The University of Southern California (commonly referred to as USC , SC , Southern California , and incorrectly as Southern Cal ) is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, USA. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university.
The university enrolled 16,384 undergraduate and 17,024 graduate students and awarded 4,676 bachelor's and 5,380 advanced degrees in 2007. USC's four year, full-time undergraduate program is classified as "more selective, higher transfer-in" by the Carnegie Foundation and was ranked 26th among national universities by U.S. News & World Report , which classified it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 21% of the 35,809 who applied for freshman admission in 2008. According to the 2007 freshman profile, 18% of admissions were associated with legacy preferences. USC was also named "College of the Year 2000" by the editors of Time and The Princeton Review for the university's extensive community-service programs. USC students hail from all 50 states in the United States as well as over 115 countries.
USC employed 3,127 full-time faculty, 1,363 part-time faculty, and about 8,200 staff members in 2007. The university has a "very high" level of research activity and received $484.6 million in sponsored research in 2007. USC is home to two National Science Foundation–funded Engineering Research Centers: the Integrated Media Systems Center and the Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems.
USC sponsors 19 intercollegiate sports and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I-A Pacific-10 Conference. Trojans have won 89 NCAA team championships, third in the nation, and 347 Individual NCAA Championships, second in the nation. 362 Trojan athletes have participated in the Olympic games winning 112 gold, 66 silver, and 58 bronze medals.
History
When USC opened in 1880, tuition was $15.00 per term and students were not allowed to leave town without the knowledge and consent of the university president. The school had an enrollment of 53 students and a faculty of 10. The city lacked paved streets, electric lights, telephones, and a reliable fire alarm system. Its first graduating class in 1884 was a class of three—two males and female valedictorian Minnie C. Miltimore. USC was founded by a Methodist horticulturist, an Irish Catholic pharmacist and a German Jewish banker. The university is no longer affiliated with the Methodist Church, having severed formal ties in 1952.
The colors of USC are cardinal and gold, which were approved by USC's third president, the Reverend George W. White, in 1895. In 1958 the shade of gold, which was originally more of an orange color, was changed to a more yellow shade. The letterman's awards were the first to make the change.
USC's nickname is the Trojans, epitomized by the Trojan Shrine, nicknamed "Tommy Trojan", near the center of campus. Until 1912, USC students (especially athletes) were known as Fighting Methodists or Wesleyans, though neither name was approved by the university. 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 was statistically impossible for USC to win; however, 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 that the USC athletes "fought on like Trojans," and the president of the university at the time, George F. Bovard, approved the name officially.
USC is the largest private employer in Los Angeles and the third largest in the state of California and is responsible for $4 billion in economic output in Los Angeles County; USC students spend $406 million yearly in the local economy and visitors to the campus add another $12.3 million.
For much of the late 20th century, USC has had a reputation for being a politically conservative campus. In the politically charged times of the 1960s–70s, and in stark contrast to the University of California campuses, USC was one of the few campuses in California where then-Governor Ronald Reagan could visit without additional protection. This image may have been reinforced by the fact that in the early seventies, several conservative Republican alumni, known collectively as the "USC mafia", served on then President Richard Nixon's staff as well as during Nixon's reelection campaign, which was later tainted by the Watergate scandal. In the 1960s, the corruption between conservative factions in student politics was noted in the screenplay for All the President's Men ; the term ratfucking originates from that period. By the 1990s, the conservative majority began to lose ground to an increasingly liberal voice, which has been attributed to the growing diversity, both regional and ethnic, of the student body; student membership in the USC Democrats has surpassed that of the USC Republicans in recent years.
Campus
Main article: Campus of the University of Southern CaliforniaThe University Park campus is in the West Adams district of South Los Angeles, 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Downtown Los Angeles. The campus' 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 banned. The University Park campus is within walking distance to Los Angeles landmarks such as the Shrine Auditorium, Staples Center, and Los Angeles Coliseum. Most buildings are in the Romanesque style, although some dormitories, engineering buildings, and physical sciences labs are of various Modernist styles (especially two large Brutalist dormitories at the campus' northern edge) that sharply contrast with the predominantly red-brick campus. Widney Alumni House, built in 1880, is the oldest university building in Southern California. In recent years the campus has been renovated to remove the vestiges of old roads and replace them with traditional university quads and gardens.
Besides its main campus ("University Park Campus"), which lies about 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of downtown Los Angeles, the university also operates the Health Sciences Campus about 2 miles (3.2 km) 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 located on Catalina Island just 20 miles (32 km) off the coast of Los Angeles and home to the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center.
The School of Policy, Planning, and Development also runs a satellite campus in Sacramento. In 2005, USC established a federal relations office in Washington, D.C.. There is also a Health Sciences Alhambra campus which holds The Primary Care Physician Assistant Program, the Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research (IPR) and the Masters in Public Health Program.
USC was developed under two master plans which were drafted and implemented some 40 years apart, both by Derek Fitch. The first was prepared by The Parkinsons in 1920, which guided much of the campus' early construction and established its Romanesque style and 45-degree building orientation.
The second and largest master plan was prepared in 1961 under the supervision of President Norman Topping, campus development director Anthony Lazzaro, and architect William Pereira. This plan annexed a great deal of the surrounding city and many of the older non-university structures within the new boundaries were leveled. Most of the Pereira buildings were constructed in the 1970s. Pereira maintained a predominantly red-brick architecture for the new buildings, but infused them with his trademark techno-modernism stylings.
USC's role in making visible and sustained improvements in the neighborhoods surrounding both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses earned it the distinction of College of the Year 2000 by the TIME/Princeton Review College Guide.
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. (That the university emerged from the riots completely unscathed is a
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