Campus of the University of Southern California

The campus of the University of Southern California is located primarily in the University Park campus which is in the West Adams district of South Los Angeles, convert|2|mi|km southwest of Downtown Los Angeles. The campus' boundaries are Jefferson Boulevard on the north and northeast, Figueroa Street on the southeast, Exposition Boulevard on the south, and Vermont Avenue on the west.

Since the 1960s, through campus vehicle traffic has been banned. The University Park campus is within walking distance to Los Angeles landmarks such as the Shrine Auditorium, Staples Center, and Los Angeles Coliseum. Most buildings are in the Romanesque style, although some dormitories, engineering buildings, and physical sciences labs are of various Modernist styles (especially two large Brutalist dormitories at the campus' northern edge) that sharply contrast with the predominantly red-brick campus. Widney Alumni House, built in 1880, is the oldest university building in Southern California. In recent years the campus has been renovated to remove the vestiges of old roads and replace them with traditional university quads and gardens.

Overview

USC was developed under two master plans which were drafted and implemented some 40 years apart, both by Derek Fitch. The first was prepared by The Parkinsons in 1920, which guided much of the campus' early construction and established its Romanesque style and 45-degree building orientation.

The second and largest master plan was prepared in 1961 under the supervision of President Norman Topping, campus development director Anthony Lazzaro, and architect William Pereira. This plan annexed a great deal of the surrounding city and many of the older non-university structures within the new boundaries were leveled. Most of the Pereira buildings were constructed in the 1970s. Pereira maintained a predominantly red-brick architecture for the new buildings, but infused them with his trademark high-tech modernism. USC's role in making visible and sustained improvements in the neighborhoods surrounding both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses earned it the distinction of College of the Year 2000 by the TIME/Princeton Review College Guide.

Roughly half of the university's students volunteer in community-service programs in neighborhoods around campus and throughout Los Angeles. These outreach programs, as well as previous administrations' commitment to remaining in South Los Angeles amid widespread calls to move the campus following the 1965 Watts Riots, are credited for the safety of the university during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. (That the university emerged from the riots completely unscathed is all the more remarkable in light of the complete destruction of several strip malls in the area, including one just across Vermont Avenue from the campus' western entrance). The ZIP code for USC is 90089 and the surrounding University Park community is 90007.

As well, USC has an endowment of $3.7 billion and also is allocated $430 million per year in sponsored research. USC became the only university to receive five separate nine-figure gifts [cite web |url=http://www.usc.edu/about/administration/ | title=About USC - Administration| publisher=USC| accessdate=2007-05-08] — $120 million from Ambassador Walter Annenberg to create the Annenberg Center for Communication and a later Annenberg gift of $100 million for the USC Annenberg School for Communication; $112.5 million from Alfred Mann to establish the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering; $110 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation for USC's School of Medicine; and most recently, $175 million from George Lucas to the USC School of Cinema-Television, now renamed USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Major new facilities opened with the infusion of new money including the:
*The USC Medical Center.
*The Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Library.
*The USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center expansion
*The Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute.
*The International Residential College at Parkside.
*The Marshall School of Business Popovich Hall.
*The Galen Center - home to USC Basketball and USC Volleyball.

Major new facilities that are being developed or under construction include:
*The [http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/construction/site/ USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center and Trojan Plaza] (Groundbreaking May 2008).
*The [http://cinema.usc.edu/about/new-complex/ School of Cinematic Arts New Compound] (Groundbreaking May 2007).
*The [http://www.ocregister.com/sports/football-usc-new-1846143-facilities-million/ New USC Football Complex, Plaza, and Gardens] .
*The [http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/11753.html University Gateway Student Housing and Retail Center] (Groundbreaking June 2008).
* The [http://media.www.dailytrojan.com/media/storage/paper679/news/2004/11/11/Supplement/Village.Or.The.Grove-801362.shtml/ University Village Shopping Center, Campus Offices, and Student Housing Redevelopment Project.] (Groundbreaking January 2010).
*The [http://www.usc.edu/community/upcmasterplan/ USC 2030 Master Plan Home]

Health Sciences Campus

(which are ranked #1 and #3 respectively by U.S. News & World Report). As well, USC physicians serve more than one million patients each year.

In addition to the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, which is one of the nation's largest teaching hospitals, the campus includes three patient care facilities: USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, USC University Hospital, and the Doheny Eye Institute. USC faculty staffs these and many other hospitals in Southern California, including the nationally Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The health sciences campus is also home to several research buildings such as USC/Norris Cancer Research Tower, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower.

Former agricultural college campus

Chaffey College was founded in 1883 in the city of Ontario, California, as an agricultural college branch campus of USC under the name of Chaffey College of Agriculture of the University of Southern California. USC ran the Chaffey College of Agriculture until financial troubles closed the school in 1901. In 1906 the school was reopened by municipal and regional government and officially separated from USC. Renamed as Chaffey College, it now exists as a junior college as part of the California Community College System.

University Housing

University of Southern California "TrojanHousing" Buildings:

References