The academics of the University of Southern California center around The College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the Graduate School, and its 17 professional schools. 4,676 undergraduate degrees and 5,380 advanced degrees were awarded in 2007.[1]
USC is a member of the Association of American Universities, joining in 1969.[2] The University of Southern California houses professional schools offering a number of varying disciplines among which include communication, law, dentistry, medicine, business, engineering, journalism, public policy, music, architecture, and cinematic arts. USC's academic departments fall either under the general liberal arts and sciences of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences for undergraduates, the Graduate School for graduates, or the university's 17 professional schools.[3]
The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the oldest and largest of the USC schools, grants undergraduate degrees in more than 130 majors and minors across the humanities, social sciences, and natural/physical sciences, and offers doctoral and masters programs in more than 20 fields.[4] USC College is responsible for the general education program for all USC undergraduates, and houses a full-time faculty of approximately 700, more than 6,500 undergraduate majors (roughly half the total USC undergraduate population), and 1,200 doctoral students. In addition to 30 academic departments, the College also houses dozens of research centers and institutes. In 2007, Howard Gillman, Professor of Political Science, History, and Law, was appointed the 20th Dean of the College. In the 2008-2009 academic year, 4,400 undergraduate degrees and 5,500 advanced degrees were awarded. All Ph.D. degrees awarded at USC and most masters degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School.[5] Professional degrees are awarded by each of the respective professional schools. In 2011, the college changed its name from College of Letters, Arts and Sciences to the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences due to a very generous donation of $200 million dollars to the school made by Dana and David Dornsife. This gift is the largest in USC history.
All Ph.D. degrees awarded at USC and most masters degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School.[5]
Professional degrees are awarded by each of the 17 professional schools.
The USC School of Fine Arts was renamed in honor of the Gayle Roski, the wife of billionaire developer Edward Roski, in 2006, after a $23-million donation to the school. The two are both USC alums. [6]
The mission of the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development (SPPD) is to improve the quality of life for people and their communities, in Southern California and abroad. The five master's level programs – in Public Policy, Public Administration, Urban Planning, Real Estate Development and Health Policy and Management – join theory with practice and emphasize experiential and professional learning. The doctoral programs allow a select group of students to work closely with faculty on important areas of research and scholarly inquiry. Graduate-level students at SPPD have considerable latitude to design their own programs in order to pursue their specialized areas of interest and further their professional development. Undergraduates pursue the Bachelor of Science in Public Policy, Management, and Planning, which builds on a well-rounded liberal arts core with classes and practical training in policy, management, and planning in preparation for either graduate school or the job market. For mid-career professionals, SPPD offers the Executive Master of Health Administration, the Executive Master of Leadership, and the International Public Policy and Management program.
The School of Cinematic Arts, the first film school in the country and perhaps USC's most famous school, confers degrees in critical studies, screenwriting, film production, interactive media, animation, and film producing. As the university administration considered cinematic skills too valuable to be kept to film industry professionals, the school opened its classes to the university at large in 1998.[7] In 2001, the film school added an Interactive Media Division studying stereoscopic cinema, panoramic cinema, immersive cinema, interactive cinema, video games, virtual reality, and mobile media. In September 2006, George Lucas had donated $175 million to expand the film school, the largest single donation to USC (and its fifth over $100 million).[8]
The Department of Architecture was established at USC within the Roski School of Fine Arts in 1916, becoming the first of its kind in Southern California. This small department grew rapidly with the help of the Allied Architects of Los Angeles. A separate School of Architecture was organized in September 1925. Since then, the school has been home to teachers such as Richard Neutra, Ralph Knowles, A. Quincy Jones, William Pereira and Pierre Koenig. The School of Architecture can also claim notable alumni Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Raphael Soriano, Gregory Ain, and Pierre Koenig. Two of the alumni have become Pritzker Prize winners. In 2006, Qingyun Ma, a distinguished Shanghai-based architect, was named dean of the school.[1] In addition, in its 2009 edition of "America's Best Architecture & Design School", the journal DesignIntelligence ranked USC School of Architecture as the 12th best undergraduate architecture school in the U.S.
The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering is headed by Dean Yannis Yortsos. Its research centers have played a major role in development of multiple technologies, including early development of the Internet when USC researcher Jonathan Postel was an editor of communications-protocol for the fledgling internet, also known as ARPANET.[9] The school's faculty includes Seymour Ginsburg, Irving Reed, Leonard Adleman, Solomon W. Golomb, Barry Boehm, Clifford Newman, Richard Bellman, Lloyd Welch and Alexander Sawchuk. Previously known as the USC School of Engineering, it was renamed on March 2, 2004, as the Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering in honor of Qualcomm founder Andrew Viterbi and his wife Erna, who had recently donated $52 million to the school. The Viterbi School received other major gifts including gifts from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mark Stevens and his wife Mary who created the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation in 2004;[10] real estate developer Daniel J. Epstein who named the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in 2002; Energy Corporation of America CEO John Mork and his family who named the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science in 2005; Ken Klein, CEO and president of Wind River Systems, who established the Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life, also in 2005; Ming Hsieh, founder of Cogent Inc., who named the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering in 2006 with a $35 million gift; and Los Angeles real estate developer Sonny Astani, who named the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a $17 million gift in 2007.
The Annenberg School for Communication, founded in 1971 is one of the two communication programs in the country endowed by Walter Annenberg (the other is at the University of Pennsylvania). The School of Journalism, which became part of the School for Communication in 1994,[11] features a core curriculum that requires students to devote themselves equally to print, broadcast and online media for the first year of study. USC's Annenberg School for Communication endowment rose from $7.5 million to $218 million between 1996 and 2007.[12]
USC collaborated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University to offer the USC (Executive) EMBA program in Shanghai. USC also operates two international study centers in Paris and Madrid. Beginning in 2006, the Marshall School of Business will have a San Diego satellite campus. In May 2006, USC's Board of Trustees and administration traveled to China. to announce the establishment of the USC U.S.-China Institute (USCI) joint research institute on U.S.-China relations and trends in China. USCI has funded research into a variety of topics including the history of U.S.-China diplomatic exchanges, aging, property rights, environmental challenges, agricultural policy, new media, migration, and technology exchange.