop their skills and to put them in touch with potential employers, the Career Center offers a variety of programs each year, including career fairs, employer information sessions, career networking with alumni, vocation symposia, classes on career strategies, resume writing seminars, internship workshops, interview training, mock interviews, and professional etiquette training. Drop-in and by-appointment counseling sessions provide opportunities for individual support. The Career Center’s website provides resources on internships, jobs, career fields, and career management strategies, as well as timely information on upcoming career-related events. Students may register online to participate in on-campus interviewing and to receive frequent notices about full-time and part-time jobs, internships, cooperative education placements, and volunteer positions. A resource library provides computer workstations for online research, books, and brochures on all aspects of career choice and job search, industry directories, journals, newspapers, information on particular companies, and guides to graduate schools.

The Student Employment Office, operated through the Career Center, assists students with on- and off-campus University student employment positions. Positions are posted through the Career Center’s BroncoLink online job listings and are accessible to students via e-campus.

REGISTERED STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

• Association of Graduate Engineering Students (AGES)
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
• Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers/Computer Society (IEEE/CS)
• SWADES (the Indian student organization)
• Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
• Taiwanese Student Association (TSA)

A complete listing of engineering organizations is available here.

STUDENT MEDIA

KSCU is a student-run, non-commercial radio station at 103.3 FM. The program format features primarily independent music, including indie rock, punk, ska, jazz, blues, and reggae. Students may get involved with the radio station as a staff member or as a volunteer disc jockey, office assistant, fundraiser, or sound technical staff.

The Santa Clara is the University’s undergraduate weekly newspaper, serving as an informative and entertaining student-run campus publication. Students may get involved in a staff position or as a volunteer writer, photographer, or member of the business staff.

The Santa Clara Review is the University’s biannual literary magazine and draws submissions from students, fac and artists outside the University community. The Review is committed to the development of student literary talent in editorial knowledge and creative writing skills. Students may get involved with the magazine in several staff positions and with opportunities to volunteer in the areas of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and management.

The Redwood is the University’s annual yearbook capturing the pictorial history of each academic year. Students may get involved with the yearbook through staff positions and volunteer roles in writing, design, photography, and management. Students at-large are encouraged to participate by contributing photos and writings.

The Santa Clara Community Action Program is a community-based, volunteer service organization that promotes social awareness, leadership for social justice, and compassion, and provides students opportunities to apply their education to social service. Program opportunities include Special Olympics, Veteran Connection, tutoring, and education.

Students may get involved in both staff leadership positions and volunteer opportunities.

COMPUTING SERVICES AND ELECTRONIC RESOURCES POLICY

Graduate students are supported with a variety of computing services at Santa Clara University. All registered students are provided with University networking (wire and wireless) and e-mail accounts and may use any of the general computing resources provided by the University. Students agree that their use of the network and computing resources will be in accordance with the University’s Acceptable Use Policy. The University uses Santa Clara e-mail as one of the communication channels for official notification to undergraduate students. Although the University urges students to use their Santa Clara e-mail address as their primary e-mail, students who will not be checking that address regularly should forward their Santa Clara e-mail to their alternate e-mail address.

Students have access to administrative information and services at all times through the e-campus portal. Web-based services include registering for classes, checking class availability, adding and dropping classes, reviewing class schedules, checking course grades, obtaining transcripts, reviewing financial accounts, and updating demographic information such as local and permanent addresses, phone numbers, and alternate e-mail addresses. Students and their faculty advisors can conduct degree audits online to assess progress toward completing degree requirements. An especially important administrative service is Campus Alert, the University’s emergency notification system. Students should log onto e-campus to keep their emergency contact information current.

Although most students have their own computers, the University provides both PC and Macintosh high-end workstations in the Harrington Learning Commons for general computing. High-end multi-media workstations can also be found there in the Multi-Media Lab. The general workstations have a variety of software packages for word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, and programming use, as well as networking software to support Web browsing, Telnet, and FTP with full Internet access. The multi-media stations include software for video editing, Web design, publishing, and other purposes. In addition to the workstations provided in Harrington, there are more than 400 computers located in classrooms and distributed computing labs dedicated to specific academic disciplines.

The University is connected to the Internet via high-speed connections with Internet access from the Santa Clara campus freely available to all students. Students living off campus must make separate arrangements for Internet access from their local residence. Almost all of the University campus is also covered by a wireless network.

All full-time faculty members have a personal computer or workstation in their offices, and computer use is a common element in all disciplines. E-mail is a frequent communication tool between and among faculty and students. Many faculty place course-related materials on ANGEL, the University’s learning management system, or the University electronic reserve system (ERES), where they are accessible 24 hours per day.

The OSCAR library system provides students with access to the collections of the University Library and the Heafey Law Library and serves as a gateway to the University’s online resources and interlibrary loan services, including the combined collections of more than 40 member institutions.

COUNSELING AND PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES (CAPS)

Counseling and Psychological Services offers mental health services to undergraduate and graduate students. The mission of the services is to support the developmental growth of students in ways that enable them to become more effective in their personal, academic, and social functioning. Counseling helps students address psychological issues that may affect their successful participation in the learning community. Among the psychosocial and developmental issues that students work on with their counselors are depression, anxiety, interpersonal problems, disturbed sleep or eating behaviors, acculturation, academic motivation, homesickness, family concerns, intimacy, and sexuality. The services are confidential and free and include individual counseling, couples counseling, group counseling, and psycho-educational programs. When CAPS is closed, an after-hours crisis line is available to students at 408-551-1760.

COWELL STUDENT HEALTH CENTER

Cowell Health Center provides quality, accessible, and convenient medical care to Santa Clara students. The Health Center provides primary medical care, physicals, diagnosis of illness and injuries, immunizations, gynecological examinations, limited in-house pharmacy, and referral to specialists when needed. The Health Center staff includes physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, registered nurses, and medical assistants. In addition, a psychiatrist, registered dietician, and physical therapy assistant are each available on a part-time basis.

Graduate students who choose to use the Health Center must pay a health fee of $90 per quarter to be seen. The Health Center does not charge for visits, but does charge students for laboratory work, medications, medical equipment, and other specialized services. Students are seen on an appointment basis and usually can be seen the same day, if an appointment is requested in the morning. The center is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday when classes are in session, except for Thursdays when the center opens at 9:15 a.m. When the Health Center is closed, there is an advice nurse available by phone and volunteer student emergency medical technicians who can visit students on campus. The center is closed from mid-June to mid-August.

All international graduate students must carry health insurance, either their own personal plan or the University-sponsored plan. Graduate students who want to purchase the University health insurance must also pay the $90 per quarter health fee. Please call the insurance coordinator at 408-554-2379 for further information.

OFFICE FOR MULTICULTURAL LEARNING

The mission of the Office for Multicultural Learning is to coordinate, collaborate, and promote cross-campus programming and related initiatives for purposes of enhancing Santa Clara University’s goals for diversity and inclusive excellence and providing a welcoming campus climate in conjunction with the University Council on Inclusive Excellence.

The Office for Multicultural Learning, which is part of the Center for Student Leadership, serves as a campus-wide resource for information about multicultural issues and diversity. It offers multicultural learning experiences that educate the campus to respect and honor differences, promote dialogue and interactions among individuals from different backgrounds, and support collaborative efforts between the University and the local community.