Our Communities

About Us

In 1992, USC embraced five university-community initiatives aimed at focusing the university’s outreach and public-service programs on making a visible difference in the neighborhoods surrounding the University Park and Health Sciences campuses.

The five initiatives direct the university to:

• Provide educational, cultural and developmental opportunities for every child who lives in our immediate neighborhoods.
• Work with our neighbors, city and county officials, and the police to ensure safer streets in the areas surrounding our two campuses.
• Encourage more entrepreneurs, and especially minority entrepreneurs, to establish businesses in the immediate vicinity of our campuses.
• Encourage more USC employees, and especially our lower-paid long-term employees, to own and occupy housing in the immediate vicinity of our campuses.
• Preferentially employ at USC more persons who have lived in our immediate neighborhoods for all of the past five years.

Academic units across the university - from the USC Thornton School of Music to the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, from the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences to the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and USC Marshall School of Business - are deeply involved in carrying out the initiatives. The Office of Student Affairs coordinates student volunteer and outreach efforts, and administrative offices such as Financial and Business Services oversee housing and hiring programs.

Responsibility for overseeing the university’s overall implementation of the five university-community initiatives lies with USC Civic Engagement. This office is charged with managing USC’s relationships with its external constituencies, including neighborhood residents, civic leaders and other stakeholders from the neighborhoods surrounding the University Park and Health Sciences campuses.