Early Option
What began as an urban-outreach program quickly morphed into an honors program that set the stage for a quarter-century of undergraduate excellence.

When it began, it wasn’t supposed to be an honors program at all. The $750,000 NEH start-up grant that established Thematic Option at USC in 1974
was awarded for an urban outreach-oriented curriculum.
“It was a very sort of nothing curriculum,” says Karen Segal, retired founding director of the program. “In the ’70s, everyone wanted relevance – courses on ‘Values in Modern Life.’ We had one on why caring for the environment was a good thing – there was almost no literature and no writing. I didn’t completely approve of it, and I was hired to develop it.”
A year into the grant, Segal gave the program a total makeover. “New faculty were being hired. There was a need to create a small, very good liberal arts college. It was completely at odds with what was going on in the country,” she says. NEH gave its blessing, so long as the program didn’t call itself “honors,” which accounts for the singularly nondescript moniker “Thematic Option.”
By 1980, Segal was fielding calls from interested high school counselors coast to coast. Word had spread fast that T.O. was a place where bright undergraduates could get a lot of faculty attention and do research alongside top investigators. Thematic Option quickly became a model for honors programs
at many Southern California secondary schools, including Hamilton High.
Even so, the program might have died in its infancy if not for the backing of two top administrators – dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences John Marburger and provost Zohrab Kaprielian. Marburger, who later became president of SUNY Stony Brook and is now director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, championed the program over the protests of those who favored the status quo.
“What Marburger did,” recalls Segal, “was institutionalize the T.O. budget. He slowly put university money in the program, so it was fully funded by the time the NEH grant ended. No other university did that!” Kaprielian, who passionately believed in academic rigor, stood by Marburger when opponents closed ranks. “If he hadn’t, there’s no way it could have survived,” Segal says.

OVER TIME, T.O. HAS RETURNED that investment with interest. “Not to be immodest, but Thematic Option was key in laying the foundation for a
really strong undergraduate academic program,” says Robin Romans, who took over as program director when Segal retired in 1997. The revamped General Education program, with its connected writing classes, and USC’s Freshman Seminars, among others, was modeled on T.O.’s successes.
“There was a time when T.O. was one of USC’s top bragging points. We’re there sometimes now,” says Romans without rancor, “but so are Freshman Seminars, so are Renaissance Scholars, so is the baccalaureate/M.D. and the Learning Communities. So many strong programs have grown up now.”
Indeed, with the recent rise in overall quality of USC undergraduates (mean SATs skyrocketed from 1083 to 1308 during the decade ending in 2000), College administrators feared interest in Thematic Option might wane. The opposite has happened: “We now have the wonderful ‘problem’ of more students than we expected,” wrote College dean of academic programs Sarah Pratt in a letter last year to USC President Steven B. Sample, “...forcing us to scramble for faculty and seats in the program.”
T.O.’s place within USC has changed, says classics professor Carolyn Dewald. “It used to be that Thematic Option students were appreciably better than their peers. That’s no longer the case.”
Given the overall excellence of USC’s present undergraduate student body, why bother with an honors program at all?
“It’s an interesting question,” says Segal. “I would say there’s always a percentage of students who want to be challenged, who want to work hard and even risk their GPAs. And there are other students who don’t want that.”

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