Year: 2017

Niki and I hope you have been enjoying the holiday season!  There were many notable milestones that marked the year, the highlight of course being the opening of the USC Village—and its warm embrace by our students and the local community… Our students, meanwhile, continue to inspire us with their remarkable intellect, creativity, and leadership.  With this letter, I would like to focus on three students who recently received special attention.  The first is Paulo Hernandez-Farella, an undergraduate at the USC Kaufman School of Dance… Another student who deserves recognition is Edwin Saucedo, the former president of USC’s Undergraduate Student Government.  Edwin was selected to be a Schwarzman Scholar… Ironically, the third student I will mention is from UCLA!  A Bruin undergraduate, Arielle Yael Mokhtarzadeh, recently wrote to USC’s student newspaper, the Daily Trojan, regarding the powerful symbolism of our new Hecuba statue….Continue Reading USC Kaufman student dancer chooses USC over Juilliard; Former USC undergraduate president named Schwarzman Scholar; Hecuba statue praised by UCLA student body president

Last week, Niki and I were delighted to continue our tradition of spending Thanksgiving day with USC students.  We welcomed more than 350 students to our home for a traditional Thanksgiving meal… We began November with the dedication of the new, cutting-edge home for the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, a gorgeous structure that now stands as the single largest academic building on either of USC’s campuses… As part of the USC President’s Distinguished Lecture series, the former president of Taiwan, Dr. Ma Ying-jeou, visited our University Park Campus earlier this month to deliver a highly engaging and informative talk for our community….Continue Reading USC Michelson Center dedicates new building; President and Mrs. Nikias host USC students on Thanksgiving; USC student featured in People; former president of Taiwan speaks at USC

Earlier this month, Niki and I were thrilled to welcome so many parents, alumni, and friends back to campus for Trojan Family Weekend… In a much-anticipated event, we officially broke ground on the new home for the USC Iovine and Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation, a 40,000-square-foot, state of the art building that will rise at the corner of Watt Way and Exposition Boulevard… Earlier in the semester, more than 500 members and guests of the Trojan Family came together in Tokyo for the USC Global Conference. …Continue Reading Iovine and Young Academy groundbreaking; Global Conference in Tokyo; USC Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen named MacArthur “genius”