Milestones
USC’s total endowment has topped $1 billion for the first time inhistory,according to senior vice president for administration DENNIS F. DOUGHERTY. On top of this, when the books for fiscal year 1996 were closed, they showed a net operating surplus of $175,000 – making this the 85th year without a deficit. The university earned a total of $1.233 billion in revenues, including a gain of $131 million on long-term investments, $148 million in government-sponsored research and $141.3 million in gifts and pledges to departments.


Health economist GLENN ALAN MELNICK will hold the Blue Cross of California Chair in Health Care Finance in the School of Public Administration, endowed in 1994 by a $2.5 million gift from Blue Cross of California, a leading health-insurance organization. Melnick is a nationally recognized scholar whose work concentrates on modern health-care delivery systems and the critical public-policy and managed-care issues of access, quality, cost and finance.


Two USC scientists – pharmacologist MICHAEL B. BOLGER and biological scientist JED A. FUHRMAN – have been elected fellows of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, one of the most prestigious scientific bodies in the world. Bolger is a
specialist in the computer modeling of drug-protein interactions; Fuhrman is an internationally known authority on marine microorganisms.


University Librarian JERRY DEAN CAMPBELL, an authority on information systems and technologies, has been named to the newly created post of chief information officer of the university. In this role he will consolidate management for various computing and telecommunications systems on campus as well as produce a long-range strategic plan for the university’s information systems. “We count on him to ensure that our information systems will be fully capable of meeting the educational and management issues we face in the 21st century,” said Provost Lloyd Armstrong Jr.


JANE PISANO, dean of the School of Public Administration and vice president for external affairs, has been elected to the board of trustees of the National Academy of Public Administration, which is one of two congressionally chartered academies in the United States and composed of the premier practitioners and academics in the field.


“We envision the students as scholars – as doctors and lawyers – even before they envision themselves as having those capacities,” says Neighborhood Academic Initiative head JAMES FLEMING, profiled as Citizen of the Week by Los Angeles’ KNX Newsradio in November. Fleming was honored for drawing hundreds of disadvantaged local youngsters into a program that gives a strong boost to their hopes of entering and graduating from college. Schools and universities have adopted NAI methods in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas, Florida and now South Africa.


Other Stories

Service Rewarded

Making the Ocean Bloom

In Print: A City of Contrasts

The Tao of Being Department Chair

The Estrogen Puzzle

Weiss on Ice

A Tradition Handed Down

Milestones
Way Cool Guy
he October Buzz magazine named poet and Professional Writing Program director James Ragan one of “the 100 coolest people in L.A.”
Ragan is listed between restaurateur Toribio Prado and singer-songwriter Robbie Robertson. “While he’s happy to help his writing students make movie deals, Ragan devotes his own talent to the less lucrative art of poetry,” the magazine states. “Bob Dylan says he’s the real thing. Bob Dylan is right.”
Photographs by Irene Fertik
Features --LA Feature - Place to Be - Swimming - Trustee Scholars
Depatments -- Mailbag - On Stage - What's New - In Support - Alumni News - The Last Word

Home