Vice Chancellor Welcome

I am pleased to welcome you to the new and improved Student Academic Affairs (SAA) website. The SAA team provides a range of quality services to students and educators at UCSF. In choosing to enroll at a health sciences campus, the students we serve have demonstrated their strong commitment to taking care of others. It is a great privilege for SAA to serve such extraordinarily talented individuals – the next generation of leaders – who are dedicated to improving the quality of health care in the state, country and world. The SAA Team is working diligently to address two significant challenges that are priorities in the UCSF Strategic Plan.

First, we are identifying and implementing new ways to better serve the ever-changing needs of our students inside and outside the classroom. Rapid advances in technology provide new opportunities to serve student needs faster and more efficiently than in the past. We have used new technologies to streamline our student systems, especially the registration and financial aid systems. The recent creation of an endowment has also enabled us to sustain recent advances we have made in improving our classrooms. New and more complex health needs of students, especially mental health and counseling needs, have prompted us to increase access to a wider range of health services at a reasonable cost.

Second, the SAA team is working with faculty, staff and students throughout the campus to better coordinate existing and design new initiatives that increase the diversity of our students. The establishment of a new expanded partnership with San Francisco Unified School District is a very important component of our work to strengthen local educational pathways serving P-12 students from diverse backgrounds. By enrolling and graduating more students from underrepresented backgrounds, UCSF will help to increase the diversity of the next generation of health care leaders while expanding access to care in many of California’s underserved communities.

I am honored to lead SAA at this very important time in the history of UCSF. If I can be helpful to you, please contact me at joseph.castro@ucsf.edu.

Sincerely,

Joseph I. Castro, PhD, MPP
Vice Chancellor, Student Academic Affairs