April 29, 2020

Hello and welcome Trojans.

Its such a privilege to speak with you today, about the state of our university, the times were in, and about our future a bright and promising one.

Thank you for attending this event; I hope you and your families are well.

Students are joining us for the first time; to them I say, welcome and Ill address you directly at the end of my speech.

I never expected to make history by Zooming this event and I would much prefer seeing and chatting with you before and after the talk. But Im confident those days too will return.

First though, I want to talk about the obvious. COVID-19 has hit us hard.

I know people are hurting and worried. Many are out of work. Thousands are in hospitals. Too many are dying, and it is heartbreaking.

Our people at USC are hurting too.

Your schedules and plans have been disrupted. Cherished events, like performances, competitions, thesis defenses, and commencement, have been postponed or changed. An entire athletic season has been erased. Youre missing friends, colleagues, and family you havent seen for weeks.

Some of you are working or studying from homes that werent prepared for this crisis, perhaps surrounded by people who need your attention or help.

Others are coming in to work, to help people still on campus, in spite of their own fears of the disease.

And I know, were all missing the joy and energy of being with our fellow students, colleagues, and friends.

It can feel very dark right now, but I see Trojans stepping up in this crisis every single day, under very difficult circumstances.

Im in awe of all of you.

Your strength is a beacon of hope.

Here are a few snapshots of that hope out of hundreds, I could cite

Ill start with our healthcare workers, in our hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics you heroically transformed yourselves overnight, to meet the pressing needs of patients throughout our region, prepare us for a surge, and advise the university about how to protect safety.

Faculty and staff, you swung into action, re-organizing completely the way you taught, mentored students, and went about your work.

Within five days, more than 6,000 courses were being reimagined and delivered remotely.

Our student life and housing staff helped 1,600 students who couldnt go home, to stay safely in their dorms. We began the Care-for-the Caregiver program, and are providing beds for USC and LA County health care workers. And our emergency staff began taking care of everyone.

The common denominator in all these examples, is a spirit of service and selflessness that animates so much of what we do.

For 140 years, USC has been part of the fabric of our region, and our city. And from the start of the crisis, Trojans have joined hands with community-based organizations, to support our most vulnerable neighbors.

USCs tireless volunteers delivered tens of thousands of meals to our neighbors, including those without shelter. Theyve made all sorts of PPE, provided two meals a day to our 500 Head Start kids and their families, organized a blood drive, and are helping nearly 3,000 small businesses to survive.

We see that same spirit of service in the remarkable work of our researchers, who are moving with lightning speed, to advance clinical trials, drug and vaccine development, pre-clinical therapeutic studies, and expand COVID-19 testing.

Theyre also helping people directly, providing telemedicine mental health counselling, and assisting public schools to adapt to COVID-19, and so much more.

Chances are, if youve heard about it, someone at USC is working on it and this is thanks in large part to COVID-19 innovation funds, created by the Provost, and added to, by generous parents, friends, and alumni from around the world.

Over my entire professional career, Ive never seen researchers and innovators come together, so quickly and with such purpose. I truly believe that in the end, science and human ingenuity, and care, will beat this.

COVID-19 may have knocked us hard but its also revealing sides of ourselves we may not have seen before.

As a biologist, Im reminded of the history of the microscope. Just over 400 years ago, Galileo, the extraordinary innovator he was, saw the power of magnifying lenses being made by Dutch master crafters and he used the lenses to complete the first microscope.

All of a sudden, the vast world of tiny organisms never seen before, became open to us, and just like that, human thinking was altered forever.

A year later, Galileo also perfected the telescope, expanding humanitys view into the universe, again changing forever what could be imagined.

One of the things I love most about teaching, is seeing my students reach that moment of clarity, when their understanding becomes crystal clear, and their horizons broaden.

I am seeing this in all of you, right now.

We are experiencing our own Galileo moment.

Were seeing problems as opportunities, exercising muscles we didnt know we had, tapping into wells of expertise and knowledge and compassion we didnt know were so deep.

Our entire workforce has turned on a dime, finding new ways to work together and solve problems, and helping people faster and more flexibly than ever before.

I believe now that weve seen and put these capabilities to use, in service of something bigger than ourselves, we wont, nor could we, go back.

This is what it feels like to collaborate at warp speed something Ive talked about before.

We see this happening so fully at USC because our community has been changing for some time now and, in important ways.

Weve been transforming our culture, our structure, and our governance, to enable us to become the university of the future and these changes are benefiting us now, as we adapt to meet the COVID-19 crisis.

So, let me turn to some of our key achievements that are driving a bold new vision for USC, for the coming decade. A full compilation of these accomplishments will be available on the USC website.

Ill start with our students, drawing on 48,000 individual stories, of achievement and cultural diversity.

USC has one of the most diverse student populations, and largest financial aid programs almost $650 million last year alone of the leading research universities in America.

And our incoming class, drawn from almost 60,000 talented applicants, is shaping up to be as accomplished and diverse as ever.

In fact, both Viterbi and Marshall are leading the nation among top-ranked schools, by welcoming classes at roughly gender parity.

Our students continue to say, they are coming to USC because it is the best place for them, to explore and pursue their passions, improve communities, and become game-changers.

Here they have the chance to work with some of the greatest minds of our times, and to get involved in so much.

This year, our students won numerous prestigious awards, with their talents on display in so many amazing ways.

They perform on Broadway, conduct ground-breaking research, write music, invent things, win competitions, and launch rockets. They volunteer their services and run businesses, and evaluate capital markets. They provide free legal clinics and medical and dental care. And they help feed, design, and house those without homes.

As graduates, theyll have an even bigger impact on their communities and in their fields, as our alumni always have.

USC is distinguished by its extraordinary breadth and strength. We see it, in our 23 academic units, in nearly $900 million in competitive research, and in our 28,000 graduate and professional students, and roughly 8,000 faculty.

The number of leading, top 10, and top 20 rankings received, by USC, our schools, and our departments, grew again this year.

Keck was ranked for the first time, as one of Americas top 20 hospitals. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) ranked number one in California, number one in the western United States, and number five in the country is the only leading childrens hospital that is a safety net hospital with more than 70 percent of its patients on Medicaid.

Reuters designated USC the eighth most innovative university in the world, and our graduates are often named Forbes 30 under 30 game-changers, in fields from arts to tech.

Our faculty continued to receive prestigious national honors including eight USC additions to the national academies of engineering, sciences, and inventors. Wow.

Theyre writing books and papers, changing the course of science, humanities, and policy. Theyre performing on stages worldwide, launching new companies, and pushing the frontiers of stem cell research. Theyre pushing to cure Alzheimers, cancer, and helping people to see again. Theyre leading the way in emerging fields, like Immuno bio-engineering, and working to end the educational, social, health, and economic disparities that plague our world.

And of course, all our achievements happen in partnership with our nearly 28,000 wonderful, determined, and dedicated staff many of whom are also our alumni. Im proud of the fact that we are the largest private employer in Los Angeles.

Our staff run our services from transportation to hospitality. Theyre part of our research and our teaching teams, they take care of our finances and our campuses; they keep us safe and our IT secure, they coach and care for our athletes.

They also care for our health and well-being, manage our operations, and organize our events. And they help us communicate, work with our stakeholders, and raise much needed financial support.

Our staff and faculty are incredibly generous as well, and I want to call this out. This year, we celebrated 25 years, during which thousands of our employees, donated 1 percent of their own salaries to support our Good Neighbors Program, to the tune of more than $26 million.

We also welcomed Chief Alma Burke, the first Latina and first female to serve as an Assistant Chief in USCs vitally important Department of Public Safety.

Finally, no State of the University speech would be complete without acknowledging the strength that comes from the Trojan family. Our alumni, parents, friends, and others are on the frontlines with us all the time, and they give generously to support our university.

USC simply wouldnt be who we are, without our alumni and their love of this very special place. They serve with great distinction, on our councils, in our Centers, and on our Board of Trustees.

Looking ahead, we know COVID-19 will continue to challenge us for some time. But I promise you, it will not deter us from reaching our goals.

Instead, we must take everything were learning in the fight against the pandemic like our newfound strength in collaboration, our willingness to change, our fresh perspective about where we are going and use it, to accelerate our transformation.

Specifically, we need to apply this knowledge and experience to deepen culture change, reinforce high ethical standards, and restructure our governance for a new, multidisciplinary, collaborative age.

Last September, I laid out four strategic goals for the university, and were making good progress here.

The first goal is to open our doors wider for students from all backgrounds. We want to make sure they truly flourish at USC, and become the leaders who build and succeed in the new economy.

Were making good on the historic pledge we made in the fall, to provide significantly more financial aid to low income students.

Were also on the way to doubling the mental health professionals at the student health center, expanding programs for First Gen, transfer, and undocumented students, and designing new spaces for student cultural groups, that do not currently have homes.

Our second goal is to take on sustainability, like never before, and build expertise that can reach around the world.

You may have heard about nature, returning to our locked-down cities along with clean air. Here in LA, once again, you could stand in one spot, and marvel at the crisply defined mountains to the east, and the sparkling Pacific Ocean to the west.

It reminds us what is possible, but it also shows us how much more we must do in the area of sustainability, to foster the kind of environment that will nurture us, and bring us joy.

Im proud of how far USC has come this year my zero-waste inauguration diverted an estimated 4,500 pounds of waste, from local landfills. Over 90 percent of waste is diverted at the Coliseum now, and I look forward to setting similar bold goals for the university overall.

Were on track to engage 75 percent of our departments in responsible purchasing, so that we can phase-out single use, non-essential plastics.

Were aggressively, pursuing a timeline for carbon neutrality, installing solar panels, subsidizing public transit, and supporting sustainability innovation funds.

And in just a few months the Presidential Working Group on Sustainability united around a number of recommendations to create the governance and educational programs, that will best help USC become a leader in sustainability.

Our third goal is to deepen our public partnerships, and become the leading university in reimaging the urban future. Here too, we are well on our way.

The COVID-19 crisis accelerated our efforts, to build and strengthen partnerships with city, county, state, and federal leaders.

It also put in stark relief, persistent inequalities in our society, that are having deadly effects, particularly in underserved communities of color.

For USC to be a leader in the urban future, we cant limit ourselves to being part of the recovery and building out of new economies; we also must be partners in the development of solutions to eliminate these enormous and destructive inequities.

For example, education and health systems need to accelerate efforts, to narrow disparities in the communities they serve, with solutions that can make a lasting difference.

As just one example, Im proud of the multidisciplinary efforts underway at Keck Medicine and the School of Medicine, to increase diversity in clinical trials.

They are energetically recruiting participants from areas of Los Angeles with large Latino populations, so they can be better represented in cardiac surgery clinical trials. This could go a long way in improving cardiac care for a large population.

And the fourth goal is to leverage the formidable talent of our faculty and schools, by pursuing bold ideas in areas where USC has a distinct advantage.

Our people are already hard-at-work considering moonshots, in big data and computational analytics, in building out the blue and green economies, in revolutionizing K-12 education, and in fast-tracking COVID-related research, that shows the greatest promise.

And there may be no other university better positioned than ours, to accelerate efforts to reimagine online education, and students educational experiences.

We have the experts right here: the best cinema school, the best gaming program, the most original technology for virtual reality, the best communications school, and extraordinary innovators in Viterbi, Iovine and Young, Rossier, Dornsife, Roski, and so on.

We sit at the epicenter of the imagination economy, and have extraordinary storytellers and technology leaders, who can bring education to life.

A great example of this is Dimensions in Testimony at the USC Shoah Foundation, a 3D educational experience, that is among the best in the world.

If we come together, and use the talent and tools we have, here and in Los Angeles, we can create a student experience unique to USC, that is second to none.

Underpinning these four goals, is our commitment to maintaining the highest ethical standards, in everything we do as a university.

Past scandals tarnished our reputation, and caused so much pain, across the Trojan community.

I spent a great deal of time this year listening, to students, faculty, alumni, and friends of USC, who shared their thoughts, on how we could bring back the luster to our university. I probably interacted with more than 40,000 people, and it was a wonderful, reaffirming experience.

Weve taken important, decisive steps this year in compliance, accountability, and transparency and we will continue these efforts, to ensure we stay on the right track going forward.

As we talk about the future, youre probably wondering what a post-COVID USC will look like. The pandemic will eventually subside, and when it does, well be ready.

Weve already launched Project Restart and are deep into planning for everyones return.

Schools are running full speed this summer online, and adding exciting new opportunities, and were re-building our infrastructure, to support more innovation and flexibility, when we do return.

Our decisions, about when and how to return, will be informed by a team of our leading public health professionals, along with state guidance and teams of experienced folks on our campuses.

Originally posted here:
State of the University Address - USC News