Transformation and change are surrounding us this semester at the University of St.Francis (USF). First-year students are taking their first steps into adulthood, staff and faculty are transitioning into new positions with new responsibilities and changes are being made to the physical parts of campus. We are seeing a transition at USF unlike anything we have experienced before. Last year was the hard kind of transition, the kind that we didn’t quite understand. While we knew changes were...

At the beginning of March, the University of St. Francis (USF) and Joliet Junior College (JJC) officially announced their partnership project that is intended to make higher education more accessible to all students. This partnership, called “The Bridge Forward Partnership,” is intended to encourage current JJC students to continue their education locally at our four-year institution. This partnership is making an effort to alleviate the stress of transferring from a two-year institution to...

Many of us are prone to skimming the masses of emails that flood our inbox everyday. Sometimes, hidden gems stay hidden because more often it is easier to delete the spam and move on with our day. An email that we see hit our inbox annually this time of year is the opening of the application to become a Schmitt Scholar. Schmitt Scholars are supported by a grant gifted by the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation. This foundation supports leadership development programs intended to propel intelligent...