Steven B. Sample, USC’s 10th president

USC marked many major milestones under Sample’s leadership. The university recruited some of the most academically talented freshman classes in the country, more than doubled sponsored research to $430 million a year, and completed two comprehensive, university-wide strategic planning processes designed to take USC to new levels of academic excellence. It also mounted the most successful fundraising campaign, raising $2.85 billion and becoming the only university to receive four separate nine-figure gifts in one campaign: $112.5 million from Alfred E. Mann to establish the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering, $120 million from Ambassador Walter Annenberg to create the Annenberg Center for Communication, $110 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation for the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and a second gift of $100 million from the Annenberg Foundation to support the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Important new facilities that opened under Sample’s watch included USC University Hospital, Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Library, Jane Hoffman Popovich and J. Kristoffer Popovich Hall, the International Residential College at Parkside, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Ronald Tutor Hall and USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center expansion project, to name a few.

Steven B. Sample served as president of the University of Southern California from 1991 to August 2010. Under Sample’s leadership, USC solidified its status as one of the nation’s leading research universities and emerged as a world leader in the fields of communication, multimedia technologies, and life sciences.

During Sample’s tenure, USC became a highly selective undergraduate institution; completed a national record-setting fundraising campaign and received five gifts of $100 million or more; conducted the largest capital construction campaign in its history on both campuses; received national acclaim for its innovative community partnerships; and advanced its presence and influence as a global university that enrolls more international students and has more international alumni than any other American university.

Sample was a tenured professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. As president, he co-taught with management expert Warren Bennis an undergraduate course titled “The Art and Adventure of Leadership.” His book, The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, has been a Los Angeles Times best-seller, was named one of six “must-reads” for leaders by Harvard Management Update of the Harvard Business School, and has been translated into five languages. He donated all royalties from the book to a scholarship fund for USC undergraduates.

He was a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sample was the author of numerous journal articles and published papers in science and engineering and higher education. His patents in the field of digital appliance controls have been licensed to practically every major manufacturer of appliance controls and microwave ovens in the world. Over 300 million home appliances have been built using his inventions.

Sample chaired many statewide and national groups examining the state of elementary, secondary, and higher education. In 1994 he convened a group of Los Angeles leaders which was awarded a $53 million challenge grant from the Annenberg Foundation to accelerate reforms in local public schools. He was a past chairman of the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of the 63 leading North American research universities. He chaired a special AAU committee on postdoctoral education and co-chaired an AAU task force on increasing protection for human subjects in university-based research.

In order to capitalize on the emerging power and prominence of the Pacific Rim, Sample co-founded the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), a consortium of 42 premier Pacific Rim research universities located in 15 countries that foster international collaboration among faculty, students, and university leaders.

Sample came to USC from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he had served as president.

Sample earned B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has received honorary doctorates from the State University of New York at Buffalo (2006), the University of Notre Dame (2005), Northeastern University (2004), the University of Nebraska (1995), Purdue University (1994), Hebrew Union College (1994), the University of Sheffield, England (1991), and Canisius College, Buffalo (1989).

The recipient of numerous awards, Sample received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Founders Medal, the Distinguished Business Leader Award from the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Heart of the City Award from the Central City Association of Los Angeles, and the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, the highest award bestowed by the State University of New York at Buffalo. He also received the Humanitarian Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now the National Conference for Community and Justice), the Hollzer Memorial Award from the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, the Eddy Award for excellence in economic development from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, and the University of Illinois’ Alumni Achievement Award.

Sample married the former Kathryn Brunkow of Park Ridge, Illinois and had two daughters and two grandchildren.

Steven and Kathryn Sample Hall—part of the Ronald Tutor Campus Center—is named in their honor, as is a special Renaissance Scholar Endowment that supports outstanding juniors and seniors at USC who excel in widely disparate fields of study. The Samples gave the university the bronze statue of USC’s mascot, Traveler, that overlooks Hahn Central Plaza on the University Park campus, and the plaza fountain at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center is dedicated to Fred and Evelyn Moorman Brunkow, Mrs. Sample’s parents.

1992: Los Angeles is rocked by riots, but the USC campus emerges unscathed.

1993: Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg gives $120 million to create the Annenberg Center for Communication – at the time the largest cash gift in the history of higher education.

1994: USC chemistry professor George Olah, director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute, wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The USC Board of Trustees unanimously approves a strategic plan outlining four priorities – undergraduate education, interdisciplinary research and teaching, programs building on the resources of Los Angeles and Southern California, and internationalization – for building on the university’s competitive advantages. USC’s Good Neighbors Campaign is instituted, channeling faculty/staff giving into support of USC-neighborhood partnerships.

1995: The USC Leventhal School of Accounting is named in recognition of a $15 million gift from Elaine and Kenneth Leventhal.

1996: The first annual USC President’s Distinguished Lecture is held, with guest speaker Norman H. Schwarzkopf (M.S. ’64).

1997: Gordon S. Marshall’s $35 million gift to name the USC Marshall School of Business is announced. The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies opens on Catalina Island. Widney Alumni House, the oldest university building, is moved to the site of USC’s new main entrance.

1998: The USC Board of Trustees approves an update of the strategic plan, identifying four critical pathways of opportunity: communications, the life sciences, the arts, and the urban paradigm. Alfred Mann gives $112.5 million to create the Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering, and Barbara and Roger Rossier give $20 million to name the USC Rossier School of Education. USC’s Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life (later renamed the Casden Institute) is created. USC’s Schools of Public Administration and Urban Planning merge to become the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, now known as the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.

1999: Flora L. Thornton gives $25 million to name the USC Thornton School of Music, and the Keck Foundation gives $100 million to name the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The first Los Angeles Times-USC Health Fair takes place on the University Park campus. Time magazine and The Princeton Review name USC “College of the Year 2000” in recognition of its outstanding community service.

2000: The Newsweek/Kaplan How to Get into College Guide names USC one of nine “hot schools” for 2001/2002.

2001: USC is one of 16 universities named as a “leadership institution” by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts opens as the country’s first and only fully digital filmmaking training facility.

2002: The Annenberg Foundation makes a $100 million gift to the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism to support faculty positions, a broadcast news initiative, and new graduate and postdoctoral scholarships. With the close of the “Building on Excellence” campaign, USC sets a new record in higher education by conducting the most successful fundraising effort ever, raising $2.85 billion in nine years.

2003: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security selects USC as its first Homeland Security Center of Excellence. USC is awarded a second Engineering Research Center from the National Science Foundation – the Center for Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems.

2004: USC alumnus Andrew Viterbi and his wife, Erna, give $52 million to name the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. The Los Angeles City Council dubs January 21 “USC Trojans’ Day in L.A.” to honor the university’s 2003 football, women’s volleyball and men’s water polo teams. The USC Board of Trustees approves a new strategic plan for the university: “USC’s Plan for Increasing Academic Excellence: Building Strategic Capabilities for the University of the 21st Century.”

2005: The Princeton Review selects USC as one of 81 “Colleges with a Conscience” based on its outstanding record of community involvement. The USC Federal Relations office opens in Washington, D.C., to provide policymakers with access to topical research and expert faculty for testimony and briefings. The university begins celebrating its 125th anniversary.

2006: The university renames its school of fine arts the USC Roski School of Fine Arts in recognition of a $23 million pledge from longtime Los Angeles arts patrons Gayle Garner Roski and Edward P. Roski Jr. U.S. News and World Report features USC and the university’s Joint Educational Project in its list of “Top College Academic Programs in Service Learning.” The Lucasfilm Foundation donates $175 million to the university to support the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

2007: The Keck School of Medicine of USC dramatically expands its research space with the dedication of the 10-story Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower on the Health Sciences campus. The university receives a $60 million gift from the estate of Jane Anne Nohl for the USC Division of Hematology and the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Alumnus Ronald Tutor pledges $30 million to create a new campus center. The USC Good Neighbors Campaign tops $1 million in voluntary contributions from faculty and staff to support neighborhood programs.

2008: Alumna Verna B. Dauterive pledges $25 million to USC, marking the largest gift yet made by an African American to a U.S. institution of higher learning.

2009: USC acquires USC University Hospital and USC Norris Cancer Hospital from Tenet Healthcare Corp. for $287.8 million. An independent study shows that USC generates $4.9 billion annually in economic activity in the Los Angeles region and beyond.

2010: Alumnus and trustee Herman Ostrow donates $35 million to endow and name the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC.

The visionary educator led the university from 1991 to 2010 and helped launch it into the ranks of the nation’s elite research institutions

by Sue Vogl and Lynn Lipinski

Steven Browning Sample, who served as USC’s 10th president from 1991 to 2010 — a time of remarkable transformation at the university — died March 29. He was 75.

During Sample’s 19-year tenure as president, the university ascended the national academic ranks. USC became a highly selective undergraduate university, recruited many nationally prominent faculty, created a global presence, completed what was at the time the largest fundraising campaign ever in higher education and built partnerships in the communities surrounding USC’s campuses.

“Generations from now, those studying the history of our university will quickly find themselves learning the remarkable story of Steven Sample,” said USC President C. L. Max Nikias. “So many of USC’s successes, so much of our university’s current stature can be traced back to Dr. Sample’s dynamic leadership, keen foresight, and extraordinary prudence. Dr. Sample stood over our university — and led our Trojan Family — as it began its singular transformation, and for this we should all be grateful.

“On a more personal note, I consider Dr. Sample to have been one of my most significant and formative role models,” Nikias said. “It was he who encouraged me to apply for the provost position at USC, and it was he who so often mentored me during my tenure as provost and as dean of our engineering school. Niki and I will miss him tremendously.”

“Dr. Sample engineered arguably the most dramatic rise in quality and ranking of any American university,” said John Mork, chair of the USC Board of Trustees. “From the very start he understood the entrepreneurial zeal of USC and fueled our desire to be excellent. If there were a tag line for his leadership style, it would be ‘Never let up.’ And the results were nothing short of spectacular.”

High praise

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, a longtime USC supporter and university trustee, praised Sample for helping make the university home to USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education, which captures testimonies from survivors and witnesses to genocide, and for supporting the growth of the USC School of Cinematic Arts into “the greatest cinema school in the world.”

“While he left behind very big footprints, he gleefully encouraged others to fill them as President Nikias has done and will continue to do,” Spielberg said. “I’ll miss Steve, but just walking around campus, you can feel him everywhere.”

After he retired as president in 2010, Sample remained active in the life of the university. He served on the USC Board of Trustees as a life trustee, and for a time, continued to co-teach the popular undergraduate course “The Art and Adventure of Leadership” with the late management expert Warren Bennis.

“One of the many joys of my relationship with Steve was to be invited each year to join him and the late Warren Bennis as a guest lecturer in their leadership class,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, a longtime USC supporter and alumnus, who recalled crossing paths for the first time with Sample during a football game in 1991. Sample was touring the campus as a candidate for the university’s top job, and Bolden was being honored upon his return from his second Space Shuttle mission.

“He was truly inspirational and visionary, and I count him as one of my many mentors and role models, as well as a cherished friend,” said Bolden, who served on the USC Board of Trustees until 2009.

Sample’s book, The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and was translated into five languages. He and his wife, Kathryn, donated all royalties to a scholarship fund for USC undergraduates, and shared a love and support of USC athletics. Sample liked to start speeches with the rousing statement, “Isn’t it a great day to be a Trojan!” followed with his signature opening joke and news hand-picked for his audience — a new scholarship program, a research discovery, a transformative gift, a decisive sports victory. From his first day as president in 1991, it was, seemingly, always a great day to be at USC.

“For Kathryn and me, the presidency of USC has been far more than just a job,” Sample said when announcing his retirement from the USC presidency in 2009. “It has been a calling, an all-consuming passion to move this university ahead farther and faster than any another university in the United States.”

Transforming USC’s academic reputation

Sample made improving undergraduate education the university’s highest priority, overseeing the revision of the curriculum, introducing the Renaissance Scholars program and creating new majors and minors to provide “breadth with depth.”

During his tenure, USC rose dramatically in the college rankings, the number of freshman applicants more than tripled and the student body grew increasingly diverse. Recognizing USC’s ambitious community partnership programs, Time magazine/Princeton Review named USC “College of the Year 2000.”

Attracting stellar faculty members was another one of Sample’s key priorities. During his presidency, endowed chairs and professorships rose from 152 to 403, USC faculty member George Olah won USC’s first-ever Nobel Prize — for chemistry in 1994 — and faculty member Elyn Saks won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009.

Global reach

USC’s international outreach grew exponentially during the Sample years, particularly in the Pacific Rim. He co-founded the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, a consortium of 45 leading research universities in the Pacific region, and promoted USC’s role in positioning Los Angeles as the de facto capital of the Pacific Rim.

“Steve Sample had the idea and was a major leader among all of the presidents in American higher education to recognize the growing importance of the Pacific Rim.” – Molly Corbett Broad

USC became a leading destination for international students during Sample’s presidency. He opened international offices in Asia and convened USC’s first international conference in Hong Kong in 2001.

Sample’s global vision was lauded by educational leaders such as Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education: “Steve Sample had the idea and was a major leader among all of the presidents in American higher education to recognize the growing importance of the Pacific Rim. He led the effort to create linkages between American universities along the West Coast of our country to institutions and universities in Japan and China and Taiwan and Hong Kong and Australia. It was a remarkable achievement.”

Building on excellence

Among Sample’s achievements was a remarkable ability to attract the resources the university needed to build endowment, develop academic programs and support campus improvements.

USC’s Building on Excellence campaign raised $2.85 billion, and the university became the first in the U.S. to receive five gifts of $100 million or more. During this time, USC also secured naming gifts for seven schools.

Strengthening community

A cornerstone of Sample’s administration was building alliances and transforming USC’s neighboring communities. He launched the USC Good Neighbors Campaign, asking USC faculty and staff to contribute funds to transformative programs, such as the USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative, which prepares low-income students from the surrounding areas for admission to USC and other universities.

Community leaders took notice. “The University of Southern California has been a point of convergence. I think that’s one of the brilliant points of the diamond of Steve Sample,” said the Rev. Cecil B. Murray, then pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, upon Sample’s 10-year mark as president. Murray today is the John R. Tansey Chair in Christian Ethics and professor of religion at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

USC students also embraced Sample’s passion for community service during “Friends and Neighbors Days” throughout the year. In recognition of his civic achievements, he received the Distinguished Business Leader Award from the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Heart of the City Award from the Central City Association of Los Angeles.

At his retirement from the presidency, the Samples gave USC a bronze statue of USC’s mascot, Traveler, which stands overlooking the university’s central Hahn Plaza. Steven and Kathryn Sample Hall is named in their honor, as is a special Renaissance Scholar endowment.

Renaissance man

Steven Sample was a man of many talents — an electrical engineer, musician, inventor, outdoorsman, author and teacher.

He was born in St. Louis, Mo., on Nov. 29, 1940. His mother was a civic activist, and his father worked as a sales manager for an electric motor company. He married his college sweetheart, Kathryn Brunkow of Park Ridge, Ill., while both were undergraduates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

By age 24, he had earned three degrees there, a bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in electrical engineering. He accepted a faculty position at Purdue University, continued his academic career at the University of Illinois and the University of Nebraska, and, at age 41, was named the 12th president of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

During his tenure, SUNY Buffalo was elected to the prestigious Association of American Universities, of which Sample later served as chairman.

A member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sample invented and patented several devices, including digital appliance controls and touch pads, used in more than 300 million microwave ovens and other home appliances worldwide.

He received honorary doctorates from Canisius College, Buffalo (1989), D’Youville College (2011), Hebrew Union College (1994), Northeastern University (2004), Purdue (1994), SUNY Buffalo (2006), the University of Nebraska (1995), the University of Notre Dame (2005) and the University of Sheffield, England (1991).

A resident of Pasadena, Sample is survived by his wife, Kathryn Brunkow Sample, daughters Michelle Sample Smith and Elizabeth Sample, son-in-law Kirk Smith and grandchildren Kathryn and Andrew Smith.

The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, by Steven B. Sample, was released in October 2001 as the lead book of the fall season for John Wiley & Sons’ Jossey-Bass division. The author’s royalties from this highly anticipated book—which has received lavish praise from major government, business, and academic leaders—will fund scholarships for USC undergraduate students.

A contrarian leader, as defined by Sample, is one who sees situations from his own unique point of view and who finds genuinely new solutions to the challenges facing his organization. The Contrarian’s Guide is a distillation of Sample’s decades as a university president, director of corporate boards, civic leader, inventor, and professor. In this book Sample explodes many romanticized views of leadership and presents profound leadership lessons that combine a masterful survey of history with rich insights from personal experience.

Sample uses USC’s explosive recent growth as a case study in contrarian leadership, noting how bold and unconventional choices helped USC become a world leader in the fields of communication and multimedia technologies, earn national recognition for its innovative community partnerships, and solidify its status as one of the nation’s leading research universities.

Among his counterintuitive lessons:

• Never make a decision today that can reasonably be put off to tomorrow.
• Think gray. Don’t form opinions if you don’t have to.
• Think free. Move several steps beyond traditional brainstorming.
• Listen first, talk later. And when you listen, do so artfully.
• Shoot your own horse. Don’t force others to do your dirty work.
• The best leaders don’t keep up with the popular media and the trades.
• Know what hill you are willing to die on—and keep its exact location to yourself.
• Know the all–important difference between being leader and doing leader.
• You can’t copy your way to the top.

Praise for The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership

“This is among the rarest of contemporary leadership books: a rigorously honest one that is both brutally unsentimental and firmly grounded morally. . . . What Sample has to say is so fresh, yet paradoxically so timeless, so at?an?angle to contemporary wisdom, that this book will instantly be recognized as an invaluable addition to the literature on leadership.”
— Warren Bennis, from the Foreword to “The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership”

“Professor Sample’s contrarian text for effective management would be a valuable guide for anyone in a position of leadership, but never more so than at present. Unfamiliar problems will require creative new ways of addressing them, new insights into solutions. His book is both interesting and readable, yet profoundly wise in its understanding of the essence of leadership.”
— Henry A. Kissinger, Former United States Secretary of State

“Every leader or anyone who hopes to be one should read what Steven Sample says about leadership. No one could possibly say it better than he has in The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership. This gem of focused wisdom is presented with such amazing originality, clarity and artful eloquence that it often holds the reader spellbound. It is sure to become the classic leadership text.”
— Simon Ramo, co-founder, TRW Inc.

“This is an intoxicating read, a bushwhacker’s delight. With swift, sure strokes, Steve Sample cuts down a lot of bad ideas about leadership and opens up a new path for the next generation to follow. No wonder he has turned around not one but two major universities!”
— David Gergen, noted commentator, bestselling author, and adviser to four United States presidents

“The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership is a unique guide to effective management because it’s written by someone who practices what he preaches. Steven Sample isn’t someone who just writes about leadership; he leads. As a result, he offers us fascinating reading, illuminating a way that others may follow.”
— Michael Eisner, chairman and chief executive officer, The Walt Disney Company

“Real thought and leadership run everywhere in this distillation from Steve Sample’s rich experience as a leader. He writes easily and well, but the points he makes run deep and help you reflect on your own experience. Read this book at your own risk: you just might learn something startling.”
— George P. Shultz, former United States Secretary of State

“I loved this book attributing the huge recent gains at USC to a learnable, determined rationality that especially values correct decisions that are contrary to conventional wisdom.”
— Charles Munger, vice chairman, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

“This splendid work, unlike other recent textbooks and cookbooks on leadership, explores the issues and values that are the essential foundation of leadership. Enlivened with practical examples and enriched by personal experience, this is a book of major stature and enduring significance.”
— Frank Rhodes, president emeritus, Cornell University

“In this era of hype and simplistic how?to lists, Steven Sample’s refreshing book stands out for its depth and unusual personal insight. Lessons from great leaders of history blend with his experience as university president to illustrate the many roles leaders play, from artful listener to entertaining storyteller, as they struggle with circumstances en route to significant accomplishments. Reading this provocative book will help all leaders better understand themselves and their choices.”
— Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and bestselling author of “Evolve: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow”

“Steven Sample goes well beyond conventional wisdom about the art of leadership and brings a totally new dimension to the rich body of literature on the topic, dotting this lively narrative with pearls of wisdom and insight based on his wealth of experience. What emerges is a stimulating and provocative 21st?century vision for how leadership can be taught, learned and practiced.”
— Dr. Ray Irani, chairman and chief executive officer, Occidental Petroleum Corporation

“The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership is not only a helpful guide to effective leadership, it is a thoughtful guide to successful living. One main point that comes through is that ‘big time’ leadership is only possible after answering tough and probing questions about one’s own skills and values. In this, there are no failsafe equations for leadership. For a big time leader, character carries the day.”
— Dianne Feinstein, United States Senator