The USC community recently celebrated the wonderful news that Trustee Rick Caruso and his wife, Tina, had given a generous $25 million gift to USC to support our renowned ear, nose, and throat program. For the Carusos, the gift carried personal significance: their daughter, Gianna, was born with hearing loss. After a lifetime of various treatments, USC doctors inserted an innovative device directly into her ear canal, allowing her to discern some sounds—such as rain or a bird chirping—for the very first time. “We want to be able to give more kids an opportunity for a very full and rich life and to minimize the struggles that come with hearing loss,” Mr. Caruso told the Los Angeles Times.
The couple’s gift named and endowed the USC Tina and Rick Caruso Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, as well as its affiliated center, the USC Caruso Family Center for Childhood Communication. Dr. John Niparko, who heads department and personally worked with the Carusos’ daughter, said the gift will help expand research, including stem cell therapies that could reverse hearing loss.
This most recent gift builds on the Carusos’ longstanding generosity to our university. Their previous naming gift established the USC Caruso Catholic Center, a center for spiritual support for our community. The couple’s lifetime giving to the university now exceeds $35 million, and includes exceptional support for USC Athletics, as well as our Keck School of Medicine and Price School of Public Policy. Mr. Caruso, an alumnus of our Marshall School of Business, founded Caruso Affiliated, one of our nation’s largest, privately held real estate companies. The company’s holdings include The Grove, The Americana at Brand, The Commons at Calabasas, The Promenade at Westlake, Waterside at Marina Del Rey, and 8500 Burton Way.
Commencement brings smiles and rain
Commencement was a joy-filled—albeit surprisingly rainy—day, as we warmly cheered nearly 16,000 new alumni and welcomed more than 60,000 people to our campuses. Our commencement speaker was Mellody Hobson, the dynamic president of Ariel Investments. Her professional drive and dedication inspired our graduating students: she began at Ariel as an intern and, in less than a decade, rose to the position of president. Today she stands as a nationally recognized voice on financial literacy and investor education. Her speech drew tremendous interest, and was the focus of a Los Angeles Times piece on standout commencement addresses.
In addition to Ms. Hobson, USC awarded honorary degrees to Pete Carroll, the legendary football coach; Kamala Harris, the attorney general of California; Leonard D. Schaeffer, a USC trustee and ardent champion of public health and related policy research; Michael Tilson Thomas, the longstanding music director of the San Francisco Symphony and a two-time USC alumnus; and Ada Yonath, a pioneer in the field of ribosomes and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
USC innovation for military service members
Earlier in the academic year, during a trip to Texas, I visited the studios of KEYE-TV to discuss a cutting-edge treatment—developed at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies—for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The project, called Bravemind, draws on virtual reality simulation, and is an example of exposure therapy: veterans recreate a traumatic memory with the help of sophisticated computer software as a means of overcoming PTSD. More than 50 military sites currently use this treatment, which along with our School of Social Work’s program in military social work—the only one of its kind in the nation—speaks to USC’s commitment to supporting members of our armed forces and their families.
In memoriam: Gordon Marshall
So many of us in the Trojan Family were saddened to note the passing of USC Trustee Gordon Marshall. Mr. Marshall—the beloved namesake of our business school—was a singular human being, and his devotion to USC spanned more than seven decades. He received his bachelor’s degree from the university in 1946, following distinguished service in World War II; in 1953, using his pilot’s savings, he launched Marshall Industries, which would become one of our nation’s five largest distributors of industrial electronic components. To the Los Angeles Times, I said, “Gordon Marshall was a soft-spoken man with a powerful entrepreneurial spirit and a profound dedication to the University of Southern California.”
Niki and I want to close with some words of heartfelt congratulations for two of our esteemed trustees. President Barack Obama recently nominated Andrew Viterbi to serve on the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science—an award that Dr. Viterbi himself received in 2008—and selected Wanda Austin, Aerospace’s president and chief executive officer, to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. We also want to salute the USC men’s golf team, which finished its best season ever, making it all the way to the final of the national championship. The team fought hard! Niki and I wish you a wonderful summer, and look forward to writing again in August.
Yours truly,
C. L. Max Nikias
President