A Message From the Dean
Maintaining Momentum
"The very words speak for themselves: Tradition. A sense of the past,
such as a university with deep roots in the 19th century. Innovation.
This is a university on the cutting edge of contemporary culture. And
then, Initiative. Let’s begin something anew. All of these terms
together evoke a sense that the College is now reaching a new plateau.”
—USC
University Professor Kevin Starr
Historian Kevin Starr’s observation aptly captures what makes USC
College unique in comparison to peer academic institutions. The College
has been the intellectual core of USC since its inception 125 years
ago, and today we are shaping the most innovative teaching and research
paradigms on the globe. We have charted our own path, undeterred by the
confines of previous academic conventions.
Today, we must embark on a new course to further the momentum we’ve been building over the last few years.
The Tradition & Innovation fund-raising initiative — the feature of
this special edition of the USC College magazine — will allow us to
continue to offer our students an outstanding education, attract and
retain excellent faculty, and lead the pioneering changes that drive
modern society. The realization of partnerships with renowned
institutions like the Huntington Library and Getty Museum is one of the
ways that the College will remain on the cutting edge.
You might have read by now about the Survivors of the Shoah Visual
History Foundation becoming a part of USC College in January. This
partnership between the College, with its deep commitment to fostering
research for the common good, and the Shoah Foundation, which holds the
most extensive visual history archive in the world, is unique in higher
education.
Steven Spielberg established the Shoah Foundation to preserve
testimonies of survivors and other witnesses to the Holocaust. USC is
committed to the preservation of this collection, the largest of its
kind, which is comprised of 52,000 audio-visual testimonies in 32
languages.
When the Shoah Foundation becomes part of the College, it will continue
to pursue its mission of overcoming intolerance. These profound visual
testimonies have a tremendous educational purpose for this generation
and for future generations who must learn about the atrocities of the
Holocaust and genocide.
Our partnership with the Shoah Foundation will provide the building
blocks on which to develop groundbreaking approaches to the study of
history and culture, while preserving one of the most important
collection of testimonials of our time. The new USC Shoah Foundation
Institute for Visual History and Education will position the College as
the leader in the study of visual history, an increasingly important
medium for recording the history of humanity.
This extraordinary opportunity is just one example of the unique and
innovative partnerships that can be created through the Tradition &
Innovation initiative — and must be sustained in the coming years to
move forward and achieve our ambitious goal.
The success of the Tradition & Innovation fund-raising initiative
lies with all of you: USC College’s faculty, students, alumni, parents
and friends. I am grateful for your continued involvement as we
maintain the creativity and commitment that will move us toward our
goal of becoming one of the best and most relevant colleges in the
nation.
Joseph Aoun
Dean of USC College
Anna H. Bing Professor
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