Latest news with #CarolFolt
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pomp, circumstance and a drone show: USC shakes up its graduation a year after turmoil
As thousands of families poured into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the University of Southern California's main-stage commencement on Thursday night, the scene had the feel of the usual collegiate event held there: a football game. 'Churros! Water!' vendors called out as they picked their way past seated guests, some of them clutching pom-poms. Then the USC fight song began to play as night fell — and the Olympic Torch towering over the Coliseum ignited to cheers. The spectacle offered a rah-rah turning-of-the-page on last year's graduation controversy at USC. In May 2024, USC was widely criticized for its handling of commencement. Amid the turbulence of campus protests over Israel's war in Gaza, President Carol Folt canceled the main ceremony over safety concerns, along with the speech of valedictorian Asna Tabassum, who had expressed pro-Palestinian views. As the four-day graduation ceremonies ramped up Thursday night for the Class of 2025, USC unveiled major changes to a long-held tradition. Arguably the biggest adjustment: abandoning longtime on-campus commencement venue Alumni Park — and its stately red-brick buildings and mature greenery — for the cavernous Coliseum. USC also did away with a long-held practice, announcing in February that there would be no valedictorian — and no accompanying speech. Instead of selecting a graduating senior based mainly on academic grades, the student speaker, Meghan Anand, was chosen from among applicants with grade-point averages of 3.5 and above who submitted celebratory essays about their class. Yet, for a university that steeps itself in its Trojan traditions, commencement had already been forced to bend with the times. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 gathering was relocated to the Coliseum because the venue's size allowed for a series of socially distanced events. Last year, after the main-stage commencement was canceled, the university scrambled to host a 'Trojan Family Graduate Celebration' at the Coliseum. It featured a drone show, fireworks and free hats from rapper Travis Scott's apparel company. Feelings were mixed. Ahead of Thursday's event — the centerpiece of a days-long graduation celebration that began Wednesday, concludes Saturday and includes more than 20 celebrations on and near campus — The Times interviewed five graduating seniors about commencement. Some said they would have preferred to have the ceremony on campus, but the prospect of a nighttime celebration that would include another elaborate drone show and massive fireworks display still appealed. Senior Michael Young, 21, said he was "excited for that drone show" and knew from football games the Coliseum would provide a "celebratory atmosphere," but he added he would miss the vibes of Alumni Memorial Park. "If we had it there, it would just feel nostalgic," he said. "Because, you know, we walk through that main road of campus all the time, right? We go into that library sometimes, right? We want to graduate on the exact steps that we took to graduate." Several students also criticized the administration's decision to not name a valedictorian — or let that person speak. Senior Nicole Concepcion said the decision was "just another way for USC to really filter out what they want to show everyone." "They're really, really trying to control it this year, which rubbed me the wrong way," she said. Yet others pointed out that the pandemic had thwarted their high school's in-person graduations. They were simply happy to attend any sort of gathering recognizing their achievements. "Our high school graduation ceremonies were impacted by COVID, so I'm excited that we get a grand event," said senior Jennie Duong, 22. In a statement, USC said the commencement was moved to the campus-adjacent stadium this year in part because it had gotten feedback from graduates who went to last year's celebration "and loved the drone show and fireworks." It was also moved to the Coliseum because the event "has outgrown all venues on our campus." The university said it expected 50,000 guests Thursday night; attendance figures were not immediately available. As for the decision to forgo naming a valedictorian, the university has noted that other universities have also retired the valedictorian title, and that it wanted to "celebrate the accomplishments of a wider range of our graduating students who have worked incredibly hard throughout their academic career." The event at the Coliseum represented something of a do-over for USC — at least in one way. "Wicked" director Jon M. Chu, a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, delivered a speech Thursday night after his planned 2024 commencement address was called off by the university even before the Alumni Park ceremony was canceled amid the swirling controversies. "Your job is not simply to inherit a world but to reimagine it and set the foundation for who we are moving forward," Chu told the graduates. "Because we're living in a moment when those old stories of who we are and what we stand for are breaking down." The main-stage campus commencement gatherings at Alumni Park, which began about 75 years ago, weren't short on pageantry and old-world tradition going back decades. The event would typically begin with a processional that saw students stream out of Bovard Administration Building carrying heraldic flags for the university's various academic units, followed by deans and other senior university leaders in academic gowns and colorful hoods as "Pomp and Circumstance" played. "It [was] very traditional," said Annette Ricchiazzi, who worked for USC in events during the 2000s and helped produce commencement events. It offered "the sense of what of a graduation ceremony should be." At the Coliseum on Thursday, some of that tradition was on display. There were, for example, students bearing flags. And there was a processional of dignitaries. But there were elements not typically seen at commencement — though they might have been familiar to any fan of the USC football team, which plays at the Coliseum. Like those food vendors. Ricchiazzi, a USC alumna whose two daughters also graduated from the university, decried changes that broke with tradition. "Commencement is not a football game — and it shouldn't be," she said. Students and alumni, Ricchiazzi among them, said they believed the decision to hold the event at the Coliseum stemmed partly from the fact that the venue, which is equipped with metal detectors, offers a high level of security. On Thursday, guests were only allowed to bring clear bags into the stadium, a policy deployed for other events there. Senior Lawrence Sung, 22, said he bristles at the security gates USC put in place along its campus' perimeter for the start of the school year, but in the case of commencement, he understand the needs for tight restrictions. "For a big event like this — for graduation — I do see the value in that," he said. Asked whether security concerns played a role in the decision to move commencement to the Coliseum, USC referred The Times to a statement that said in part the event was held there because the venue's capacity suited its needs. The university said it would not disclose details of its security plans. Lloyd Greif, a prominent alumnus of the USC Marshall School of Business, said that in 2021 — the year of the socially distanced commencement at the Coliseum — two of his children graduated from the business school, one with a bachelor's degree, the other a graduate degree. The Greifs attended the event, and it worked out just fine. "I did like the setting," said Greif, who founded the Marshall School's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. "Just like Memorial Park has a lot of history and tradition, so does Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum." One more recent tradition that hasn't changed: affinity commencement celebrations. Despite guidance from the Trump administration's Education Department that suggested Black, Latino and other cultural affinity group celebrations during commencement were illegal forms of segregation and spurred cancellations elsewhere in the U.S., USC planned to continue the events — and all were welcome. Lavanya Sharma, 21, who was selected to be a flag bearer, was among those in the processional that kicked off the Coliseum celebration. Her parents are immigrants from India, and Sharma is the first in he family to graduate from a U.S. university. The Coliseum, she said, seems suitably cool for a commencement venue. "It is rare for students to be given access to the field," she said. "And I've really started to view the Coliseum as part of USC. I've been there for so many ... football games hosted by USC." Concepcion, who is Filipino American, can relate. She also is the first person in her family to graduate from a U.S. university. She made plans to attend several ceremonies, including a gathering for students of Filipino descent that she said is known as "P-Grad." But she said she'd told her parents she wasn't sure if she wanted to go to the main commencement. Her parents weren't having it. "They were like, 'No, we'd love to do it. We're super excited to just see what it looks like,'" Concepcion said. Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Guardian
25-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
USC enacts hiring freeze and makes cuts over Trump threats to funding
The University of Southern California announced an immediate hiring freeze for all staff positions, 'with very few critical exceptions' in a letter to faculty and staff on Tuesday. The letter, from USC's president, Carol Folt, and provost, Andrew Guzman, said the hiring freeze was one of nine steps to cut the school's operating budget amid deep uncertainty about federal funding – given sweeping cuts to scientific research, the reorganization of student loans, and an education department investigation accusing the university of failing to protect Jewish students during protests over Israel's destruction of Gaza following the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. 'Like other major research institutions, USC relies on significant amounts of federal funding to carry out our mission,' the university administrators wrote. 'In fiscal year 2024, for example, we received approximately $1.35 billion in federal funding, including roughly $650 million in student financial aid and $569 million for federally funded research. The health system also receives Medicare, Medicaid, and Medi-Cal payments – a significant portion of its revenues – and the futures of those funds are similarly uncertain.' The other measures include: permanent budget reductions for administrative units and schools, a review of procurement contracts; a review of capital projects 'to determine which may be deferred or paused', a curtailment of faculty hiring, new restriction on discretionary spending and expenses for travel and conferences, an effort to streamline operations, a halt on merit-based pay increases, and an end to extended winter recess introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic. Two weeks ago, USC was one of 60 schools notified by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights of 'potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus'. The newly announced budget cuts follow a university statement in November of last year that informed staff that 'rising costs require … budgetary adjustments'. In 2024, that statement said: 'USC's audited financial statement shows a deficit of $158 million.' 'Over the past six years, our deficit has ranged from $586 million during legal cost repayments and COVID, to a modest positive level of $36 million in 2023,' USC administrators wrote in November. 'Similar deficits are being reported at many peer institutions due to rising costs that outpace revenues across all of higher education,' they added.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
USC calls for hiring freeze, austerity efforts amid budget woes and Trump investigations
Roiled by multiple investigations from the Trump administration, USC has announced a slate of cutbacks — including a staff hiring freeze — as it braces for what it called "federal funding uncertainty" in a letter released Monday. Among the nine austerity measures are a reassessment of capital spending projects and restrictions on discretionary spending, according to the letter signed by university leaders including outgoing President Carol Folt. The USC actions come at a time of unprecedented threats against universities by the Trump administration. It has vowed to cut federal funding — including key medical and science research grants — to institutions that do not comply with its directives. Trump has ordered campuses to squelch antisemitism; eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and ban transgender athletes from competing in women's sports. "Recent developments require us to take additional steps to increase our financial resilience in the face of exceptional financial uncertainty," said the letter, which noted that USC received about $570 million in research funding in fiscal year 2024. "Taking bold action now will help us to meet the challenges facing us while protecting and advancing our important academic and research missions for generations to come." The belt-tightening plan, effective immediately, comes just months after an internal financial planning task force said in November that USC's $158-million budget deficit required various "cost containment measures." The Trump administration has announced that USC faces investigations from the Department of Justice and the Office for Civil Rights over antisemitism allegations — and will be visited by a federal antisemitism task force. The scrutiny largely stems from allegations against pro-Palestinian protests last spring and an encampment that was cleared by police, who arrested some demonstrators. The university has already made substantive changes: In February, USC deleted the website for its schoolwide Office of Inclusion and Diversity and merged it into another operation, scrubbed several college and department-level DEI statements, renamed faculty positions and, in one case, removed online references to a scholarship for Black and Indigenous students. Last spring it enacted restrictions on campus protests. USC is not alone in enacting cost-cutting plans under the threat of losing research funding. Earlier this month, the University of California — also under investigation by the Trump administration, which accuses it of campus antisemitism — announced a hiring freeze and other measures. Dozens of additional universities are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education over alleged antisemitism or race-based discrimination. Read more: University of California orders hiring freeze, cuts in response to Trump threats Several faculty members at USC said they had been bracing for Monday's announcement in light of Trump's recent actions. "Candidly, there have been plenty of reasons to be annoyed with USC in the last 15 years, but this is not one of them," said Darby Saxbe, a psychology professor. "I think everyone recognizes this is universal to research [universities] across the country. The Trump administration is behaving with such hostility and capriciousness. ... There is so much malevolence." Sanjay Madhav, an associate professor of practice at the USC Viterbi engineering school, said he was most worried about the hiring freeze and how it could upend longtime plans and projects across the university, such as an ambitious computing initiative that is in the interviewing phase for faculty positions. "We have ... candidates scheduled to fly in over the next few weeks," he said. "There is a lot of concern we could be interviewing all these candidates and potentially there could not be a job for them." Yet Madhav, who is involved in a union organizing effort for non-tenure track professors, lamented that he and other similarly situated faculty "have no seat at the table and we have no input in terms of what decisions are made." USC declined to comment, referring The Times to the Monday letter and the financial planning memo from November. Trump — who has railed against universities' "Marxist" diversity administrators and "radical left" accreditors — has moved swiftly to remake the collegiate landscape in a country that is often said to have the best system of higher education in the world. Read more: How California schools, colleges are responding to Trump's DEI crackdown Among other actions, the administration's National Institutes of Health issued a rule in February that slashes funding tied to medical research, which universities have said is integral to their operations and scientific discoveries. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction earlier this month that puts the cuts on hold. Saxbe said the letter from Folt and others was the subject of discussion on a Slack group chat with colleagues who expressed "confusion" over how some of the cuts would be implemented and how far they could go. "We are just in this very bewildering landscape," she said. "We don't know how far to tighten the belt or for how long because there is so much uncertainty." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
USC calls for hiring freeze, austerity efforts amid budget woes and Trump investigations
Roiled by multiple investigations from the Trump administration, USC has announced a slate of cutbacks — including a staff hiring freeze — as it braces for what it called 'federal funding uncertainty' in a letter released Monday. Among the nine austerity measures are a reassessment of capital spending projects and restrictions on discretionary spending, according to the letter signed by university leaders including outgoing President Carol Folt. The USC actions come at a time of unprecedented threats against universities by the Trump administration. It has vowed to cut federal funding — including key medical and science research grants — to institutions that do not comply with its directives. Trump has ordered campuses to squelch antisemitism; eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and ban transgender athletes from competing in women's sports. 'Recent developments require us to take additional steps to increase our financial resilience in the face of exceptional financial uncertainty,' said the letter, which noted that USC received about $570 million in research funding in fiscal year 2024. 'Taking bold action now will help us to meet the challenges facing us while protecting and advancing our important academic and research missions for generations to come.' The belt-tightening plan, effective immediately, comes just months after an internal financial planning task force said in November that USC's $158-million budget deficit required various 'cost containment measures.' The Trump administration has announced that USC faces investigations from the Department of Justice and the Office for Civil Rights over antisemitism allegations — and will be visited by a federal antisemitism task force. The scrutiny largely stems from allegations against pro-Palestinian protests last spring and an encampment that was cleared by police, who arrested some demonstrators. The university has already made substantive changes: In February, USC deleted the website for its schoolwide Office of Inclusion and Diversity and merged it into another operation, scrubbed several college and department-level DEI statements, renamed faculty positions and, in one case, removed online references to a scholarship for Black and Indigenous students. Last spring it enacted restrictions on campus protests. USC is not alone in enacting cost-cutting plans under the threat of losing research funding. Earlier this month, the University of California — also under investigation by the Trump administration, which accuses it of campus antisemitism — announced a hiring freeze and other measures. Dozens of additional universities are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education over alleged antisemitism or race-based discrimination. Several faculty members at USC said they had been bracing for Monday's announcement in light of Trump's recent actions. 'Candidly, there have been plenty of reasons to be annoyed with USC in the last 15 years, but this is not one of them,' said Darby Saxbe, a psychology professor. 'I think everyone recognizes this is universal to research [universities] across the country. The Trump administration is behaving with such hostility and capriciousness. ... There is so much malevolence.' Sanjay Madhav, an associate professor of practice at the USC Viterbi engineering school, said he was most worried about the hiring freeze and how it could upend longtime plans and projects across the university, such as an ambitious computing initiative that is in the interviewing phase for faculty positions. 'We have ... candidates scheduled to fly in over the next few weeks,' he said. 'There is a lot of concern we could be interviewing all these candidates and potentially there could not be a job for them.' Yet Madhav, who is involved in a union organizing effort for non-tenure track professors, lamented that he and other similarly situated faculty 'have no seat at the table and we have no input in terms of what decisions are made.' USC declined to comment, referring The Times to the Monday letter and the financial planning memo from November. Trump — who has railed against universities' 'Marxist' diversity administrators and 'radical left' accreditors — has moved swiftly to remake the collegiate landscape in a country that is often said to have the best system of higher education in the world. Among other actions, the administration's National Institutes of Health issued a rule in February that slashes funding tied to medical research, which universities have said is integral to their operations and scientific discoveries. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction earlier this month that puts the cuts on hold. Saxbe said the letter from Folt and others was the subject of discussion on a Slack group chat with colleagues who expressed 'confusion' over how some of the cuts would be implemented and how far they could go. 'We are just in this very bewildering landscape,' she said. 'We don't know how far to tighten the belt or for how long because there is so much uncertainty.'
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House panel requests data from USC on Chinese nationals
A subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives has sent a letter to USC requesting information on Chinese nationals taking classes at the university. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party lists its mission as working 'on the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and [to] develop a plan of action to defend the American people, our economy, and our values.' In the letter addressed to Dr. Carol Folt, the committee states, 'The United States is at a dangerous crossroads where the pursuit of short-term financial gains by academic institutions jeopardizes long-term global technological leadership and national security.' California couple deported after living in U.S. for 35 years It goes on to say that universities are being used as conduits for foreign adversaries to gain access to critical research and advanced technology illegally—although the letter does not provide proof or evidence to support these claims. 'Too many U.S. universities continue to prioritize financial incentives over the education of American students, domestic workforce development, and national security. They do so by admitting large numbers of Chinese nationals into advanced STEM programs, potentially at the expense of qualified Americans,' the letter reads. The letter calls this a 'brain drain of critical expertise,' describing it as a reflection of 'Beijing's explicit strategy to leverage academia for technological advancements.' The House committee then requests that USC provide information, including the previous universities attended by Chinese national students at USC, sources of tuition funding, the types of research being conducted, and a list of labs and research initiatives where those students currently work. The bipartisan committee includes Rep. Young Kim (R-CA 40) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA 17). USC has not yet stated whether it will comply with the requests but confirmed to KTLA that it received the letter and is reviewing it. University data shows 5,993 international students from China enrolled for Fall 2024. Other universities, including Purdue, Stanford, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Maryland, and Carnegie Mellon, received similar letters. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
