USC announces billion-dollar campaign; funds will implement strategic plan for world-class university.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 15, 1995--The University of Southern California will raise $1 billion by the year 2000, building its endowment to provide funds to compete among the world's best universities and to prepare students for the economy of the 21st century.

The campaign's goal and its theme, "Building on Excellence," were announced Friday by the chairman of USC's board of trustees, Malcolm R. Currie, and USC President Steven B. Sample. USC trustee Kenneth Leventhal will serve as chairman of the fund-raising campaign.

The funds will be used to implement the university's strategic plan, which grew out of a long process of evaluating and setting USC's priorities for the 21st century.

The plan emphasizes four areas:

-- transforming undergraduate education to meet the demands of the

future;

-- emphasizing interdisciplinary research to create new knowledge

and technologies;

-- creating programs of research and education that utilize and

contribute to the special strengths and opportunities of

Southern California; and

-- Building international links to maximize the region's global

advantages.

The Building on Excellence campaign began in 1993 and quickly accelerated with Ambassador Walter Annenberg's $120-million cash gift, then the largest gift in the history of higher education.

That gift led to establishment of the recently opened Annenberg Center for Communication, which, following the strategic plan, will seek to become the world's premier interdisciplinary center for study and research in communication by building on the immense and unique communications resources of Southern California.

A $5-million gift from Mr. and Mrs. William Wrigley, also announced Friday, will launch a $60-million development project to create a Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island (see related story and backgrounder).

This highly interdisciplinary institute will utilize the unique environmental laboratory provided by Catalina for the study of a wide variety of the region's and world's most important environmental issues.

Gifts and pledges to the campaign thus far exceed $405 million, putting the university more than 40 percent of the way toward its $1 billion goal. More than half of the funds raised are earmarked to augment the university's endowment, which is expected to double by the year 2000 due to both fund raising and investment.

"USC must attract the best scholars and students in the world and provide them with the most sophisticated classroom, research and library facilities available. That is what the Building on Excellence campaign is all about," said Currie, speaking on the patio of USC's recently completed Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Library, built with funds from USC's last campaign and generally regarded as the finest electronic library in the country.

"We are at a critical point in the university's history," said Leventhal. "As Southern California's preeminent private university, we must now lead the region back to its rightful position at the forefront of the national economy."

"A careful planning process has charted a course for this university," said Sample. "We know where we want to go and what it will take to get there. Our goal is to continue to advance USC's reputation for excellence in teaching and research throughout the world. The strategic plan provides us with the method for achieving that goal, and the campaign will provide us with the means to do so.

"USC provided research and education that fueled the Southern California economy of past decades." Sample added. "That economy, based on such industries as aerospace, entertainment and defense, became the envy of the world. The Southern California economy now taking shape will depend on technologies in such areas as multimedia, global communications and environmental science.

"We must draw to Southern California the talented students and researchers who we can help to create the businesses that will form the hub of the emerging global economy."

Through the Building on Excellence campaign, USC will:

-- Add 100 new endowed chairs, which help to make possible the

hiring and retention of stellar faculty.

-- Increase endowment for scholarships and fellowships by $100

million to help attract and finance the best undergraduate and

graduate students in the nation.

-- Provide $170 million in new funds for interdisciplinary teaching 

and research programs. Such programs are a distinctive aspect

of the USC undergraduate educational experience, combining the

traditional liberal arts with access to outstanding professional

schools, ranging from cinema-television to business and

engineering.

-- Fund $200 million in renovation and construction of

state-of-the-art facilities.

USC has been a leader in fund raising for higher education throughout this century. A 1993 report by the Common Fund found that the value of USC's endowment grew 2,137 percent between 1962 and 1987, faster than any other university endowment in the United States.

USC now ranks 19th in endowment among U.S. higher-education institutions, according to a 1994 survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

USC's race to match the endowments of the nation's top universities was accelerated by previous campaigns. The last campaign, The Campaign for USC, with James H. Zumberge as president, raised more than $641 million in cash and pledges.

It was the largest campaign in the history of higher education when announced in 1986. Annenberg again provided the largest individual gift, $28.2 million.

In the 1970s, during the presidency of John R. Hubbard, the Toward Century II campaign raised more than $300 million. It was one of the first three capital programs in academic history to exceed $300 million.

The campaign generated endowed chairs and new facilities that enabled USC to recruit major scholars and become one of the nation's top 20 research universities, public or private, in federal funding.

In the 1960s, under the leadership of Norman Topping, the Master Plan for Enterprise and Excellence in Education campaign quadrupled the university's endowment and added 50 new buildings to the Health Sciences and University Park campuses.

That campaign brought in more than $106 million, more than had been raised in all of the university's prior years combined, and more than in any previous educational fund-raising campaign in Southern California.

By the end of the decade, USC was elected to membership in the Association of American Universities, the first Southern California comprehensive university to be elected to that group of the most prestigious research universities in the United States and Canada.

For the last 10 years, USC has ranked consistently among the top dozen universities in the nation in philanthropic dollars received. In the fiscal year ended June 30, 1995, USC raised more than $132 million in private cash gifts, excluding pledges, from 83,574 individuals and 5,917 foundations and corporations.

Founded in 1880, USC is the oldest and largest private research university in the American West. Based upon federal research and development support, USC now ranks among the top 10 private research universities in the United States.

Many of USC's academic and professional programs are ranked among the finest. The School of Cinema-Television and the program in hydrocarbon chemistry are widely regarded as the best in the world.

Public administration, ophthalmology, accounting, urban planning, music, gerontology, social work, physical therapy and cancer research are consistently ranked among the top 10 in the country, while law, engineering, business, dentistry, pharmacy and creative writing are generally ranked among the top 20 in their respective peer groups.

USC offers bachelor's degrees in 82 undergraduate majors as well as master's, doctoral and professional degrees in 124 fields of study. USC's approximately 27,000 students attend classes on the University Park Campus near downtown Los Angeles or on the Health Sciences Campus three miles northeast of downtown. Approximately 14,000 are undergraduates.

USC recruits nationally and internationally for a selective student body. The university received more than 16,000 undergraduate applications for the most recent entering class of approximately 4,000 freshmen and transfer students. USC consistently ranks among the top three American universities in international student enrollment and attracts students from more than 100 foreign countries.

The largest private employer in Los Angeles, USC has approximately 17,000 full-time and part-time employees on the two Los Angeles campuses and at academic centers in Orange County, Sacramento, Washington, D.C., and Santa Catalina Island.

CONTACT: Wayne Sage, 213/740-2215

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