Charting Our Path Forward: UHS Celebrates its Updated Mission Statement

In 2024, after a year of thoughtful and collaborative work with a task force comprised of faculty, staff, parents, and alums, the UHS Board of Trustees unanimously approved the school's new mission statement. With the last mission established in 2003 and several pivotal milestones on the horizon, we are excited and confident to more clearly identify, articulate, and amplify the core guiding principles that shape our work.

At San Francisco University High School, we engage our community of diverse voices in a transformational experience that embraces the spirited pursuit of learning
and empowers purpose larger than self.

Shaping Our Future Together

As we approach our 50th anniversary, campus expansion, and new strategic design, the task force recognized that guiding UHS into the next 50 years will require that we lean into our aspirations. At this pivotal moment in our history, a bold new mission statement challenges us to reach higher; offers us a fresh opportunity to elevate our academic, programmatic, and institutional goals; and calls us to shape a future that reflects our fullest potential.

While growth, learning, and hard work remain ahead, our new mission illuminates our aspirations and serves as a guiding North Star, charting our path forward. Starting from a place of belief in our collective ability to be a transformational community of growth and progress, the task force was confident in the community’s capacity to embrace the mission as a galvanizing tool and powerful catalyst—one that inspires each of us to imagine and create what’s possible.

About the Process

Q: Why did we choose this moment in the school’s history to revise the mission statement?

In the summer of 2023, UHS launched a year-long initiative to review, reflect upon, and refresh the school’s mission. While our core values and vision have been constant, it became evident that our community and culture had undergone significant transformation within the ever-evolving educational landscape. With the last mission established in 2003 and several pivotal milestones on the horizon, the time had come to more clearly identify, articulate, and amplify the core guiding principles that shape our work.

It was also recognized that a refined mission, expressed in concise language, would help us align our actions with our identity, strengthening our distinctive position among Bay Area peer schools. By exploring and articulating our identity through a reflective, collaborative process, we held the belief that UHS would be even better positioned to continue building an interconnected and inclusive community of students, families, faculty, and staff.

With a renewed mission serving as an anchor to ground us and a compass to guide us, our community would be prepared to embark on its next phase of strategic planning and institutional growth.

Q: How did we ensure an inclusive and comprehensive process?

In partnership with our educational consulting team from Mission & Data, an internal task force was established to bring broad representation to this work. With each member of the group bringing a unique lens to the process, the task force was made up of faculty, staff, administrators, parents, trustees and alumni from a range of perspectives and backgrounds, including: research and data collection; academic programs; communications; equity and community; historical and institutional continuity; philanthropy; athletics; enrollment management and strategy; and more.

Throughout the 2023-2024 school year, the task force met regularly and established a variety of opportunities for the community to take part in a reflection and feedback process. These included small and large group discussions; retreats; focus groups; online surveys; and one-on-one interviews with faculty and staff, students, trustees, and alumni. Through multiple cycles of data collection, feedback loops, reflection, and working sessions, the task force created and refined responsive drafts.

Q: Was the Board’s vote unanimous?

In the spring of 2024, after many months of listening, processing, writing, and editing, the task force was confident that the final draft was decisive, compelling, and ready to recommend to the Board of Trustees. In a unanimous vote and with great enthusiasm, the new mission statement was approved.

"At San Francisco University High School, we engage our community of diverse voices in a transformational experience that embraces the spirited pursuit of learning and empowers purpose larger than self. "

Q: Where do these themes originate?

A key concept that the task force kept at the center of its process was that the mission exists within the broader context of our other core pillars, including our values, vision, equity statement, and community agreements. These elements work together to guide our actions and shape the culture of UHS, ensuring alignment across all facets of our school community. In reality, no part of the mission is truly “new.” The language and foundational themes are directly borrowed from existing pillars that have been integral to the fabric of UHS for many years.

With a focus on being succinct and clear, the task force listened carefully to community concerns, experiences, hopes, and dreams. The four themes that emerged were unequivocal; across constituent groups, there was a shared vision for amplifying the UHS transformational experience, community of diverse voices, spirited pursuit of learning, and purpose larger than self.

Central Themes: What Do We Mean When We Say ...

We Engage Our Community of Diverse Voices

Together we work to build and sustain a community of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and talents (from the 2003 UHS Mission)
Seeking out different perspectives and learning from one another (from the UHS Values)
Building and sustaining an intentionally diverse, equitable, and inclusive school (from the UHS Values)
Striving to deepen our understanding of the evolving world (from the UHS Values)
Embodying our fundamental belief that collaboration among people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences is essential to deep learning (from the UHS Vision)
At UHS, we believe that the deepest learning requires collaboration among people who embody a diversity of backgrounds, beliefs, experiences, and perspectives (from the UHS Equity & Community Statement)

In a Transformational Experience

Embracing education as a transformational, rather than a transactional, endeavor (from the UHS Vision)
We are a school where adults believe in the promise of every student (from the 2003 UHS Mission)
Agency: Taking risks and growing from the experience; Pursuing our passions with confidence, creativity, and humility; Discovering and making real our own distinctive and evolving expressions of excellence (from the UHS Values)
Further our self- knowledge, our ability to communicate effectively across individual differences, and our capacity to cultivate an anti-racist, anti-oppressive school culture mindful of systemic barriers to equity (from the UHS Equity & Community Statement)

That Embraces the Spirited Pursuit of Learning

Engage in an education that fosters responsibility and the spirited pursuit of knowledge (from the 2003 UHS Mission)
Inquiry: Being curious, open-minded, and courageous; Seeking out different perspectives and learning from one another; Striving to deepen our understanding of the evolving world (from the UHS Values)
Ensuring that University High School remains a strategically nimble institution, engaged in learning, reflection, and growth on all levels (from the UHS Vision)

And Empowers Purpose Larger Than Self

UHS challenges each individual to live a life of integrity, inquiry, and purpose larger than the self (from the 2003 UHS Mission)
Care: Investing wholeheartedly in our work and in one another; Cultivating empathy, compassion, mindfulness, and resilience; Recognizing and seeking to address injustice (from the UHS Values)
Integrity: Acting to fulfill a purpose larger than the self (from the UHS Values)
Interconnection: Building and sustaining an intentionally diverse, equitable, and inclusive school; Engaging as socially responsible citizens in communities both near and far; Recognizing that we form a web through our common humanity: what affects one person affects us all (from the UHS Values)
Empowering our students to invent and sustain their own vision of success and sense of purpose (from the UHS Vision)

In This Section

Mission Task Force