Our Values

SFSU provides students with a quality education and strong support system to prepare you throughout your academic career and the next chapter.

SFSU students wearing their purple regalia on a trolley at Oracle Park

Your Success Is Our Mission

Student success is our top priority, and we’re committed to delivering on our promise. This means every student receives a high-quality education enabling them to graduate ready for the modern workforce or their next degree. 

Three University-wide initiatives support this mission: 

  • Graduation Initiative
  • Hispanic Serving Institute
  • Black Student Success Initiative

Graduation Initiative

SFSU has developed strategies to ensure students are supported throughout their academic journey leading them to graduation.

SFSU has increased course availability for high-demand courses so students make progress toward earning their degree.

  • SFSU hired more advisers and renovated the Undergraduate Advising Center so that it’s more accessible and welcoming.
  • SFSU implemented a data management system for more effective advising.
  • SFSU proactively identifies students in need of support earlier in the academic year. 

SFSU made student data more available to departments, colleges and the central administration to monitor and address student degree progress.

We provided more engagement opportunities, assistance in finding a major to declare and reducing health and wellness barriers for our first-year freshmen.

SFSU offered more targeted support services for students, such as expanded Metro Academies across the campus; more tutoring (particularly in writing and math); additional instruction for courses with a high failure-rates and provided faculty with resources to teach first-year seminar classes. 

SFSU hired enough faculty to support the curriculum and provided professional development to support student learning.

Serving Our Hispanic Students  

SFSU is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), a designation given by the U.S. Department of Education in 2016. HSIs are defined under the Higher Education Act as colleges or universities with at least 25% full-time equivalent undergraduate Hispanic student enrollment. 

In 2024, SFSU received the earned the prestigious Seal of Excelencia granted by Excelencia in Education, the nation’s premier authority on efforts to accelerate Latinx student success in higher education. The Seal is a national certification for institutions that strive to more intentionally serve Latinx students.   

We are one of 17 colleges and universities to earn the Seal in 2024. To earn the Seal of Excelencia, universities must demonstrate: 

  • An intentional, institutional focus on advancing Latinx student success by aligning data and practice 
  • Deliberate and ongoing assessment to identify and implement strategies that improve Latinx student achievement 
  • Leadership commitment to continue transforming into an environment where Latinx students thrive 
  • A long-term and unwavering commitment to intentionally serve Latinx, and all, students. 

Supporting Black Excellence at SFSU  

SFSU aims to create access and equitable academic opportunities for African American students on campus and in the greater Bay Area. We are committed to social justice and equity inclusively.  

We committed to several actions aimed at Black student success, including the following: 

  • Incorporating education about the ongoing, pernicious consequences of anti-Blackness, asset-based understandings of Blackness and support for anti-racism in all Student Life programming, including new student programming, leadership development and wellness initiatives 
  • Recruiting, retaining and graduating Black students by developing partnerships with regional K-12 and community college districts and by strengthening work to eliminate equity gaps  
  • Developing new programs that strengthen the pipelines to graduate education and careers for Black students 
  • Bolstering Black student life on campus by increasing support for the Office of Equity and Community Inclusion and the Black Unity Center. 
  • Raising philanthropic funds for the College of Ethnic Studies and for the financial support of students whose studies focus on the Pan-African diaspora or Black populations 
  • Advancing curricula that support Black student success by increasing the number of faculty whose work lies in the Pan-African diaspora or who have a demonstrated record of success in research, teaching and/or service with Black populations.