University of Southern California

In the 1870s Los Angeles was still a frontier town, and a group led by Judge Robert Maclay Widney, together with members of the Southern California Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, began to plan a university in the region. In 1879 Widney formed a board of trustees and secured a donation of 308 lots of land from three civic leaders: Ozro W. Childs, a Protestant horticulturist; former California Governor John G. Downey, an Irish-Catholic pharmacist and businessman; and Isaias W. HellmanIsaias W. HellmanIsaias W. Hellman (1842–1920) was a Bavarian-born American banker, a founder of Los Angeles’s Farmers and Merchants Bank, president of Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank and a founding donor to the University of Southern California.Open the full entry, a German-Jewish banker and philanthropist.⁠[1][2]

Days after construction was completed, the University of Southern California opened its doors to its first students on October 6, 1880, with 53 students enrolled in its two departments and 10 teachers.⁠[3][1][2]

J. Paul GettyJ. Paul GettyJ. Paul Getty (1892–1976) was an American oil businessman and art collector who held a controlling interest in the Getty Oil Company and founded the J. Paul Getty Museum; his bequest built the J. Paul Getty Trust after his death.Open the full entry, who was born in Minneapolis, attended a private military school before going on to college; he first attended the University of Southern California, later transferred to the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is a campus of the University of California system; the University of California was founded in 1868 through a merger of two institutions and moved to Berkeley, California, in 1873.Open the full entry (1909–1911), and from November 1912 studied at Magdalen College, University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry.⁠[4]

In 1912 the university’s athletic teams were dubbed the “Trojans.”⁠[2]

In May 1961 USC produced the “Master Plan for Enterprise and Excellence in Education.”⁠[2]

Applications for admission to USC rose from 4,100 in 1970 to more than 11,000 in 1979, and the university’s Joint Educational Project was founded in 1972.⁠[2]

In 1994 George Olah, director of the USC Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.⁠[2]

In 2006 USC received $175 million from the Lucasfilm Foundation, its fifth nine-figure gift.⁠[2]

In the summer of 2018 President C. L. Max Nikias resigned amid allegations that the school had ignored complaints of widespread sexual misconduct by a longtime campus gynecologist, and Wanda Austin served as interim president. On March 20, 2019, USC announced that Carol Folt, former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, would become its 12th president and the first permanent female president in its history.⁠[5]

On March 25, 2021, USC agreed to pay $852 million to settle claims by more than 700 women who alleged sexual abuse by George Tyndall, a former campus gynecologist who had worked at the university for nearly three decades; together with a separate $215 million class-action settlement, the settlements totaled more than $1 billion. Tyndall, who faced criminal charges of sexual misconduct, pleaded not guilty; he died at his home in October 2023 while awaiting trial, of natural causes as determined by the medical examiner, and in February 2024 the criminal case was dismissed because of his death, ending without a conviction or an acquittal.⁠[6][7]

On June 30, 2022, it was announced that the Big Ten Conference had voted to accept USC and its crosstown rival UCLA as full members, effective August 2, 2024; USC said it intended to end its membership in the Pac-12 when the conference’s current media rights agreements expired.⁠[8]

In April 2024 USC canceled, on safety grounds, the speech that valedictorian Asna Tabassum was to give at the May 10 commencement ceremony, saying responses to her selection had “taken on an alarming tenor” while naming no specific threats. Tabassum said anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices had subjected her to a campaign of racist hatred. The university then canceled filmmaker Jon M. ChuJon M. ChuJon M. Chu is an American film director and producer best known for directing the 2018 romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians and the musical films Wicked (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025); the former was the first film in 25 years from a major Hollywood studio with an all-Asian cast, and for Wicked he won best director from the National Board of Review and at the Critics Choice Awards.Open the full entry’s keynote address and decided to release outside speakers and honorees from attending that year’s ceremony, saying it hoped to confer the honorary degrees at a future ceremony. The decisions drew condemnation from free speech groups and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.⁠[9]

Carol Folt, who had served as president for five years, announced her retirement in November 2024. In February 2025 USC named its general counsel, Beong-Soo Kim, as interim president, effective July 1, 2025.⁠[10]

On February 4, 2026, the USC Board of Trustees announced the unanimous appointment of Beong-Soo Kim, interim president since July 1, 2025, as the university’s 13th president. Kim previously served as USC’s senior vice president and general counsel; the board’s chair was Suzanne Nora Johnson.⁠[11][10]

As of October 2026 Beong-Soo Kim was president of USC, which is governed by a Board of Trustees. USC’s official “Facts and Stats” page lists about 46,000 students in the 2025–2026 academic year, including about 21,000 undergraduates and 25,000 graduate and professional students; 11,959 international students in fall 2025; and 4,578 full-time faculty and 19,364 staff in the 2025–26 academic year. The university has 23 schools and academic units, with the University Park Campus and the Health Sciences Campus; its “The University” overview page puts the student population at more than 48,000.⁠[11][12][3]

University of Southern California: Official website: https://www.usc.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[3]

X: Official account: https://x.com/usc (opens in a new window)⁠[3]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.linkedin.com/school/3084/ (opens in a new window)⁠[3]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.youtube.com/user/USC (opens in a new window)⁠[3]