University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in California and has an enrollment of more than 47,000 students.
The university is composed of a liberal arts school, the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and 22 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, enrolling roughly 21,000 undergraduate and 28,500 post-graduate students from all fifty U.S. states and more than 115 countries. It is a member of the Association of American Universities, which it joined in 1969.
USC sponsors a variety of intercollegiate sports and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Big Ten Conference. Members of USC's sports teams, the Trojans, have won 107 NCAA team championships and 412 NCAA individual championships. As of 2021, Trojan athletes have won 326 medals at the Olympic Games, more than any other American university. USC has had 571 football players drafted to the National Football League, the second-highest number of draftees in the country.
History
Founding and early history
The University of Southern California was founded following the efforts of Judge Robert Maclay Widney, who helped secure donations from several key figures in early Los Angeles history: a Protestant nurseryman, Ozro Childs; an Irish Catholic former governor, John Gately Downey; and a German Jewish banker, Isaias Wolf Hellman. The three donated 308 acres to establish the campus and provided the necessary seed money for the construction of the first buildings. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, the school mandated from the start that "no student would be denied admission because of race". The university is no longer affiliated with any church, having severed formal ties in 1952. When USC opened in 1880, the school had an enrollment of 53 students and a faculty of 10. Its first graduating class in 1884 was a class of three: two men and one woman, who was valedictorian.USC was further expanded with the construction of Old College in 1887, which served as the College of Liberal Arts. Although envisioned as the permanent centerpiece to the university, its age and lack of earthquake safety became major concerns as USC moved through the 20th century. The building was eventually demolished in 1948.
USC in the 20th century
Despite a growing student and faculty population, the university maintained most of its campus along Trousdale Parkway. Beginning in 1919, architect John Parkinson developed a master plan for the university that expanded beyond this avenue, focusing on Romanesque buildings for which the university has become notable. Bovard Administration Building was completed in 1921 along this parkway, and remains one of the university's oldest and most iconic buildings. The Gwynn Wilson Student Union, Doheny Memorial Library, and Allan Hancock Foundation were completed in 1927, 1932, and 1940, respectively, and remain directly adjacent to the university's central quad. Many of these were constructed under President Rufus B. von KleinSmid, who spearheaded the creation of 19 buildings over 25 years.The onset of World War II led to a transformation of campus life, with a shift in academic programs and student enrollment. Total enrollment fell 15%; military programs were instituted, and by the end of the war 75% of male students were involved in some branch of the military. USC was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program, which offered students a path to a Navy commission. After the war ended, enrollment of veterans under the G.I. Bill soared to 24,000 by 1947, straining USC's facilities and resources.
In 1950, Founder's Hall was constructed, becoming the first new classroom space in a decade. University Avenue was closed to through traffic. In 1958, Norman Topping became president, and initiated a campaign for capital construction to support USC's burgeoning population. Under the assistance of architect William Pereira, USC constructed 99 buildings between 1961 and 1979. The university hosted some Olympics activities in 1984, and in 1990, Steven Sample became president of the university.
Origin of USC's mascot
USC students and athletes are known as Trojans, epitomized by the Trojan Shrine, nicknamed "Tommy Trojan", near the center of campus. Until 1912, USC students were known as Fighting Methodists or Wesleyans, though neither name was approved by the university. Tommy’s sword has been stolen so frequently that instead of replacing it with an expensive brass one each time, he is now provided with a wooden one. During a fateful track and field meet with Stanford University, the USC team was beaten early and seemingly conclusively. After only the first few events, it seemed implausible USC would ever win, but the team fought back, winning many of the later events, to lose only by a slight margin. After this contest, Los Angeles Times sportswriter Owen Bird reported the USC athletes "fought on like the Trojans of antiquity", and the president of the university at the time, George F. Bovard, approved the name officially.Campus
The main campus is in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Located off exit 20B of Interstate 110, the campus's boundaries are Jefferson Boulevard on the north and northeast, Figueroa Street on the southeast, Exposition Boulevard on the south, and Vermont Avenue on the west. Since the 1960s, through-campus vehicle traffic has been either severely restricted or entirely prohibited on some thoroughfares. The University Park campus is within walking distance to Los Angeles landmarks such as the Shrine Auditorium and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which is operated and managed by the university. Most buildings are in the Romanesque Revival style, although some dormitories, engineering buildings, and physical sciences labs are of various Modernist styles that sharply contrast with the predominantly red-brick campus. Widney Alumni House, built in 1880, is the oldest university building in Southern California. The historic portion of the main campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.Besides its main campus at University Park, USC also operates the Health Sciences Campus about northeast of downtown. In addition, the Children's Hospital Los Angeles is staffed by USC faculty from the Keck School of Medicine, and is often referred to as USC's third campus. USC also operates an Orange County center in Irvine for business, pharmacy, social work, and education, and the Information Sciences Institute, with centers in Arlington, Virginia, and Marina del Rey. For its science students, USC operates the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island just off the coast of Los Angeles, and home to the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center.
The Price School of Public Policy also runs a satellite campus in Sacramento. A Health Sciences Alhambra campus holds the Primary Care Physician Assistant Program, the Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, and the Masters in Public Health Program. In 2005, USC established a federal relations office in Washington, DC., and in March 2023, USC announced the opening of a new Capital Campus in Washington, D.C. The university purchased a seven-story 60,000 square feet building and remodeled it to house classrooms, event venues, office spaces, a bookstore and a theater. Located in the heart of the Dupont Circle neighborhood, the USC Capital Campus is also home to USC's Office of Research Advancement, which helps university faculty researchers secure federal funding for multidisciplinary research projects. USC was developed under two master plans drafted and implemented some forty years apart. The first was prepared by Train & Williams but it was replaced by the second, made the Parkinsons in 1919.
For its role in making visible and sustained improvements in the neighborhoods surrounding both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses, Time/Princeton Review College Guide named it College of the Year 2000. Roughly half of the university's students volunteer in community-service programs in neighborhoods around campus and throughout Los Angeles. These outreach programs, as well as previous administrations' commitment to remaining in South Los Angeles amid widespread calls to move the campus following the 1965 Watts Riots, are credited for the safety of the university during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. The ZIP Code for USC is 90089 and that of the surrounding University Park community is 90007.
USC has an endowment of $8.1 billion and carries out nearly $1 billion per year in sponsored research.
University Village
In 1999, USC purchased the University Park shopping center, which was demolished in 2014. In September of the same year, the university began construction on USC Village, a 1.25-million-square-foot residential and retail center directly adjacent to USC's University Park campus on 15 acres of land owned by the university. The USC Village has over 130,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, with student housing on the four floors above. The $700 million project is the biggest development in the history of USC and is also one of the largest in the history of South Los Angeles. With a grand opening held on August 17, 2017, the USC Village includes a Trader Joe's, a Target, a fitness center, restaurants, outdoor dining, 400 retail parking spots, a community room, and housing for 2,700 students.Health Sciences campus
Located from downtown Los Angeles and from the University Park campus, USC's Health Sciences campus is a major center for basic and clinical biomedical research in the fields of cancer, gene therapy, the neurosciences, and transplantation biology, among others. The campus is home to the region's first and oldest medical and pharmacy schools.In addition to the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, which is one of the nation's largest teaching hospitals, the campus includes three patient care facilities: USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Keck Hospital of USC, and the USC Eye Institute. USC faculty staffs these and many other hospitals in Southern California, including the internationally acclaimed Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The health sciences campus is also home to the USC School of Pharmacy and several research buildings such as USC/Norris Cancer Research Tower, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower and Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research.
In July 2013, the university expanded its medical services into the foothill communities of northern Los Angeles when it acquired the 185 bed Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, California. USC planned on making at least $30 million in capital improvements to the facility, which was officially renamed USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. This 40-year-old hospital provides the community a 24-hour emergency department, primary stroke center, maternity/labor and delivery, cardiac rehabilitation, and imaging and diagnostic services.
In July 2022, the university acquired the 348 bed Methodist Hospital of Southern California in Arcadia, California. Renamed USC Arcadia Hospital it is a full-service community hospital offering advanced cardiovascular services including cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology and open-heart surgery. Los Angeles County has designated it as both a heart attack receiving center and a comprehensive stroke center, as well as an Emergency Department Approved for Pediatrics. The hospital also offers a variety of surgical services in orthopaedics, neurosurgery, obstetrics, gynecology, and cancer care, plus physical rehabilitation and many other medical specialties. USC physicians serve more than one million patients each year.