If this issue of the magazine had a theme, it might be one of journeys – starting with the highlights of USC’s 2007 Commencement ceremony on pages 12 and 13, in which some 8,000 students celebrate the completion of one phase of their lives as well as the entry into another. Two other Commencement stories in this issue also typify journeys, perhaps a bit more perilous than those of the majority of USC graduates. The first is that of Lucy Flores ’07, winner of the 2007 John R. Hubbard Award from USC’s Mexican American Alumni Association, whose dramatic turnaround from juvenile detention to acceptance into law school is told on page 18. And then there are the proud and determined local students who make up the 10th college graduation class of USC’s demanding Neighborhood Academic Initiative program, including Marlene Chavez ’07, shown here tutoring ninth graders (and aspiring NAI scholars) Pablo Escobar, Hermelinda Alonso, Juan Vega and Evelyn Clemente. NAI was started some 16 years ago in partnership with local schools to help neighborhood families prepare their children for college. Since then, 412 students have completed the six-year program; of those, 132 are attending or have graduated from USC and another 194 have attended college somewhere else. Their story is told on page 14.

Other journeys: The life and career of photographer Robbert Flick (“The Roads Most Traveled,” page 40), and his extraordinary saga as both an artist and a teacher; and the personal odyssey of law professor Elyn Saks (“Law and Disorder,” page 48), whose new book about her struggle against the fiercest of mental illnesses and her achievement of a high level of professional and personal success was written “to give hope to people who suffer from schizophrenia and to give understanding to those who don’t.”

Finally, our cover story highlights journeys of the heart and the mind. As President Sample describes on the facing page, USC urges students to take advantage of the life-changing potential offered “through education inside and outside the classroom.” As you’ll see from “Scholars without Borders” beginning on page 29, USC students have been eager to take the president’s words to heart.

We salute each one of these intrepid individuals.

– Susan Heitman