The six biggest USC stories of the summer

Welcome back, Trojans! It’s been a busy three months at USC, even in the absence of most undergraduate students. Annenberg Media kept up to date on happenings around the university and beyond while you were gone — here are the six stories that captured our attention the most.

Carol Folt remains president of USC for an unspecified length of time

Annenberg Media started asking questions in early July about Folt’s five-year contract with the university, which was set to expire on the first day of the month. Folt’s handling of commencement and protests during the spring semester called her leadership into question among students and faculty, and resulted in the Academic Senate censuring her and Provost Andrew Guzman. For more than a week, the status of Folt’s presidency — and what her capacity was in helming the university — seemed to be in limbo.

On July 9, a university spokesperson told Annenberg Media that President Folt’s contract had been “amended and extended.” The university would not provide further details about why Folt’s contract had been amended, what the amendment included or for how long her tenure had been extended. The spokesperson did say, though, that the decision had been made before her contract’s July 1 expiration date.

Moving into the fall, the terms of Folt’s contract with the university are still unclear.

Fatal stabbing on Greek Row

In June, a USC student was arrested for fatally stabbing a man who was breaking into a car on Greek Row. Ivan Gallegos, the student, returned home following the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s decision not to charge him in connection with Xavier Cerf’s death.

On June 17, Gallegos and two of his friends confronted Cerf, who was inside Gallegos’ roommate’s car. According to the DA, Cerf told Gallegos that he was armed with a gun and reached for his hip. Gallegos stabbed Cerf four times, and Cerf later died from his injuries in an alley off Greek Row. Gallegos was arrested on the night of June 17 and booked on murder charges.

DA George Gascón said on June 24 that he believed Gallegos’s actions “were driven by a genuine fear for his life and for the lives of others” and announced that he would not press charges against Gallegos.

Following Gallegos’s arrest, his family started several GoFundMe fundraisers to pay for his $2 million bail. The fundraisers accumulated a combined $10,000 but were removed each time by the platform. Yema Jones, Xavier Cerf’s mother, started a separate GoFundMe to return his remains to his home in Texas and raised $5,600 before the fundraiser ended.

Administration rolls out discipline against students involved in spring protests

USC’s Office of Community Expectations (OCE) disciplined students this summer who were arrested on April 24 in connection with the occupation of Alumni Park. In interviews with Annenberg Media, students involved in the disciplinary process and the faculty advising them described their interactions with administrators.

The occupation was organized by the USC Divest from Death Coalition and included a list demands like a “complete academic boycott of Israel,” “full amnesty” for students involved in pro-Palestinian activism and the “protect[ion] of free speech on campus.” LAPD arrested 48 students at the occupation, and USC placed at least 29 on interim suspension.

According to the Coalition, more than 75 students now face discipline. The students who were suspended in May still remain on suspension and are not allowed on campus, a spokesperson for the Coalition said. Most of the students who were suspended chose a full administrative review process over a “proposed resolution” from OCE. Those processes are “at or near completion,” according to a USC spokesperson.

Some disciplined students have been required to write “remorseful” essays, and others who worked as residential assistants who received free housing are unclear about the status of their jobs. Several students are worried because they have been advised by their legal counsel that the essays could be used as evidence in a criminal case brought by the LAPD. One student was told that the LAPD had up to a year to bring charges for criminal trespassing.

Popular stores and restaurants close, others open

The storefronts of the USC Village continued to shuffle during the summer months. Stout, a burger pub, and Pizza Please, the Village’s only pizza joint, closed after short tenures — less than two years of serving customers. Also gone is Workshop Salon + Boutique, a spot for haircuts and blowouts; the space was converted into storage for the neighboring Target. Meanwhile, the units previously occupied by Honeybird, a Southern-style breakfast and lunch eatery, and the Sammiche Shoppe remain vacant.

Some empty spaces have been filled, though. The international beauty giant Sephora opened a Village location on July 26, moving into a unit that had been uninhabited since 2019 (its previous tenants had sued USC after moving out). Yoboseyo Superette, an Asian market with an original location in Little Tokyo, moved into the village as a “sister concept” to Cafe Dulce on July 20. The store serves specialty boba drinks and snacks and is located next to the USC Roski Eye Institute.

Students may also mourn the loss of Study Hall, a sports bar and restaurant that permanently closed just before its tenth anniversary. Its space on the corner of Hoover Street and West 29th Street has already been filled by Roadside Taco, a Mexican restaurant.

Trojan Olympic performance

Trojan athletes won a combined total of 15 medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics. USC saw 65 athletes compete in Paris, which was more than any other U.S. university, but the Trojans came in fourth place for medals among American universities — it was beaten by Texas, California and Stanford.

USC athletes earned seven gold medals and took silver in two events. Still, the 15-medal total is the lowest Summer Games showing from the Trojans this century.

Standout athletes included Rai Benjamin, a USC track and field star who won two gold medals for Team USA, along with TeeTee Terry, Aaron Brown and Andre de Grasse, who are also track and field athletes who carried their teams to gold victories. Anni Espar, who played women’s water polo for Spain, and Croix Bethune, an American women’s soccer player, also won gold for their countries.

If USC were its own country, it would have placed sixteenth at the Olympics.

You can also read Annenberg Media’s profiles of the Trojans who competed in water polo, track and field, swim and dive, and other teams including volleyball and rowing.

Shake-ups in the university’s top administration

Although President Folt’s time at USC will continue, other senior administrators have left the university.

Folt announced on June 14 that Felicia Washington, the university’s first senior vice president of human resources, would leave at the end of August. Washington’s appointment in 2019 was significant. Under her tenure, she united several offices — the Office for Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX, the Office of Professionalism and Ethics and the Office of Culture, Ethics and Compliance — into a larger human resources department. She also was responsible for implementing “Tyndall-related requirements,” according to Folt’s announcement.

Washington will lead human relations at the University of Pennsylvania. Stacy Giwa, the vice president of culture, ethics and compliance will start the role of interim vice president on October 1.

Washington’s departure follows Provost Guzman’s May 29 announcement that Amber Miller would step down as dean of Dornsife College to lead the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Miller, an experimental astrophysicist, was the longest-serving dean of Dornsife since the 1950s and led the college through “some of the most challenging times in the university’s history,” according to USC Dornsife. Moh El-Naggar, a physicist and Dornsife professor, filled Miller’s spot as interim dean on June 15.

Kedra Ishop, the vice president for enrollment management, left her position on August 15 to join the College Board in a higher education role. In her previous role, Ishop managed university admissions, registrar’s offices and financial aid. She was also an adjunct associate professor in the Rossier School of Education. Ishop’s tenure was notable for offering USC’s Affordability Initiative, which awards free tuition to first-year undergraduate students whose families make $80,000 or less each year.

Timothy Brunold, USC’s former dean of admission, now serves as interim vice president for enrollment management.