On Monday morning, faculty and staff were invited to join USC President Beong-Soo Kim for an annual State of the University Address at the Mayer Auditorium.
The address was presented by USC Board of Trustees Chair Suzanne Nora Johnson.
“It’s really the university’s opportunity to review where we are as a university and where we’re going to be collectively in the future,” Johnson said, calling openness and collaboration “two of the most important values of the Trojan family.”
Johnson also emphasized a leadership milestone, saying the Board of Trustees had unanimously voted to appoint then-Interim President Kim as USC’s 13th president after a yearlong search process.
“We had 8,000 people respond to the search survey,” Johnson said. “It showed us the level of dedication, purpose, and care that has distinguished us since our founding almost 150 years ago.”
Kim told faculty and staff he views the work at the health sciences campus as central to USC’s academic mission.
“The work that you are doing is important, not just to USC, it’s important to the entire world,” he said.
Kim highlighted activity at Keck Medicine, saying they see “a million patient encounters every single year” across regional sites and described the system’s “case mix index” as a marker of high-level care. He also pointed to recent clinical and research developments, including the first inhuman bladder transplant and other studies related to aging biology, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The university finances and the aftermath of last semester’s layoffs, were also addressed. Kim described them as “extremely painful” but said the changes improved long-term sustainability.
He added that the university’s goal was to move from a negative $230 million structural budget deficit to a balanced budget, and that USC was now on track to generate “somewhere in the order of $30 million in surplus in margin”.
Kim also announced that the university would adjust its interim travel policy to include a merit pool for FY27 — this would mean that travel explicitly authorised by a sponsor, grant or gift would be exempt from the interim travel policy.
Finally, Kim outlined areas he described as priorities that would be shaped alongside the leadership team: “partnership, innovation, collaboration, operational excellence, and focus.”
“When I say operational excellence, I’m also not using code language for additional layoffs,” he said.
During audience questions, Kim addressed institutional neutrality or restraint, stating he supports an approach where leaders weigh whether events directly affect the university’s mission before commenting publicly.
Kim affirmed that restraint should apply to leadership, not faculty research and speech: “Institutional restraint is something that applies to me, not to you,” he said, adding that faculty should “be bold and daring and tell the truth and speak the truth.”
President Beng-Soo Kim will address faculty and staff again tomorrow, Feb. 10. at 8:30 a.m. in the Bovard Auditorium.