With this month’s mailing, I am delighted to share the exciting news that the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI) will move to USC from UCLA, representing a tremendously significant cluster hire of 110 faculty, researchers, and multidisciplinary staff. This group includes the eminent scientists Arthur W. Toga and Paul Thompson, who stand among the world’s leading experts in studying the structure and function of the human brain. This is a landmark moment for USC, and will dramatically bolster a number of academic programs throughout the university.
These scientists will form the core of a new neuroinformatics institute on our Health Sciences Campus. This group has built collaborations over decades, and at USC, they will continue to seek new approaches for analyzing visual, genetic, and clinical data, all of which have applications for brain injuries, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, depression, and other conditions. The recruitment of this team to USC received significant coverage in a number of leading newspapers around the country, including the enclosed piece in the Los Angeles Times.
Earlier this spring—and for the third straight year—the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books returned to USC, and was a resounding success. It has become the largest, most prestigious literary festival in the nation, with more than 158,000 attendees. This year’s festival featured an increase in live music and film screenings, in addition to thought-provoking literary discussions and events. The enclosed insert will give you a sense of the weekend’s vibrant atmosphere.
This year’s festival featured authors Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, Anna Quindlen, and Carol Burnett, among others. In addition, eight stages were set up around campus, and these hosted performances by singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb, writers Jon Klassen and Lemony Snicket, and Lucy Dahl, who is Roald Dahl’s daughter. Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano, a recent cookbook author, presented a cooking demonstration, and actress Valerie Bertinelli offered an in-depth interview. Children and families enjoyed arts and crafts activities throughout the weekend.
During the festival, a number of USC faculty members discussed their latest works. In one panel, “Why Did the Writer Cross the Genre,” Professor Dinah Lenney moderated a conversation with fellow writing instructors Bernard Cooper and Sandra Tsing Loh, and Professor Luis Alfaro. They discussed the unique challenges of writing across genres, such as essays, memoirs, novels, and plays. It was certainly an exciting—and informative—weekend at USC.
On the subject of literary luminaries, our very own Kevin Starr—an esteemed University Professor and recipient of the USC Presidential Medallion—received the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement at the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes in April. This most recent accolade recognizes his exceptionally stellar body of work, as well as his contributions as California State Librarian and as a venerable teacher. An excellent profile of University Professor Starr appeared in the Los Angeles Times in April, and accompanies this letter.
Finally, I am pleased to share the wonderful attention that our philosophy program has recently received. Over the last decade, the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences has hired nearly a dozen new faculty members for its School of Philosophy, and Inside Higher Ed reported that the program skyrocketed 35 places on one ranking of graduate philosophy programs, based on faculty reputation and quality. Professor Scott Soames, who left Princeton University to join USC in 2004, serves as the school’s director.
A University of Chicago professor who is an expert in the field stated that “no department has improved more over the last decade than USC.” The story noted that USC has bolstered the program’s enrollment and reputation at a time when many humanities programs are facing cuts. This administrative support came in part through a longstanding initiative to hire 100 instructors for the USC Dornsife College. USC’s philosophy program has expanded its interdisciplinary programs for both undergraduate and graduate students: it added a progressive five-year master’s degree in philosophy and law, as well as an interdisciplinary major in philosophy, politics, and law, which is our fastest-growing humanities major, having expanded from 18 to 201 students in less than four years. During that same period, the department’s total number of philosophy majors increased from roughly 125 to 258. In addition to Professor Soames, notable philosophy hires include Ralph Wedgwood, John Hawthorne, and Gabriel Uzquiano Cruz, all three of whom came to USC from the University of Oxford, as well as Shieva Kleinschmidt (from New York University), Andrew Bacon (also from Oxford), and Jonathan Quong (from the University of Manchester).
I hope your summer is off to a wonderful start. As always, thank you for serving as an Ambassador, and for sharing USC’s successes with your friends and family. In my next letter, I’ll write about this year’s magnificent Commencement ceremony.
Yours truly,
C. L. Max Nikias
President