- Mailing Address
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University Park Campus
Los Angeles, California 90089 - Phone
- (213) 740-2311
- Website
- https://www.usc.edu/
- School Information
- "The University of Southern California is a leading private research university located in Los Angeles — a global center for arts, technology and international business. It is home to the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and 21 exceptional academic schools and units. USC’s Health Sciences campus houses renowned specialized care and research in cancer, stem cell and regenerative medicine, orthopedics and sports medicine. The university is the largest private sector employer in the city of Los Angeles, responsible for $8 billion annually in economic activity in the region." The university enrolls over 46,000 students, employs over 4,700 faculty, and offers academic programs through its 21 academic units. (Source: https://www.usc.edu/) (Source: https://about.usc.edu/facts/)
- General Information
- USC has taken multiple steps to further its equity initiatives, many of which can be tracked on the USC Race and Equity Center's website (https://race.usc.edu/). In addition to hiring its first Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer, the university has also reiterated its bias reporting policies and launched a task force on "Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion". The university has also implemented mandatory unconscious bias training for students, staff, and faculty. See developments below:
Actions Taken
- Anti-Racism, Bias, and Diversity Training
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"Mandatory Unconscious Bias Training. As part of our efforts to educate the community about how to recognize and prevent implicit bias from affecting how we treat each other, online training modules for students, staff, and faculty will roll out in the fall semester to provide baseline education. These modules are being vetted and informed by students, faculty, and staff."
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USC Biokinesiology & Physical Therapy will "Institute a process of ongoing implicit bias training for all faculty, staff, and students."
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As part of the Prevention Education Requirements for all students, USC requires students to complete an online self-paced module on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Students which educates students to recognize bias and unconscious bias, acknowledge multiple identities, and understand power, privilege, equity, and oppression.
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- Curriculum Changes and Requirements
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USC Biokinesiology & Physical Therapy "will update the DPT and BKN curricula to incorporate a health justice perspective."
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The USC Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy released the 2021-2022 Comprehensive Anti-Racism Plan “ which was developed by thought leaders who have long championed social justice, equity, diversity, inclusion and anti-racism across a variety of disciplines.” This new plan is expected to guide USC through its “ second year of work towards being a more equitable, diverse, inclusive and anti-racist community.”
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As part of the general education diversity requirement for a Bachelor’s degree, USC requires all undergraduates to complete 2 courses in the Global Perspectives category with one course in the contemporary situation of Citizenship in a Diverse World.
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- Program and Research Funding
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The English department at USC will “commit funding to support programming, events and intellectual work that centers Black literature and culture not only within our department, but in partnership with other campus units.”
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The Office of Inclusion and Diversity formed the Community, Accessibility, Restoration, and Ecology Challenge which will award microgrants ranging between $500 to $5,000.
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The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion hosts a DEI Week annually, which is made of workshops and other programs.
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In 2022, the school hosted a Race + Equity + Wellbeing Series.
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The USC Race and Equity Center launched the National DEI Defense Fund in response to “attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion.” This initiative was launched in the summer of 2023.
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- Resources
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"The USC Race and Equity Center will provide no-cost, multiyear professional learning experiences focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) for USC employees. Each month, the Center will offer live, synchronous sessions through a virtual platform, accommodating up to 10,000 employees at once. Within two hours, we will post videos from each live session to a password-protected website that will be permanently available to all USC employees. Readings and other resources will accompany the videos. The sessions in the first year will focus on aspects of racial equity."
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"We will use the highly-regarded quantitative National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates (NACCC), designed by the USC Race and Equity Center, to hear from all USC undergraduates this fall. Since our campus participated in the earliest pilot of the NACCC three years ago, it has developed, and has been used to survey over 500,000 students across the United States. In 2021, there will be racial climate surveys for all USC faculty and staff. We need to know how every racial/ethnic group uniquely experiences our campus climate."
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Anti-Racist Resources at USC include "Anti-Racist Resources for Building Allyship and Advocacy."
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USC Libraries released an "Anti-Racist Pedagogy Guide."
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The USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupation Therapy has "General anti-racist resources."
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The USC Libraries provide a number of resources on Diversity, Equity, and Resources and Anti-Racist Pedagogy with subcategories on “Pedagogy and whiteness,” “History of White Supremacy,” and “Anti-racism and Allyship in the Academy.”
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The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offers Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Workshops which focus on various topics including race, power, and privilege, implicit bias, microaggressions, and economic justice.
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"The USC Equity-Minded Teaching Institute is a 6-week program with weekly 3-hour sessions that focuses on embedding racial equity in teaching practices and creating classroom cultures that are genuinely inclusive for Black/African American, Latinx, Native American/Indigenous, and Asian American students." This program is designed to train faculty to "create classrooms that are critically race-conscious and equity-minded."
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"The USC Racial Equity in Faculty Hiring institute is a 5-week program with weekly 3-hour sessions focused on embedding racial equity in the faculty hiring process."
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"The USC Equity Institutes is an eight-week professional learning series for 20 leaders and/or faculty members on a single college or university campus. Each Institute has eight virtual modules that are taught synchronously one day each week."
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On January 26, 2023, the Pullias Center hosted a webinar discussing Critical Race Theory. This webinar featured “a panel of scholars who ground their research and practice in CRT” including Raquel M. Rall and Antar Tichavakunda, who were Alumni Award winners in order to “support racial equity-related research and projects.”
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USC Libraries crafted its Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism which entails plans to “invest in professional development to build the capacity for library employees to continuously improve diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives” and “recruit diverse students into the MMLIS program and focus on topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the curriculum” amidst other goals.
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On January 14, 2023, USC’s School of Social Work Office of Field Education was renamed to the Office of Practicum Education. It was stated that “this change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language that could be considered anti-Black or anti-immigrant in favor of inclusive language.”
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The Center for Urban Education created a site devoted to Racial Equity Tools organized into four phases, which are “Laying the Groundwork,” “Defining the Problem,” “Creating Solutions Through Inquiry,” and “Sustaining and Scaling the Work.”
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The School for Communication and Journalism hosts the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative for diversity and inclusion.
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On March 19, 2024, it was announced that the “USC Race and Equity Center released a new report in response to politicized attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in higher education,” titled “Truths About DEI on College Campuses: Evidence-Based Expert Responses to Politicized Misinformation.”
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On April 18, 2024, the USC Race and Equity Center published “practice briefs” for K-12 educators to promote “racial equity.”
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- Symbolic Actions
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USC’s first Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer (CIDO) takes office on March 1.
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The university launched the "President’s and Provost’s Task Force on Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI)" which will "identify structural and institutional processes at USC that perpetuate racism and inequality in areas such as recruitment, retention, and experiences."
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The English department at the University of Southern California released a Statement on Racial Justice, stating, “We collectively condemn the acts of harm, injustice, and both micro and macro aggressions enacted upon our Black students, staff and faculty, some of which have been documented extensively on the @black_at_usc Instagram account and in statements by campus organizations like the USC Black Student Athletes Association.” Furthermore, “we as a department take accountability for our own deficiencies in addressing and engaging anti-racist approaches to scholarship, pedagogy and service.” The department expressed that it will “re-examine how its required undergraduate courses present a narrative of temporal progress in which the literatures of Black people, colonized peoples, and other people of color are marginalized.”
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