President Carol Folt is retiring after six years filled with challenging hurdles, resounding successes and barrier-breaking collaboration that planted seeds of innovation everywhere at USC. (Photo/Art Streiber)
Trojan Family Magazine’s Summer 2025 issue is here
What’s In a Name?
One measure of the impact of any university president can be taken in concrete, brick, glass and rebar. USC President Carol Folt’s six years at the helm have been no exception, featuring such new and renovated structures as the Dick Wolf Drama Center, the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall, the reimagined student spaces in the Gwynn Wilson Student Union Building, the soon-to-be-completed Rawlinson Stadium for women’s soccer and lacrosse, and the well-underway Bloom Football Performance Center.
Throughout this special issue of USC Trojan Family Magazine, we will share many similar examples of Folt’s lasting, positive impact on this institution. Her tenure has been marked not only by major construction and renovation projects like those listed above, but also by changes that — though modest in scale — carried massive meaning.
Folt recognized that names have symbolic power, and that the names of buildings on a campus can communicate a university’s values.
That’s why Folt renamed a signature building on the University Park Campus the Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow Center for International and Public Affairs, after the Native American historian and renowned chief of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation, who earned his master’s degree at USC.
That’s why she renamed the field where the USC track and field teams compete after USC alumna Allyson Felix, an activist, entrepreneur, mother and the most decorated track and field athlete in Olympic history.
And that’s why she honored USC Nisei students — Trojans of Japanese descent who were forced into detention camps during World War II — posthumously awarding honorary degrees to all who hadn’t yet received them. A quiet rock garden near the main entrance to the University Park Campus commemorates what Folt has called “a deeply shameful episode in our history.”
As you will read throughout this issue, the present-day successes of Folt’s presidency are many. Both through these achievements and her willingness to address challenging episodes from USC’s past, Carol Folt has positioned the university to reach even greater heights in the future.
Ted B. Kissell
Editor-in-Chief
USC Trojan Family Magazine
