USC Media and Public Relations

Featured Stories

The Wall Street Journal highlighted USC's newly admitted class of 2016, noting that applications to the university rose 23 percent this year to 45,917, a record high. The university's acceptance rate dropped to a record low of 18 percent. USC Dean of Admissions Timothy Brunold said that the record number of applications was due to increased outreach by the university, as well as USC's adoption of the Common Application. The Daily Beast highlighted USC's application numbers and acceptance rate in a story on acceptances to top colleges.

Los Angeles Times reported that KCET-TV will feature four short films from the USC First Look festival as part of "Open Call," a showcase of the arts in Los Angeles. KCET-TV noted that USC School of Cinematic Arts Dean Elizabeth Daley was interviewed about the department and the films. Another KCET-TV story featured the films.

Los Angeles Times reported that the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission is preparing to sign a new lease with USC. The story noted that USC would make renovations to the venue. CBS News Los Angeles affiliate KCAL-TV also covered the news.

Forbes featured the USC Annenberg School's Innovation Lab, highlighting its research in digital media. The lab held its inaugural Innovation Summit last week, at which researchers talked with corporate leaders about ways to solve societal problems and develop new storytelling methods. Jonathan Taplin of the Annenberg School said: "Here, we ask: How do you create an innovation culture, where you get into students' bones, so they truly begin to think differently?" The story included video of a lab creation: "Flotsam," a "D-book" that encourages children to make up their own stories, explore marine life and share their discoveries with other kids using an app.

Asian News International featured work by Daniel Lidar of the USC Viterbi School and Zhihui Wang of the USC Dornsife College, on a quantum computer built using subatomic flaws in a diamond. It uses microwave pulses to reduce "decoherence," noise that prevents the computer from functioning properly. The computer has two quantum bits (qubits) made of subatomic particles. The researchers used a nitrogen nucleus from the diamond's imperfections to form the first of two qubits in the computer. A nucleus is slower than an electron when used for a qubit, but is much more stable. "A nucleus has a long decoherence time — in the milliseconds. You can think of it as very sluggish," Lidar said. The research was also featured by Press TV (Iran), Science Codex and TG Daily.

The San Diego Union-Tribune featured a USC Lusk Center for Real Estate forecast presented by Tracey Seslen of the USC Marshall School, indicating that average rents in San Diego rose 4.3 percent last year and will continue to rise in 2012, albeit at a slower rate. High gas prices and an overall decline in housing prices contribute to the climbing rates. "Things are not doing well for SoCal for the first couple of months in employment; we have to keep an eye on that," Seslen said.

Variety highlighted a tribute to producer Dino De Laurentiis held at the USC School of Cinematic Arts as part of Visions and Voices: The USC Arts & Humanities Initiative. The story noted that the school honored Mary Sweeney of the School of Cinematic Arts with the Dino and Martha De Laurentiis Endowed Professorship. School of Cinematic Arts Dean Elizabeth Daley attended the event.

El Temps (Spain) ran a story about Martin Kaplan of the USC Annenberg School, who visited Catalonia for the 10th anniversary of the Barcelona Media Foundation. Kaplan spoke about how the content industry has changed in the last decade, noting that entertainment consumers have many more choices than they've ever had before.