USC Hits Its $1-Billion Goal Early
USC has reached its ambitious $1-billion fund-raising goal two years ahead of schedule and has upped the campaign to $1.5 billion in its dogged effort to strengthen the school’s standing among the nation’s top universities.
The five-year campaign was put over the top in recent weeks by a $15-million donation from Starkist heiress Katherine B. Loker to help a USC institute develop fuel cells and other energy sources that are friendlier to the environment.
She donated an additional $2 million for a new track and field stadium.
“To do a billion dollars in little over four years, well, none of us thought that was feasible,” said USC President Steve Sample. “When we were planning this . . . a lot of people thought we were shooting too high.”
About a third of the money has come from Loker and other wealthy members of the USC Board of Trustees.
Alfred E. Mann, a biomedical entrepreneur and new member of the board, has donated $100 million. Wallis Annenberg helped line up $120 million from her publishing magnate father, Walter. El Monte entrepreneur Gordon S. Marshall donated $35 million, and accounting firm executive Kenneth Leventhal $15 million.
The fund-raising drive has also received a boost from Southern California’s economic recovery and the surging stock market--which have enabled some alumni to make bigger donations than expected, Sample said.
USC officials said the proceeds of the campaign, whose theme is “Building on Excellence,” will be used to enhance the university’s academic reputation by building state-of-the-art facilities and attracting top students and faculty.
The campaign has endowed about half of what the school hopes will be 100 new professorships and increased the university’s endowment for student aid.
USC officials said the campaign has begun to pay off. Since 1994, the number of students applying to become freshmen has risen to more than 21,000 who sought a place in next fall’s entering class, an 83% increase.
As a result, USC has been able to be more choosy in selecting its students, so that the average high school grade-point average of its freshman class has risen from 3.5 to 3.7 over the past four years and the average SAT score is up to 1242, from 1102.
Sample said these are some of the best indications of how the university’s reputation is rising among its peer institutions. “Because we must now turn away many more students than we can accept,” he said, “we are now among those few institutions listed [in college rankings] as ‘highly selective.’ ”
Of the more than $1 billion raised during the campaign, about $770 million has been in cash, said Paul Blodgett, a USC senior associate vice president. The rest consists of pledges from alumni and other donors.
USC hopes to reach the $1.5-billion goal by the end of 2000.
Loker’s $15-million donation, which was announced Wednesday, will support the work done at USC’s Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and its director, George A. Olah, a chemistry professor. Olah brought USC its first Nobel Prize in 1994 for his research on the basic chemistry of hydrocarbons.
The other $2 million from Loker, a USC alumna and avid sports fan, will build a 3,000-seat stadium on campus that will include both men’s and women’s track and field offices, locker rooms and other facilities.
