University of San Diego
private university in San Diego, California, United States
The University of San Diego (USD) is a private Catholic research university in San Diego, California, United States. Chartered in 1949 as the independent San Diego College for Women and San Diego University (comprising the College for Men and School of Law), the two institutions merged in 1972.
The university includes the College of Arts and Sciences, Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science, Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, Division of Professional and Continuing Education, Knauss School of Business, School of Law, School of Leadership and Education Services (SOLES), and the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering.
USD has 89 undergraduate and graduate programs, and enrolls approximately 9,073 undergraduate, paralegal, graduate and law students. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". The San Diego Toreros compete in NCAA Division I (FCS) as a member of the West Coast Conference.
History
Charters were granted in 1949 for the San Diego College for Women and San Diego University, which included the College for Men and School of Law. The College for Women opened its doors to its first class of students in 1952. The Most Reverend Charles F. Buddy, D.D., then bishop of the Diocese of San Diego and Reverend Mother Rosalie Hill, RSCJ, a Superior Vicaress of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, chartered the institution from resources drawn from their respective organizations on a stretch of land known as "Alcalá Park," named for Didacus of Alcalá. In 1954, the College for Men and the School of Law opened.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “University of San Diego” as private university in San Diego, California, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as private university in San Diego, California, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q262663. VIAF identifies the subject as 156310518. The Library of Congress control number is n79122465. Authority coordinates are 32.771, -117.188. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1972, 1952 and 1954.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “University of San Diego” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.