Academics of the University of Southern California

The academics of the University of Southern California center around the 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.cite paper | url=http://www.usc.edu/private/factbook/2007/all_byclass_07.pdf | title=USC at a Glance: USC Student Characteristics| publisher=USC | format=PDF |date=2007 | accessdate=2007-04-26]

Overview

USC is a member of the Association of American Universities, joining in 1969. [cite web|url=http://www.aau.edu/aau/members.html |title=AAU Members by Admissions |publisher=Association of American Universities |accessdate=2008-06-13] 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. [cite web|url=http://www.usc.edu/academics/schools/ |title=USC Academics: Schools |publisher=University of Southern California |accessdate=2008-06-12]

College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences

The [http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/ The College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences] grants degrees in more than 130 majors and offers doctoral and masters programs in more than 20 fields. [cite web|url=http://www.usc.edu/academics/schools/overviews/las.html |title=USC Academics: College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences |publisher=University of Southern California |accessdate=2008-06-13]

The Graduate School

All Ph.D. degrees awarded at USC and most masters degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School. [cite web|url=http://www.usc.edu/schools/GraduateSchool/degrees_awarded.html |title=USC the Graduate School: Degrees Awarded |publisher=University of Southern California |accessdate=2008-06-13]

Professional schools

Professional degrees are awarded by each of the 17 professional schools.

Leventhal School of Accounting

Marshall School of Business

School of Dentistry

Rossier School of Education

Roski School of Fine Arts

Davis School of Gerontology

Gould School of Law

Thornton School of Music

School of Pharmacy

School of Policy, Planning, and Development

School of Social Work

School of Theatre

Features Thatcher Svekis.

chool of Cinematic Arts

The School of Cinematic Arts, the first film school in the country and perhaps USC's most famous school,Fact|date=June 2008 confers degrees in critical studies, screenwriting, film production, 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. [citation
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/movies/06vann.html
title=Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New M.B.A.?
newspaper=New York Times
accessdate=2008-02-04
last=Van Ness
first=Elizabeth
date=March 6, 2005] 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). [cite news |first=Stuart |last=Silverstein |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-091906usc-lucas,0,5365847.story?coll=la-home-headlines |title=George Lucas Donates USC's Largest Single Gift |publisher=The Los Angeles Times |date=September 19, 2006]

School of Architecture

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. [http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=41] In addition, 2008 edition of Design Intelligence ranked USC School of Architecture as the 12th best undergraduate architecture school in the US. In the previous four years, the school had been ranked within the top 10 undergraduate architecture schools ranking.

Viterbi School of Engineering

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. [cite web|url=http://www.isi.edu/about/history.php |title=The History of ISI |publisher=Information Sciences Institute (USC) |accessdate=2008-04-08] 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; [cite news|first=Angie |last=Green |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-innovate29mar29,1,297895.story |title=USC innovation institute reinventing itself |publisher=Los Angeles Times |date=March 29, 2007] real estate developer Daniel J. Epstein who named the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in 2002;Fact|date=June 2008 Energy Corporation of America CEO John Mork and his family who named the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science in 2005;Fact|date=June 2008 Ken Klein, CEO and president of Wind River Systems, who established the Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life, also in 2005;Fact|date=June 2008 Ming Hsieh, founder of Cogent Inc., who named the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering in 2006 with a $35 million gift;Fact|date=June 2008 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.Fact|date=June 2008

Annenberg School for Communication

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, [cite web | url=http://annenberg.usc.edu/Prospective/WhyASC/Overview.aspx | title=School Overview| publisher=USC Annenberg | accessdate=2007-04-26] 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. [ [http://annenberg.usc.edu/AboutUs/News/0430CowanChair.aspx USC Annenberg | Cowan honored with endowed faculty chair ] ]

Collaborations

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 [http://china.usc.edu 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.

References