It took 143 years for USC to appoint African American deans to the Thornton School of Music and Gould School of Law, respectively. However, Dean Jason King and Dean Franita Tolson are the faces of a new leadership shaped not by their racial background, but the ambition, excellence and vision they carry — and intend to impart on students, faculty and staff at USC.
Coming from New York University, where he studied as a college student, taught courses and was chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts, Dean Jason King describes settling into his new role as dean of the Thornton School of Music as “a dream.”
“Part of the reason that it has been such a positive experience for me has been the people,” King said. “Everybody has been incredibly welcoming, generous, supportive, open, thoughtful, insightful.”
From attending the new student convocation to Thornton’s new student welcome and the first Thornton Symphony concert of the semester, King said that he’s looking forward to exploring USC’s campus — especially since it’s a traditional campus compared to NYU.
“[There was a] high level of playing virtuosity of the students — many of them I would describe as being [at] a professional level,” King said. “So that was great. And if that is a sign of what’s to come, I’m just excited to attend all of the other concerts that are going to happen this semester, but not just concerts — film events, events in other schools like [Marshall] Business school and so on.”
King defines himself as a multitalented person — a scholar, a public intellectual, a practitioner, filmmaker and event producer. His most recent engagements include writing an article for NPR tributing Sinéad O’Connor, co-curating a GRAMMY Museum exhibit celebrating hip-hop’s 50th anniversary and featuring in a CNN documentary about artist Little Richard.
“I do a lot of different things,” King said. “I wear a lot of different hats. My philosophy [is] wanting to do the things that I’m passionate about and finding ways to do those things and not wanting to be a jack of all trades, but actually to be a master of many different trades.”
The person that helped guide King on a path to becoming an educator and leader was associate professor at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study Michael Dinwiddie. Dinwiddie brought King in to consult on his course, “Poets in Protest: Footsteps to Hip-Hop.” From there, he invited King to teach at NYU Gallatin School, where he started teaching hip hop, culture and politics. Dinwiddie showed King something far more valuable: a vision where all of his interests were included. Eventually, this led King to become a founding faculty member of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music.
“My father was a professor of educational psychology. My mother was a schoolteacher. So I probably should have figured out that I was going to end up in education somehow,” King said. “But I was also interested in music. I was also interested in journalism and writing, and I didn’t see how all of those worlds could come together necessarily. But [Dinwiddie] saw this vision for me that was bigger than the vision I had for myself, and I think that’s the work that mentors do.”
Dean Franita Tolson, Interim Dean and George T. and Harriet E. Pfleger Chair in Law, who has been teaching at USC since 2017, had a similar story. Tolson hadn’t initially thought of teaching until Lisa Bernstein, a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, suggested the career option. After a year of a preparatory course in teaching law, she was convinced and decided to pursue a legal scholarship in election law, an area she wanted to explore more.
“I chose something that I didn’t know if I would be able to provide a satisfactory answer — as to why our politics operate the way that they do, because I don’t fully understand it,” Tolson said. “For me, one of the reasons why I think this has worked well is because it forced me to study it in a way that I otherwise wouldn’t have had I picked something that I was just good at, that I have full [understanding of].”
Tolson wanted to understand the rationale behind the difficulties of voting in America. While one could say race relations is a reason, Tolson says the reasoning behind why it’s difficult to vote is more complex than that.
“It’s a very hard question,” Tolson said. “It’s a very foreign question. But I wanted to try and so I view my work and my scho
larship [as] my attempt to try to answer this question that has vexed me for 15 years and continues to.”
Tolson testified at a hearing about “Restoring the Voting Rights Act: Combating the Discriminatory Abuses” before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on The Constitution in 2021. She presented that Congress had the authority to pass the practice-based preclearance provision of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which disenfranchised voters of color. The hearing covered a growing need for an updated Voting Rights Act because of the obstacles minority communities face against their right to vote. To Tolson, the experience allowed her to clearly articulate her scholarship to lawmakers and solidify her belief that a leader encourages others to live out their purpose.
“My purpose is I help people vote. Even in this role, because in this role, I am still turning out lawyers and trying to chart a policy that puts people…that care about the communities around [them out in the world],” Tolson said. “This is an indirect way of doing the thing I do right, and it provides a platform for me to talk about the things I care about.”
Social impact and awareness is also an integral aspect of education that King plans to encourage Thornton students towards. One of the ideas he plans to impart is that music is an interdependent collaborative activity that impacts society.
“I think some of those are the basic things that we want to see [from] students who are pursuing a career in the arts, especially as performers,” King said. “Do we want to encourage them to be and to be not only independent, but interdependent and to be collaborative, and to bring the totality of who they are as people into their music? That’s what I want to continue to encourage our students to do.”
As the first Black deans of their respective schools within USC, Dr. King and Dr. Tolson have already made history. King considers his position a beginning that leads to more possibilities for underrepresented individuals, inspiring them to see that “leadership can look like many different things, beyond looks and beyond optics.”
“I feel a real responsibility to do that and to pursue a vision of inclusivity that is not just about optics, but is genuine and is really about making sure that the diversity of Los Angeles itself as a city, [is] actually represented,” King said.
Tolson is appreciative of what being the first Black dean of Gould represents, also making a point that she wants diversity “in the upper echelons of higher education” to become common.
“It’s an important signaling function because it does signal to people that this is something you can aspire to, that these doors are not closed,” Tolson said. “But I also have an obligation to make it easy for people who are thinking about being a law school dean, people who are thinking about even being a university president.”
In relation, Tolson’s goals as dean focus on accessibility and diversity. She plans to combat the price of attending law school by adding more scholarships. In addition to expanding the applicant pool, Tolson makes it very clear how important it is for Gould to provide a well-rounded career and mental support system to students.
“It is not realistic to expect people to come out of a pandemic and hit the ground running as if the pandemic never happened,” Tolson said. “So instead of sitting here and pretending like we didn’t go through something, for me, the question is how do we support these students in whatever way they need as they grapple with the fallout from being inside for two years? I really do view us as full service.”
As King started his position in July, he says that he is still in the process of “listening,” an essential aspect of leading a school. However, with Thornton’s 139 years of history and highly accomplished musicians and scholars emerging from it, King plans to “build the local, national and international profile of Thornton, to draw on [its] existing foundation of excellence and to connect it to all kinds of contemporary currents in technology, science and other areas.”
“I’m excited to be part of the community of deans that are here,” King said. “Everybody has been incredibly supportive. I have a sense that USC is on the cusp of making some important changes around representation and inclusion, and I’m happy to be a part of that — those positive changes for the school. So it’s really exciting to me to have colleagues as magnificent as the other deans who are here.”
Dr. King and Dr. Tolson come into their roles as deans at USC with high achievements and individual ambitions to propel their schools to greater levels of social and academic engagement. In addition, King and Tolson hope to influence students to be aware of their position in the world and fully lean into their passions, pursuing a path only they can create.