USC welcomes new president

All right, when USC was searching for a new president, what is usually a nationwide search ended on campus. Byung-Soo Kim had been at USC since 2020, serving as senior vice president and general counsel until July of last year when he was named interim president. Today, he was officially installed as USC's 13th president. Congratulations, President Kim. Byung-Soo Kim's academic credentials, impeccable. He's a graduate of Harvard Law School and the London School of Economics, but at the end of the day, he's that local boy made good. Grew up in Woodland Hills, a graduate of Calabasas High School. Did you ever envision where you'd be today? Absolutely not, but I've been absolutely loving it. So, grew up in the Valley, was a Valley boy, and my parents went to USC, though. So, I always grew up understanding how special this place was. Kim's previous post as USC's VP and General Counsel may well have prepared him for the challenges of a university president. While serving as interim president, Kim was staring at a $200 million deficit, which led to the layoff of 900 USC employees. The layoffs that we had to do last year were extraordinarily painful for members of our community. And at the same time, they had to be done. I did something like 40-plus town halls, and I said, this is the situation. Let's lean into this challenge together. And what we did is we turned that budget deficit around, wiped it out, and we're going to be ending this last fiscal year that ended in June tens of million dollars in the positive. And we're going to keep building on that in the years to come. Kim is also well aware of USC's reputation as a private school with a large number of students and alumni coming from wealth and a campus sitting on the edge of a low-income neighborhood. Kim says under his stewardship, USC will continue to expand on reaching out with opportunities for disadvantaged students. How do you give those folks better access to the university as students and also helping out in the community? Yeah, that is so important to me. We don't just exist in Los Angeles. We're part of the city. We're an anchor institution and one of the programs that I'm most proud of is the McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative. That program has had extraordinary success. They, almost all of them, go to college. From political viewpoints to race and other issues, Kim, like any other modern day university president, supports campus diversity. We may not agree on everything, and that's healthy. That's part of what it means to be in a university. That's how you learn. And frankly, that's what it means to be in a democracy. But when we disagree, we have to do it in a civil way. It's not appropriate to take a disagreement into vandalism or into any kind of violence. And we have absolutely no tolerance when it crosses that line. When things have gotten out of control, you've had to bring in local law enforcement outside of campus police. What is your policy on that? When people break the law, they need to be held accountable. And we have an obligation to make sure that this campus remains a safe place for all of our students, for all of our community members, and that is not in any way inconsistent with giving everyone the freedom of speech that they're entitled to. Think about AI. As for USC's true mission, academics, Kim believes future curriculum must include artificial intelligence. USC has an incredible opportunity to lead the country in developing a general ed undergraduate program that not only equips students with the AI skills that they need, but also with the human qualities. Those skills, I think, are going to become even more valuable in this AI age. Of course, you can't talk about USC without discussing athletics, especially Trojans football, and dealing with issues like NIL and conference realignment. Athletics are a core part of USC and what makes us love this university so much. But we've got to do it all, and we are going to do it all in terms of educational leadership, in terms of the research. Would I love to win a national football championship? Absolutely. would I love to solve and cure Alzheimer's disease at USC? Absolutely. Fight on. Kim is married to Bonnie Wangtrakul. She's an investment manager. And by the way, they're both musicians. They have two children. Guess what he plays? The cello. The cello. Yeah. I just think it's an awesome position to be able to uplift the next generation. Oh, he's I was very impressed with this interview with this guy. He is. I think he's going to do very well. One other thing he brought up, the athletic program, you know, with the realignment NIL, he says the overall GPA is as high as it's ever been. Well, that's great. Yeah. Keep the grades up. Absolutely. Very good.