LOS ANGELES, CA – In Max Nikias’ presidency that has transformed the University of Southern California into an academic and regional powerhouse, the opening of the USC Village marks the latest milestone in that transformation. TheUSC Village is a $700 million residential and retail complex that will include eight residential colleges housed in six buildings. President Nikias has called the development an “architectural masterpiece,” that will allow USC to become a fully residential university.
President of USC since 2010, the Cyprus-born Chrysostomos Loizos Nikias has been there since 1991 and has gained acclaim for his research in digital signal processing and media systems, and biomedicine. And his bold initiative to launch a $6 billion fundraising campaign earned him national recognition as a “prodigious fundraiser.”
FAMAGUSTA FAMILY VALUES
For all his achievements and honors, however, President Nikias remains grounded and focus to his mission. In our conversation in his office at the USC campus, he recalled growing up as a kid in the beautiful Cyprus resort city of Famagusta. “I think of how lucky I was to go to school there;the city was booming in the late 1960s. Unfortunately, since the 1974 Turkish invasion, the city has become uninhabitable,” he said.
“My parents instilled in me the importance of education,” Nikias said, describing how after working in his father’s carpentry shop until he was 16, his father gave him a choice: “keep up your grades and next summer you won’t have to work here. You can go to the beach with your friends, instead.” Nikias kept up his end of the bargain and never had to work in the shop again.
When Nikias became the first in his family to go to college, they were very proud.
Having graduated from Athens’ Polytechnic University, a top European institution in the 1970s, Nikias commented on the state of Greek education today: “it breaks my heart. The principle of an academic institution is to continue the cycle of learning and create new knowledge.” Commenting on perpetual civil protests, he said that “preserving freedom of expression is of paramount importance at every university campus, but you need to have a student body that wants to learn and a faculty that is able to teach.”
In a recent visit to Greece, where he met with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, accompanied by USC history professor Jacob Soll, Nikias said “it was an honor to meet Prime Minister Tsipras. Prof. Soll is a preeminent expert on financial accountability and transparency, and the three of us had an engaging discussion about the progress theTsipras Administration has made toward improving Greece’s economic stability and sustainability. USC is a global research university, and this kind of ‘educational diplomacy’ offers powerful evidence of the impact our research and engagement can yield.”
FIST-CLASS EDUCATION FOR WORKING CLASS STUDENTS
Having earned master’s and doctorate degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Nikias is not the product of an elite Ivy League education. Perhaps that explains why he embraced the challenge to make USC accessible to as many students as possible.
Though tuition has doubled, and housing, insurance, and recruiting top faculty members is costly, “it is a necessary endeavor to remain competitive. Two thirds of our students receive some form of financial aid, USC makes available $320 million a year in aid. We have the largest number of transferees of any private school because of that.”
TROJAN TRIUMPHS
Nikias proudly offered some statistics that he says establishes a new legacy for USC: “The student loan default rate is 1.6% and that is far below of the 7% national average; and 12% for public schools. Our students are able to find employment, proving that the Trojan Network [USC’s “family’s” name] is real. We have the most Pell Grant recipients, we are second in Latino students, 3rd in African-American students, and a quarter of our students are international.”
Because USC is located near Downtown Los Angeles, “USC’s identity is very entrepreneurial. We aim to achieve what Oxford did for the British Commonwealth, educate the best and the brightest from the United States and the Pacific Rim.” A big reason for USC’s capacity for greatness is the financial strength of its endowment.
The $6 billion fundraising effort seemed daunting, but Nikias knew “how strong and loyal the Trojan family is,so I pushed the limit hoping to excite them.”
And the Trojans responded, but they were not the only ones; 64% came from non-USC alumni.
“I articulated a vision for the future of the university,” Nikias told TNH, and the donors “trusted our leadership but most importantly they chose to invest in USC because of its academic excellence.”
USC is known for its highly ranked Marshall School of Business and the Gould School of Law but art education is part of USC’s identity as well,in large part because of its proximity to Hollywood and the many famous alumni who work in entertainment. “Arts is USC’s secret weapon,” Nikias said.“Right now, we have 6000 students” in that program.
Nikias also raised USC’s profile via the Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation Institute and its video archive of 55,000 testimonies of Holocaust survivors. The Shoah Institute was sought out by many universities, museums and religious organizations, but Nikias was able to lure it to USC. “Spielberg wanted to found a secular university that had multicultural and multiethnic appeal because he felt that the Institute’s message is a universal one. We showed to him that USC had all the elements he was looking for and we assured him that we will be good guardians of Shoah’s legacy. He was convinced.”
GREEK HISTORY
Dr. Nikias loves ancient Greek history and despite his very demanding schedule, still teaches a two-hour weekly course in Greek philosophy to freshmen every spring.
On the last day of class, his wife hosts a dinner serving Greek food at their residence, and each student reads excerpts from Ancient Greek philosophers.
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