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USC TRUSTEES HAVE VOTED to combine two schools – Public Administration and Urban Planning and Development – to form a new School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
This new, larger school “opens many exciting opportunities” for the faculty as well as the university, said Provost Lloyd Armstrong Jr. The expectation is that faculty will be in a better position to capitalize on their Southern California location to address policy issues of international importance, including public management, public policy, health care, immigration, transportation, real estate and economic development, and urban and regional planning.
The consolidation is also expected to bring additional prominence and resources to USC’s educational programs and research projects that involve the inter-relation of the public, private and nonprofit sectors.
Robert Biller, professor of public administration, will serve as interim dean of the new school, with Tridib Banerjee, professor of planning, acting as vice dean. A search committee for a permanent dean is headed by Scott Bice, dean of the USC Law School; and school officials hope to fill the vacancy by the summer of 1999.
THE NEW SCHOOL BEGAN the academic year with 45 tenure-track faculty members, 1,200 students, 11,000 alumni and a combined endowment of close to $44 million.
Jane G. Pisano, former dean of the School of Public Administration, was promoted earlier this year to the position of senior vice president for external relations. Pisano will remain a professor of public administration in the new school.
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Edward J. Blakely, former dean of the School of Urban Planning and Develop-ment, will also serve on the faculty of the new school as a professor of planning and development.
The consolidation, first discussed by the faculty in October 1997, is expected to strengthen the research and professional activities of USC faculty specializing in the intersection of the public, private and nonprofit sectors. The new school is in the process of founding a research institute that will examine public-private partnerships across a range of fields, including health care, government and business. Its tentative name: the Institute for Civic Enterprise.
The former Lusk Center for Real Estate Development in the School of Urban Planning and Development has been reorganized into a university-wide research unit that will be available for use by faculty and students from all schools at USC. The new Lusk Center for Real Estate will be jointly administered by the School of Policy, Planning, and Development and the Marshall School of Business.
The School of Policy, Planning, and Development also will assume administration of the Center for Health Policy and Management, a think tank for trends in health-care administration that was previously administered by the School of Public Administration.
The new school will continue the highly ranked master’s degree programs offered by both former schools, including master’s of public administration, health administration, public policy, international public policy and management, planning, real estate development, and planning and development studies.
Also preserved are undergraduate and doctoral programs offered by both former schools.
Ultimately, the Policy, Planning, and Development faculty and programs will be housed in Ralph and Goldy Lewis Hall, a state-of-the-art facility under construction at what will be the new primary entrance for the University Park Campus on Expo-sition Boulevard. Lewis Hall, originally designed for the School of Urban Planning and Development, is a three-story, 34,000-square-foot brick and concrete building scheduled for completion next summer. With the combining of the two schools, an addition to the building is being contemplated.
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