Since President Steven B. Sample took office in 1991, USC has marked a number of major milestones:

• Chemistry Professor George Olah, director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute, won the Nobel Prize.
• USC has enrolled some of the most academically talented freshman classes in the country, increased its endowment from $460 million to $3.1 billion, more than doubled sponsored research and completed two comprehensive, university-wide strategic planning processes.
• The university set a record in higher education by conducting the most successful fundraising campaign ever, raising $2.85 billion in nine years.
• USC became the only university to receive four separate nine-figure gifts in a single fundraising campaign: $100 million from the Annenberg Foundation to create the Annenberg Center for Communication, $112.5 million from Alfred E. Mann to establish the Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering, $110 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation for USC's school of medicine, and another $100 million from the Annenberg Foundation.
• Alumnus George Lucas gave $175 million to endow the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
• Major new facilities have opened on the University Park and Health Sciences campuses, including USC University Hospital, Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Library, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, International Residential College at Parkside, Popovich Hall, Lewis Hall and Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower.
• USC achieved the rare distinction of having two National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Centers — the Integrated Media Systems Center and the Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems.
• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security selected USC as its first Homeland Security Center of Excellence.
• USC was named "College of the Year 2000" by the editors of Time magazine and The Princeton Review for the university's extensive community-service programs.