Miranda Huang and Caitlin Roehmholdt wrote the article; Nicholas Corral produced the radio piece that accompanies it.
Beong-Soo Kim was officially installed as USC’s 13th president Friday morning in a ceremony featuring live student performances, alumni appearances and congratulatory speeches, as organized groups cited their demands for prospective change.
Addressing hundreds of students, faculty, staff and other members of the Trojan family, Kim declared his commitment to increasing interdisciplinary collaboration across schools and improving the university’s relationship with Los Angeles. He also said the university is designing a new general education program, what he called “the first bottoms-up redesign in decades.”
“Our goal is not to copy what’s out there or chase the latest trends, but to draw on the distinctive strengths and breadth of USC,” Kim said. “We can create a model for the knowledge, character and capabilities our students need to live lives of meaning, purpose and long-term success.”
Cheering for their colleagues walking in the processional, faculty members from United Faculty-United Auto Workers Local 872, a union for non-tenure-track faculty, gathered around the ceremony. Union members said they wanted to congratulate the President on his installment and urge him to come to the bargaining table to improve working conditions.
The union received a 70% approval vote from the National Labor Relations Board in an election tallied on June 2. USC appealed the union election results a day before they were announced, leading union faculty members and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman to rally outside the Bovard Administration building on September 2. Mayor Karen Bass sent a letter to President Kim that same day urging him to drop the appeal.
In an exclusive interview with Annenberg Media and the Daily Trojan on Thursday, Kim said he will continue to champion the Open Dialogue Project, an effort he launched to promote respectful engagement between individuals with opposing views.
“How do we create this culture where people feel more license to raise their hands in the classroom, say something that might be unconventional, might even be controversial?” Kim said.
Janis Yue, an assistant professor of clinical occupational therapy, said she sees Kim’s installation as a turning point for bargaining.
“I know that President Kim has been rhetorically championing open dialogue for quite a long time and really making that part of his platform,” Yue said. “I really see coming to the bargaining table as a perfect manifestation of open dialogue because we are actually talking to each other as equals and being able to share our concerns as faculty.”
Following his speech, Kim spoke to Annenberg Media about the importance of faculty in USC’s learning environment. He called faculty the “lifeblood of USC” and said it was wonderful to see the union organize as he walked.
“The faculty are everything,” Kim said. “During my presidency, I’m going to work as hard as I can to provide opportunities for all of our faculty, whether they’re tenured, [or on the] non-tenure track. All of their voices really matter, and I’m glad they were here today.”
Edgar Landa, an adjunct professor in the School of Dramatic Arts and a member of the union, said that he hopes that Kim will drop the appeal and respond to the faculty’s request to unionize.
“We are what gives this university its reputation and its standing, and we feel that our working conditions should reflect that,” he said. “We are now coming together as a bargaining team, and we’ve been surveying the faculty to see what’s important to them as a whole, and also within each school, so that we have items that we want to negotiate on.”
South Central for Justice in Palestine, an organization involved in the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments, also gathered outside the procession with banners offering messages like “Open dialogue … unless you’re Palestinian.”
Sarah Gualtieri, a professor of American studies and ethnicity, stood with SJP holding a sign of protest. She said she showed up to Kim’s investiture to honor the USC students who participated in the pro-Palestinian protests in 2024 and were arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Gualtieri added that she didn’t have a lot of confidence in him to enact change.
“I think that he is carrying forward the policies of the last administration. I believe that he has a lot of work to do as president,” she said. “He should be doing a better job of listening to students, faculty and staff on campus, and very importantly, he should divest from companies that are supporting the militarization of Israel.”
Students and attendees celebrate Kim’s goals for the future
In addition to featuring performances from Grammy-nominated USC alum Aloe Blacc and American Idol guest mentor Allen Stone, the ceremony highlighted students across Thornton School of Music, the School of Dramatic Arts and the School of Cinematic Arts.
Lydia Berkeley, a junior studying musical theater, recently played “Elle Woods” in SDA’s Spring production of “Legally Blonde.” Berkeley said Kim attended USC’s rendition of the musical and was supportive of her work.
“To be able to be part of something this big is really exciting, and I am really looking forward to his presidency,” Berkeley said. “President Kim is the kind of president that is so invested in every single aspect of USC that I know that the university as a whole is just going to get so much stronger, and that he won’t leave any groups out.”
Other attendees, including James Bogle, the program director of the masters of business for veterans, called Kim’s mission a “very optimistic vision for the future.”
Bogle added that, “There have been times at the university where we’ve gotten, in our leadership, a little far away from what I believe to be the real foundational aspect of leadership, which is integrity. [Kim] seems to embody integrity, so I appreciate who he is as much as what he aspires to do through his leadership.”
Among other goals, Kim said in his interview with campus media that he hopes to lean into the communities around USC and give recognized student organizations more agency with organizing cultural events.
“If you’re a member of one community or organization, I frankly think that we shortchange ourselves when we think about trying to represent all of the diversity within that community with a single event or a single month,” Kim said. “I’d like to see more creativity and engagement by an entire community because these events are not just for particular individuals; they should be for every member of our community to learn more about cultures different from their own.”
Citing the growth of artificial intelligence, Kim emphasized the importance of reinforcing human qualities in a period of technological change.
“As knowledge becomes ever easier to access and transmit, we will need to refocus on the human skills, values and capabilities our students can use,” Kim said. “We can cultivate not only outstanding intellectual and technical capacity, but also distinctly human qualities like curiosity, creativity, compassion and courage that no machine can match.”
While he said the ceremony itself doesn’t change his work as president, Kim thinks the event provides an opportunity for community members to reflect on the university’s history and future.
“I hope what I did through my speech was inspire people to believe that we’ve done so many more difficult things in the past. All of the opportunities and challenges that are ahead of us are absolutely things that we can tackle and excel through,” Kim said.
Listen below for a full recap of the event: