University Style Guide

Capitalization

• Capitalize the formal degree name: Associate of Applied Science, Bachelor/Master of Arts/Science, Master of Business Administration, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Education, Doctor of Business Administration.
• Lowercase the field of study in conjunction with the formal degree name. E.g., Bachelor of Arts in communication studies, Master of Science in education.
• Lowercase informal uses of bachelor’s/master's degree, etc. E.g., bachelor’s degree in marketing, master’s degree in biology, associate degree in nursing.

Apostrophes

• Bachelor’s degree, a master’s, etc., should be written with an apostrophe as a possessive noun. Bachelor of Arts or Master of Science are not possessive, nor is associate degree.

Punctuation

Saint Joseph’s does not use punctuation in degrees; this is a departure from AP Style. Please note that this list is not exhaustive, nor does Saint Joseph’s offer every degree on this list; some degree types may be held by faculty, staff or alumni. Contact sjunews@sju.edu for questions about degrees not listed below:

• AAS (Associate of Applied Science)
• BA (Bachelor of Arts)
• BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration)
• BSBA (Bachelor of Science in Business Administration)
• BLS (Bachelor of Liberal Arts)
• BS (Bachelor of Science)
• DPT (Doctor of Physical Therapy)
• DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine)
• DrOT (Doctor of Occupational Therapy)
• EdD (Doctor of Education)
• JD (Juris Doctor)
• MA (Master of Arts)
• MBA (Master of Business Administration)
• MD (Doctor of Medicine) 
• MFA (Master of Fine Arts)
• MHA (Master of Health Administration)
• MPA (Master of Professional Accountancy)
• MS (Master of Science)
• MPT (Master of Physical Therapy)
• MSPAS (Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies)
• MOT (Master of Occupational Therapy)
• PharmD (Doctor of Pharmacy)
• PhD (Doctor of Philosophy)

For honorary degrees, see entry below under people and positions.

• Capitalize formal department names. E.g., the Department of Theology, Department of Finance.
• Lowercase informal department names. E.g., theology department, finance department.

• Lowercase program titles. E.g., honors program, gender studies program.
• Lowercase names of majors and minors. E.g., biology major, marketing major.
• Capitalize “scholarship” in named scholarships. E.g., John P. McNulty Scholarship, but merit scholarship.
• Note: Maguire Academy of Insurance and Risk Management, but risk management and insurance major (RMI).
• Note: It is the physician assistant program, NEVER physician’s assistant. 

• Capitalize formal office names. E.g., Office of Marketing and Communications, or the Office of Athletic Communications.
• Lowercase informal office names. E.g., marketing and communications, the marketing and communications office, or the athletic communications office.

• Use the ampersand when it is part of a program or company's formal name or a composition title. The ampersand should not otherwise be used in place of “and.”
• Some programs and buildings use an ampersand in their official names:
  • English & professional writing 
  • Pharmaceutical & healthcare marketing
  • Pharmaceutical & healthcare studies
  • Living & Learning Commons (University City location)

• Capitalize the Department of Athletics and Saint Joseph’s Athletics
• When the department name is used informally, lowercase athletics department

• Not Atlantic Ten.
• A-10 is acceptable on second reference.

• Capitalize “award” when it’s part of an official name: Rev. Joseph S. Hogan, S.J., Award, Medical Alumni Award, HSB Hall of Fame Award.
• Lowercase when it’s not part of an official name. E.g., Shield of Loyola award, Executive of the Year award.

• Capitalize the first word after a colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence. Otherwise, lowercase the first word. E.g., “It snowed for a week straight: The students stayed in their dorms.” “He couldn’t decide on a favorite: the Hawk wrap or a Larry’s cheesesteak.”

• Do not use serial commas. Commas should separate elements in a series, but do not put a comma before a conjunction. E.g., “red, white and blue” not “red, white, and blue.”
• Do not use a comma before name suffixes (Jr., Sr., etc.) or company designations (LLC, Ltd., Inc., etc.)
• Do use a comma before Esq.

Capitalize Commencement, White Coat Ceremony and Conferment.

• The following rules apply to titles of books, movies, plays, poems, albums, songs, radio and television programs, lectures, speeches and works of art:
  • Capitalize all words in a title except articles (a, an, the); prepositions of three or fewer letters (for, of, on, up, etc.); and conjunctions of three or fewer letters (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet, etc.) unless any of those start or end the title.
  • Put quotation marks around the names of all such works except the Bible, the Quran and other holy books, and books that are primarily catalogs of reference material (e.g., almanacs, directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers, handbooks and similar publications).
• Capitalize the in a newspaper's name if that is the way the publication prefers to be known, otherwise lowercase it. E.g., The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, the Philadelphia Magazine
• Italicize newspaper and magazine titles. This is a departure from AP Style.

• Capitalize Cooperative Education program on first reference.
• Lowercase informal references to the program such as “the co-op program.”
• Use co-op on second reference. E.g., a co-op placement (not Co-Op).

Capitalize course names; do not put them in quotation marks. E.g., The Craft of Language.

• En dashes (option-hyphen on a keyboard) are used to show a range of times, dates or values. Do not set off an en dash with spaces. E.g., 5–7 p.m.
• Em dashes are used to create emphasis or indicate change in thought. Set off an em dash (shift-option-hyphen on a keyboard) with a space on each side. E.g., The student — a first-year biology major — said it was her favorite class.
• Hyphens join compound nouns and modifiers. Do not set off a hyphen with spaces. E.g., full-time faculty.

Treat an ellipsis as a three-letter word, constructed with three periods and spaces on either side.

• Periods and commas always go within quotation marks.
• The dash, semicolon, colon, question mark and exclamation point go within the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted matter only. They go outside when they apply to the whole sentence.

Lowercase semester names. E.g., fall semester, spring semester, fall 2022, spring 2023

• Place a comma between the city and the state name, and another comma after the state name, unless it ends a sentence.
• Always spell out state names. E.g., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• Capitalize “the” on first reference if it’s part of an official name, e,g., The Perch, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

• When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Spell out month name when using it alone, or with a year alone. E.g., January 2016 was a cold month. Jan. 2 was the coldest day of the month.
• When a phrase lists only a month and a year, do not separate the year with commas.
• When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas. E.g., Commencement will be May 10. Aug. 28, 2017, was the first day of classes. The semester ended Friday, Dec. 22.
• Do not use ordinals (-st, -nd, -th, etc.) with a date. E.g., The event was held Sept. 1.
• Do use ordinals with anniversaries of 10 and above. Spell out the number of the anniversary if under 10, unless the number is the official name of something. E.g., seventh anniversary, 7th Fleet.

• Spell out zero through nine.
• Use numerals for 10 and above.
• Use numerals for all ages.
• If a number begins a sentence, spell it out.

• Use the % sign when paired with a number, no space.
• Use decimals, not fractions, in percentages. E.g., Her mortgage rate is 4.5%.
• For amounts less than 1%, precede the decimal with a zero. E.g., The cost of living rose 0.6%.
• For a range all of the following are acceptable:
  • 12% to 15%
  • 12%-15% 
  • Between 12% and 15%

For all external numbers, separate the area code, the exchange, and the extension with hyphens. E.g., 610-660-1000.

• Use numerals except for noon and midnight.
• Lowercase a.m. and p.m. and include periods
• Use a colon to separate hours from minutes. Do not include spaces around hyphens in a time range. E.g., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 9-11 a.m., 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 8 a.m-12 p.m.
• Eliminate unnecessary repetition of a.m. and p.m. E.g., 9-11 a.m., not 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
• Do not include minutes if you are referring to the hour only. E.g., 2 p.m. not 2:00 p.m.
• Times written with a.m. or p.m. are preferred, but the construction “4 o’clock” is acceptable.

• Capitalize the full name of the time in force within a particular zone: Eastern Standard Time, Eastern Daylight Time, Central Standard Time, etc.
• Lowercase all but the region in short forms: the Eastern time zone, Eastern time, Mountain time, etc.

• Alumnus: singular male.
• Alumna: singular female.
• Alumni: plural male/plural mixed.
• Alumnae: plural female.
• Note: Alum or alums may be used in casual instances like social media.

• Capitalize all references to Saint Joseph's Board of Trustees.
• Capitalize Trustee when it’s a University Trustee and the title comes before someone’s name, e.g., Saint Joseph’s Trustee Bob Smith ’72.
• Lowercase trustee when it comes after someone’s, e.g., Bob Smith ’72, a Saint Joseph’s trustee. See “titles” entry below.
• Lowercase "board" on second reference.

Use “chair,” not “chairwoman” or “chairman.”

Students and alumni should be referred to by their outgoing graduation year, not incoming class year. For all degrees in progress or earned at either Saint Joseph’s University or a legacy institution (see below), offset the degree abbreviation and two-digit class year with commas after the surname. Apostrophes should curve to the left (shift-option-right bracket) before the class year. 

Note: Exceptions to undergraduate degree listings may be made for invitations or formal programs in which an alumni couple is named.

• Undergraduate Class Years: 
  • Eric Smith, BS ’19, returned to his alma mater for HawkFest.
  • Sarah Parker, AAS ’26, presented her research at a conference.
• Graduate Class Years:
  • Theresa Kline, MS ’13, made a gift to Saint Joseph’s University.
  • Chris Reynolds, PharmD ’23, is an accomplished pharmacist.
  • Stacy Novak, EdD ’28, is presenting her doctoral thesis.
• Direct-Entry Degree Holders: Students in direct-entry programs (occupational therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy) enter as an undergraduate or transfer student and continue on to receive their professional degree without reapplying. Undergraduate degrees are conferred at the end of four years, and graduate degrees are conferred at the end of six years. 
  • E.g., A student entering the BS to DrOT program in 2022 would be: Erica Walker, BS ’26, DrOT ’28, will graduate in 2028 with her doctorate degree.
• Dual-Degree Holders from Saint Joseph’s: If a graduate has multiple degrees from the University, lead with the undergraduate degree and separate each degree-and-year pairing with a comma.
  • Angela Miller, BS ’15, MS ’17, was promoted as senior director.
  • Chris Reynolds, AAS ’21, BA ’23, started a new job.
• Dual-Degree Holders with Degrees from Other Institutions: In addition to recognizing degrees earned from either Saint Joseph’s or a historical institution, include advanced degrees earned from other institutions after an individual’s name. Degrees should be listed from earliest degree earned to most advanced.
  • Joseph A. DiAngelo, BS ’70, EdD, is the dean of the Haub School of Business.
  • Mark Taylor, MBA, PhD ’17, earned a lifetime achievement award.

Class Terminology

• Students in their first undergraduate year should be referred to as first-year students in place of the gendered term freshmen. Years two through four should be referred to as sophomore, junior or senior. Note, in line with NCAA standards, Athletics rosters and websites may use the term freshmen.
• Likewise, students in their sophomore, junior or senior year are to be called upper-level students, not upperclassmen.
• Capitalize "Class" in “Class of” when referring to a specific graduating class. E.g., the Class of 1991.

Legacy Degrees

Individuals who earned a degree from a legacy institution (University of the Sciences of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences) have joined Saint Joseph’s alumni network of nearly 110,000 alumni. As such, their degrees should follow the same rules as listed above for all SJU-degree holders. 

• Legacy institutions may be mentioned in an editorial context but should not be called out with acronyms or other institutional designations following an individual’s name. E.g.: Edward Foote, BS ’87, PharmD ’91, earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science.
   

Parents

If an individual is a parent of a student, use P ’YY after their name, using the graduation year of the student. E.g., Laura Smith P ’21. 

• Parent of Multiple Students: Only used the letter P once, with each new graduation year separated by commas. E.g., Laura Smith P ’21, ’19, ’15.
• Alumni Parent:  If a parent is an alum, list their degrees first, followed by the parent degrees. E.g., Laura Smith, BS ’90, P ’18, or Laura Smith, MBA ’90, P ’18, ’22

• Jesuits: Follow Jesuits’ names with S.J. set off by commas. E.g., Michael Jones, S.J., teaches history. Use Fr. Jones on subsequent references (departure from AP).
  • Exception: Rev. prior to a Jesuit's name may be used in formal letters, invitations to a Mass that a Jesuit priest is presiding over, or other formal communications. E.g. You are invited to an Easter Sunday Mass, officiated by Rev. Michael Jones, S.J.
• Nuns: Use Sister if applicable before a name on first reference, E.g., Sister Mary Scullion. On second reference, use Sr. and last name, E.g., Sr. Scullion.
• Pope: Capitalize when used as a formal title before a name; lowercase in all other uses, E.g., Pope Francis spoke to the crowd. At the close of his address, the pope gave his blessing.
• Rabbis: Use Rabbi before name on first reference, E.g., Rabbi Abraham Skorka. On second reference, use Rabbi and last name, E.g., Rabbi Skorka.

“Dr.” should not be used on first or second reference, regardless of degree type. This is a departure from AP Style. For example:

• First reference: John Smith, PhD, Emily Carter, MD, and Eric Miller, PharmD.
• Second reference: Smith, Carter and Miller.
• Exception: Dr. McConnell on second reference.

• Place abbreviated terminal degrees after a faculty member's name, set off with commas, followed by their academic title. E.g., Ann Jones, MFA, associate professor of art; Ann Jones, PhD, professor of biology.
  • Capitalize official titles that come before a name, E.g., Associate Professor of Art Ann Jones, MFA.
  • Lowercase official titles that come after a name, E.g., Ann Jones, MFA, professor of art.
• Credentials: List professional credentials in faculty bios only, E.g., Mary Roberts, PhD, OTR/L. Note there is no punctuation in credentials. In all other instances, use the terminal degree only (Mary Roberts, PhD).

Honorary degree recipients should be noted by the letter “H” and the year the degree was awarded, H ’YY, offset by commas. E.g., Barbara Miller, H ’87, received an honorary degree.

• On first reference: 
  • Cheryl A. McConnell, PhD, president of Saint Joseph’s University OR
  • Saint Joseph’s President Cheryl A. McConnell, PhD.
• On second reference:
  • In editorial stories, social media and more informal references, use Dr. McConnell.
  • In formal invitations, programs and letters, use President McConnell.

Hyphenate student-athlete. This is the style of the NCAA and AP Style.

Include hometown, major(s) and expected graduation year in text whenever possible. E.g., Liz Smith ’24 is a biology major from Trenton, New Jersey.

• Capitalize titles only when used directly before a person's name. In all other instances use lowercase titles set off by commas.
  • Vice President for University Relations Joseph Kender
  • Joseph Kender, vice president for university relations,
• Lowercase modifiers such as “department” in department Chair John Smith, PhD, associate professor of history.

Capitalize SJU Alumni Association and Saint Joseph’s University Alumni Association but lowercase “the alumni association.”

Campus and Locations

• Hawk Hill campus is Saint Joseph’s campus on City Avenue and comprises the James J. Maguire ’58 Campus (Maguire Campus) and Marcy Dugan Wolfington Campus (Wolfington Campus). 
• Saint Joseph’s University City location is in West Philadelphia and will eventually serve primarily as the University’s graduate health professions location.
• Saint Joseph’s University also has a location in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Only when needed to differentiate from other SJU locations:
  • Saint Joseph’s Lancaster location
  • Saint Joseph’s University in Lancaster
  • Never SJU-Lancaster, SJU Lancaster or St. Joe’s Lancaster

Buildings

• Commonly confused building names and their formal and informal names are listed below. 
• In most instances, it is OK to use the informal name in communications. Formal names should appear on: signage and buildings, maps, and on any prospective or admitted student communication where an informal name may lead to confusion.

• Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations.
• Institute of Clinical Bioethics.
• Faith-Justice Institute.
• Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support; Kinney Center on second reference.
• Maguire Academy of Insurance and Risk Management; the Maguire Academy is acceptable on second reference, as well as the Academy.
• Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Center for Business Ethics; note inclusion of S.J., set off with periods and commas.
• Capitalize Academy, Center, Institute on second reference (when saying, for example, “the Academy is nationally ranked.”).

Refer to colleges by full name on first reference and acronyms only sparingly on second reference in instances when referring to multiple schools or colleges:

• College of Arts and Sciences (the college, CAS)
• Erivan K. Haub School of Business (the school, the Haub School, Haub)
• School of Education and Human Development (the school, SEHD)
• School of Health Professions (the school, SHP)
  • Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (the college, PCP). Note: Not the School of Pharmacy or College of Pharmacy on its own (always include "Philadelphia" in the name). Additionally, PCP falls under the School of Health Professions.
• School of Nursing and Allied Health (the school, SNAH)

Crimson and gray (not grey).

Latin for "care of the person"; italicize and use without capitals.

• One word. This is a departure from AP Style. 
• Note: Two words in interdisciplinary health care ethics minor.

Do not capitalize unless it starts a sentence.

• The Hawk Will Never Die. Note capitalization of each word and period (no exclamation point). 
• THWND on second reference or used on social media as a hashtag, #THWND.

• Named rooms in buildings should include both the room, building name and campus:
  • AstraZeneca Auditorium, McNeil Science and Technology Center, University City location.
  • Greaton Room, Barbelin Hall, Hawk Hill Campus.
  • Haub Executive Center, McShain Hall, Hawk Hill Campus.
  • Lecture Hall A, Griffith Hall, University City location.
  • North Lounge, Campion Student Center, Hawk Hill Campus.
  • Wolfington Teletorium, Mandeville Hall, Hawk Hill Campus.
• Numbered rooms should include the building's primary name, followed by the number: Barbelin 106, Bellarmine 218.

• Always spell out "Saint” in “Saint Joseph's." Never “St. Joseph’s” when referring to the University. Saint Joseph’s University on first mention. On second reference, Saint Joseph’s is preferred in all communications. 
• “St. Joe’s,” with both words abbreviated, is acceptable in more informal communications (e.g., social media, internal emails, athletics) and to avoid overuse of “Saint Joseph’s.” Never “Saint Joe’s.”
• “SJU” may be used sparingly where appropriate to use the abbreviation and is more preferable in internal communications where the acronym is well known. 
• Capitalize "University" in standalone references to Saint Joseph's (exception from AP).

A specific use guide follows: