The following comes from an Oct. 21 story in the Foghorn, the student paper at USF.
Students at USF this year have the rare opportunity to participate in the search for the University’s next president.
University President, the Reverend Stephen A. Privett, S.J., announced plans to retire from his position at the end of his third and final term in a campus-wide email, last month. Privett will continue to serve as university president until a successor has been named and the presidential transition completed.
The search effort for USF’s 27th president is being led by two teams within the Board of Trustees: the Presidential Search Committee, which consists of only Trustees, and the Search Advisory Committee, which consists of Trustees and representatives from various constituencies on campus, like students and faculty.
To read the entire story, click here.
The following comes from a Nov. 8 press release from USF.
University of San Francisco President Stephen A. Privett, S.J. has been named Most Admired CEO of the year by the San Francisco Business Times, joining prior years’ distinguished winners such as the San Francisco Giants’ Peter Magowan and PG&E’s Peter Darbee.
Fr. Privett was selected in the “large nonprofit” category for his commitment to innovation and dedication to the local community. As president, he established new campuses in downtown San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento to connect students and faculty to leading California thinkers and companies; created the California Prize for Service and the Common Good to honor California leaders who give back to the less fortunate; and overseen 38 percent growth in total student enrollment, while recruiting students with the highest grade point averages and test scores in the university’s history.
Gala celebration
Fr. Privett, and CEOs in 10 other categories, will be honored at a gala event on Nov. 12 and be profiled in the Nov. 15 special “Most Admired CEO” issue of the San Francisco Business Times.
To read entire story, click here.
The following comes from a Nov. 13 story in the Foghorn, the student paper at USF.
International Transgender Day of Remembrance is held on Nov 20 to commemorate those who have been killed due to anti-transgender prejudice. To honor this day, interns of The Gender & Sexuality Center organize a Transgender Awareness Week, which takes place November 11-17.
Transgender Awareness Week is a chance for individuals and organizations around the world to help raise awareness of transgender and gender non-conforming people and the issues that they face.
To read the entire story, click here.
No matter who they choose as their next president, nothing will improve in that university with regards to morals, as long as they continue to accept US Federal taxpayer dollars in exchange for Federally imposed policies.
I am not sorry to see Fr. Privett go, and I hope, take up his work to “orat. pro Soc.” (pray for the Society and the Church).
I am sorry to see Fr. Privett depart USF, an outstanding Jesuit, a fine man!!
I wish Pope Francis the Jesuit would appoint the new head i would feel soo much better then.
Berkeley educated, steeped in the “peace and justice” worldview, Fr. Privett brought respect for homosexuality and abortion.
Do you remember when someone posted the photos of the novitiates at a drag party organized by Privett?
It is absurd for any observant Catholic to call Privett “a fine man.”
Recall that his first act as president of USF in 2001 was to terminate the St. Ignatius Institute, a great books program within the university faithful to the teachings of the Magisterium. The SII had been in place since its founding by Father Joseph Fessio 25 years earlier. The employees were summarily fired without notice. The termination of the SII followed the same blueprint used by Fr Privett while Provost at Santa Clara to terminate SCU’s storied football program in 1993. Critical observers saw a parallel -the termination of both programs were quite possibly born of the same objective – to rid the universities of elements contrary to the free reign of feminist and homosexualist ideals.
Steve,
You have to take into consideration just who and what are calling him a fine man!
May God have mercy on an amoral America!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
Just looking at the courses offered and the groups at USF tells the story of Fr. Privett. May he repent before it is too late…
USF’s loss of the St.Ignatius Institute was Thomas Aquinas College’s gain. The
wonderful Jesuit, Fr. Buckley then took up residence at TAC. Fr. Privett was not
good enough to polish Fr. Buckley’s shoes. And Fr Fessio does a magnificent job directing Ignatius Press. Without SII on campus, Stephen Privett was able to do as he wished. Because he was head of USF, we as graduates have nothing to do with the university we once admired. We pray that someone with logic will realize what a priest like Stephen Privet has done to USF and will bring it back to the great school of learning it once was. This also means a CATHOLIC University.
Not exactly. At the time of the SII termination, Fr Buckley was serving a Jesuit exile as Chaplain at a hospital in Duarte, CA, the name of which presently escapes me. Father Fessio then launched the ill-fated Campion College and as a result was himself then exiled to join Fr Buckley in Duarte. After an international letter writing campaign, Thomas Smolich SJ, local provincial, relented and allowed Fr Fessio to join the faculty and administration at non-Jesuit Ave Maria University in Naples, FL. Fr Buckley later became Chaplain at TAC (he is now Asst Chaplain); and Fr Fessio’s tenure at AMU ended after a number of years. A reference in Malachi Martin’s book, “The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church,” has it that Fr Buckley was exiled in retaliation for his objection to liturgical abuses at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. (Martin was also ostracized by the Order.) Rome historically has expelled heretics, the Jesuits have a pattern of expelling models of orthodoxy.
The hospital was Santa Teresita.
I can and cannot believe this man has been allowed to continue unabated. As a graduate of the SII, I have such a very, very hard time feeling charitable toward Father Privett. I heard him talk, was witness to the serpentine manipulation of facts and logic that led to the demise of a program that endeavored only to celebrate classical Catholic liberal education AS the Jesuits themselves once celebrated.
Not that they suffer from the loss of my support, but I can never wear apparel from that school, will never donate a penny to it, and have no pride whatsoever in my “Alma Mater”. In all sincerity, may God have mercy on him.
Why is it that most (not all) of the Jesuit schools of “higher” learning are so full of things so low, which they celebrate?
Clement XIV had the right idea, it’s past due for another Dominus ac Redemptor – but make it permanent this time.
As someone who is a USF graduate (’02) who had to witness this man and his awful treatment of the SII along with the collective welcoming of alternative programs tot he campus, this is welcome news indeed. It is, however, many years too late, unless we can talk Fr. Spitzer into becoming the next USF President. I have little hope that the University will do anything but continue on its leftist pro homosexual agenda, which substitutes social justice for education.
Fr. Spitzer as President of USF would be more than welcome. What a fantastic idea. Then there might be some hope of USF returning to the once outstanding Catholic University that it once was. Fr. Buckley had the last laugh. He retired from the faculty of TAC with his head held high. Will Stephen Privett be able to do this when leaving USF. I think you will find that most people will be delighted to see the end to his despicable reign.
Again, not exactly. Fr Buckley has not retired from Thomas Aquinas College (and never was a member of the TAC faculty, per se), but remains as an assistant chaplain, a position he assumed this school year after serving as head chaplain since joining TAC in August 2004. Regarding Fr Spitzer, I doubt he would be any more “welcome” at USF than any other orthodox Jesuit, which is to say not at all. If USF were interested in orthodoxy, it certainly would never have dispensed with the great Fr Fessio.
The low point of Fr Privett & USF’s/St Ignatius’ Church’s history together was the raucous December 2001 wedding of Gavin Newsome and (former lingerie model–yes, it is documented— then later SF assistant district attorney) Kimberly Guilfoyle. At the wedding, communion was freely distributed to all of the attendees by Fr. Privett, regardless of faith practice, some distributing communion to each other (there were many other abuses, but these are only ones I am certain of); after which “rite” there was a lavish dinner at Plump Jack’s (Gordon Getty’s posh Marina district restaurant, since closed) (Plump Jack, a reference to Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry V and other plays, is one of Gordon Getty’s favorite characters in history, and an alter ego for Getty) attended by about 500 people and supposedly costing over $200k. A private party was later hosted at Getty’s Pacific Heights mansion, so Fr. Privett I am sure was ministering to the poor and powerless by his solicitous concern for putative future governor Newsom and power-broker/mogul Gordon Getty. Yes, it has been quite a ride for Fr. Privett, 3 x 5-year terms as president, and he has been a wonderful example for the Church and the Society of Jesus of what a priest should be.
If he needs help packing…I’m his huckleberry.