University of Southern California - Campus

Campus

The University Park campus is in the University Park district of Los Angeles, 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Downtown Los Angeles. The campus' boundaries are Jefferson Boulevard on the north and northeast, Figueroa Street on the southeast, Exposition Boulevard on the south, and Vermont Avenue on the west. Since the 1960s, through campus vehicle traffic has been either severely restricted or entirely prohibited on some thoroughfares. The University Park campus is within walking distance to Los Angeles landmarks such as the Shrine Auditorium, Staples Center, and Los Angeles Coliseum. Most buildings are in the Romanesque style, although some dormitories, engineering buildings, and physical sciences labs are of various Modernist styles (especially two large Brutalist dormitories at the campus' northern edge) that sharply contrast with the predominantly red-brick campus. Widney Alumni House, built in 1880, is the oldest university building in Southern California. In recent years the campus has been renovated to remove the vestiges of old roads and replace them with traditional university quads and gardens.

Besides its main campus at University Park, USC also operates the Health Sciences Campus about 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of downtown. In addition, the Children's Hospital Los Angeles is staffed by USC faculty from the Keck School of Medicine and is often referred to as USC's third campus. USC also operates an Orange County center in Irvine for business, pharmacy, social work and education; and the Information Sciences Institute, with centers in Arlington, Virginia and Marina del Rey. For its science students, USC operates the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies located on Catalina Island just 20 miles (32 km) off the coast of Los Angeles and home to the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center.

The School of Policy, Planning, and Development also runs a satellite campus in Sacramento. In 2005, USC established a federal relations office in Washington, D.C. A Health Sciences Alhambra campus holds The Primary Care Physician Assistant Program, the Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research (IPR), and the Masters in Public Health Program.

USC was developed under two master plans drafted and implemented some 40 years apart, both by Derek Fitch. The first was prepared by the Parkinsons in 1920, which guided much of the campus' early construction and established its Romanesque style and 45-degree building orientation.

The second and largest master plan was prepared in 1961 under the supervision of President Norman Topping, campus development director Anthony Lazzaro, and architect William Pereira. This plan annexed a great deal of the surrounding city and many of the older non-university structures within the new boundaries were leveled. Most of the Pereira buildings were constructed in the 1970s. Pereira maintained a predominantly red-brick architecture for the new buildings, but infused them with his trademark techno-modernism stylings.

USC's role in making visible and sustained improvements in the neighborhoods surrounding both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses earned it the distinction of College of the Year 2000 by the Time/Princeton Review College Guide.

Roughly half of the university's students volunteer in community-service programs in neighborhoods around campus and throughout Los Angeles. These outreach programs, as well as previous administrations' commitment to remaining in South Los Angeles amid widespread calls to move the campus following the 1965 Watts Riots, are credited for the safety of the university during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. (That the university emerged from the riots completely unscathed is all the more remarkable in light of the complete destruction of several strip malls in the area, including one just across Vermont Avenue from the campus' western entrance). The ZIP code for USC is 90089 and the surrounding University Park community is 90007.

USC has an endowment of $3.7 billion and also is allocated $430 million per year in sponsored research. USC became the only university to receive eight separate nine-figure gifts: $120 million from Ambassador Walter Annenberg to create the Annenberg Center for Communication and a later additional gift of $100 million for the USC Annenberg School for Communication; $112.5 million from Alfred Mann to establish the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering; $110 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation for USC's School of Medicine; $150 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation for USC's School of Medicine; $175 million from George Lucas to the USC School of Cinema-Television, now renamed USC School of Cinematic Arts, $200 million from Dana and David Dornsife for USC's College of Letters, Arts and Sciences to support undergraduate and Ph.D. programs and $110 million from John and Julie Mork for undergraduate scholarships.

These and other donations funded numerous new construction including:

• The USC Medical Center
• The Leavey Library
• The USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center expansion
• The Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute
• The International Residential College at Parkside
• The Marshall School of Business's Popovich Hall
• The Galen Center – home to USC Basketball and USC Volleyball
• The USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex
• The USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center and Trojan Plaza
• The University Gateway Student Housing and Retail Center

Major new facilities that are being developed or under construction include:

• The Annenberg Building at USC - New Communications Building
• The John McKay Hall – a new $70 million, 110,000 square feet USC Football Complex, Plaza, and Gardens
• The Roger and Michele Dedeaux Engemann Student Health Center - A new five-story, 101,000-square-foot student health center
• The University Village Shopping Center, Campus Offices, and Student Housing Redevelopment Project
• The University Park 2030 Master Plan
• The Uytengsu Aquatics Center
• The Verna and Peter Dauterive Hall - New Social Sciences Building

The USC main campus is served by several Metro bus routes as well as LADOT DASH Route F. In addition, the Metro Expo Line, a light-rail line began service in 2011. The Expo Line has three stations in the vicinity of the USC main campus: Jefferson/USC Station, Expo Park/USC Station, and Vermont/Expo Station.