USC announces 2025 honorary degree recipients

USC President Carol Folt will award honorary degrees to three individuals who have made significant contributions to film, the arts and culture during the university’s 142nd commencement ceremony on May 15 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

This year’s honorees, selected by a committee of students and faculty, are filmmaker and alumnus Jon M. Chu; alumna, arts champion and former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts Maria Rosario Jackson; and writer and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams.

Over 18,000 degrees will be conferred during USC’s commencement this year, including over 1,000 doctorate degrees, at the school ceremonies across the university. More than 60,000 people are expected to attend.

Jon M. Chu 

Jon M. Chu is a renowned filmmaker known for his visually stunning blockbuster films. Most recently, Chu directed Universal Pictures’ critically acclaimed Wicked, which garnered 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and two wins. His memoir, Viewfinder, was released in summer 2024 and highlights his journey from growing up in Silicon Valley to transitioning to Hollywood and helming major studio projects. Chu’s 2018 film, Crazy Rich Asians, became a global phenomenon, earning multiple award nominations and ranking among the top 10 highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time. It was the first contemporary studio film in over 25 years to feature an all-Asian cast, making history for Asian American representation in Hollywood.

Recognized in The Hollywood Reporter’s “Power 100” and named one of Variety’s “New Hollywood Leaders,” Chu is an alumnus of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He mentors students and alumni and funds the Jon M. Chu APAA Cinematic Arts Scholarship, supporting projects focusing on Asian Pacific culture in film, television and interactive media.

Chu will deliver the keynote address at USC’s 142nd commencement ceremony.

Maria Rosario Jackson

Maria Rosario Jackson has dedicated her career as a researcher, scholar, educator, administrator and policymaker to understanding and elevating arts, culture and design as critical elements of healthy communities. She is the first African American and the first Mexican American woman to have led the National Endowment for the Arts. Prior to becoming the NEA’s chair, she served on the National Council on the Arts for nearly a decade.

Her love of the arts stems from her parents, who encouraged her to explore and affirm her cultural heritage and learn about that of others while growing up in Los Angeles. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, her master’s degree from the USC Price School of Public Policy and a doctoral degree in urban planning from UCLA. Her work blends social science with arts- and humanities-based approaches to comprehensive community revitalization and systems change.

Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams is an acclaimed American writer, educator, environmental activist and public lands advocate. She has authored more than 20 books, including Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, a classic in environmental literature. Williams has testified before Congress on women’s health, been a guest at the White House, camped in the remote wildernesses of Utah and Alaska, and worked as a “barefoot artist” in Rwanda.

She has received numerous accolades, including the Robert Marshall Award, The Wilderness Society’s highest honor for an American citizen; the Wallace Stegner Award; a Lannan Literary Fellowship; the Los Angeles Times’ Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement and the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing. She is an Emerson Collective Fellow for 2025-26, member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and writer-in-residence at Harvard Divinity School.