Marks of Distinction:
How SOLES measures up today
Having grown from a small regional school to an outstanding national university in just sixty years, the University of San Diego and the School of Leadership and Education Sciences (SOLES) have distinguished themselves for these and other notable accomplishments: • 2008 U.S. News & World Report ranks SOLES among the top 100 national universities in graduate education programs. • In 2008, SOLES was granted a charter of Phi Delta Kappa, the oldest and most prestigious academic honor society in the United States. Only about 10 percent of colleges and universities in the nation have Phi Delta Kappa charters. • To address the shortage of qualified candidates for principalships,
SOLES and San Diego City Schools created the innovative Educational Leadership Development Academy (ELDA). Interns take course work at USD and work as full-time “apprentices” to mentor principals. • SOLES is unique in offering a specialization in nonprofit management within the leadership master’s degree, a program that combines state-of-the-art leadership theory and practice with cuttingedge management models. • The Marital and Family Therapy program at SOLES is one of only four degree-granting programs in California accredited by the Commissions on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education.
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• A requirement that all SOLES students must engage in an international experience prior to program completion. Cutting-edge technology. The new wireless executive training classroom at SOLES with its video conferencing capability and other state-of-theart technologies, is the site of many conferences, academies and sessions at SOLES. It features 60 executive1949
Charters granted for SDCM and SDCW
1951
Construction completed
style office chairs, web access, video conferencing, SMART technology, and an interactive console. What began more than a half century ago as a small department within the college for women with just one full-time and two part-time faculty members has grown to become one of the most highly regarded schools of its kind, with 42 full-time and 100 part-time faculty members. 1952
Mother Margaret Guest appointed SDCW department chair
1960
First Master’s of Education degree from SDCW
As a monument to these past six decades of unparalleled accomplishment, in fall of 2007 the newly completed Mother Rosalie Hill Hall — with its Spanish Renaissance architecture and gardens — would become a permanent home for SOLES, itself marking yet another new beginning or “renaissance” for a school that has come so far.
1963
SDCM adds Single Subject Teaching Credential Program
1972
SDCW and SDCM merge to become SOE; Msgr. William Elliott appointed dean
SDCM: San Diego College for Men SDCW: San Diego College for Women SOE: School of Education
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Mother Guest
Msgr. William Elliott