The College of Southern California named its new president Wednesday after a tumultuous stretch that included mass layoffs and federal scrutiny of rowdy anti-Israel protests.
The chair of the board of trustees introduced Beong-Soo Kim had been appointed thirteenth president after serving as interim president for the final eight months. He had beforehand held the place of senior vp and normal counsel on the faculty.
“Beong has established a powerful basis of integrity and belief,” Suzanne Nora Joshnson wrote in an e-mail confirming the unanimous vote that put in Kim.” Along with his unwavering dedication to USC’s core values, we’re assured he’s the appropriate chief to information USC towards reaching its bold targets.”
“Thanks for entrusting me to advance USC’s mission—with openness, imaginative and prescient, and integrity—throughout this time of change and immense alternative,” Kim stated.
Kim joined USC in 2020 as an administrator however he beforehand served as an adjunct professor on the USC Gould College of Legislation beginning in 2007.
Kim will oversee a scholar physique of over 47,000 and greater than 4,500 school members whereas additionally establishing the college as a presence in Washington, DC, following the launch of the Capital Campus in 2023.
His appointment comes as a shock to some. When he was initially put in as a placeholder whereas a presidential search was underway, Kim acknowledged he would “not be a candidate for the everlasting place.”
Nevertheless, Board Chair Nora Johnson later famous that the search committee was impressed by Kim’s efficiency throughout his interim stint.
“As a next-generation president, we consider that he can dramatically speed up USC’s institutional development,” she stated in an interview. “He possesses distinctive diplomatic abilities and has made decisive selections which have maintained the college’s tutorial mission and preserved the establishment’s long-term monetary well being.”
Kim stepped into the interim function after former president Carol Folt ended her time period within the face of controversy surrounding scholar protests and mass layoffs of over 900.
He inherited the interim function in a interval of serious monetary instability, with a 2025 deficit exceeding $200 million — a pointy enhance from the $158 million deficit in 2024. The college additionally laid off over 900 workers, with projections of a $230 million structural hole for the 2026 fiscal yr.
In Spring 2024, the college arrested almost 100 folks on campus throughout protests associated to the battle in Israel, finally drawing federal scrutiny. Below Kim’s interim tenure, the Division of Schooling despatched a proposed “Compact for Tutorial Excellence in Larger Schooling” to 9 universities, together with USC.
The Compact known as for establishments to limit the usage of race and gender in admissions, ban organic males from competing in ladies’s sports activities and cap worldwide scholar enrollment.
Whereas then-interim president Kim acknowledged that “USC has declined to affix the proposed Compact,” he famous that the college appears to be like ahead to “contributing our views and Trojan values to an necessary nationwide dialog about the way forward for increased training.”
Moreover, USC was included on a listing of faculties below investigation by the brand new Process Pressure to Fight Antisemitism, established by President Donald Trump’s govt order in late January 2025. This was a results of incidents of Spring 2025 and a swastika being found on a campus fencepost.
Kim should additionally handle a push for unionization amongst non-tenure school.
Miriam Adelson — a staunch ally of Trump who has contributed over $170 million to his political efforts —at the moment holds a seat on the California college because it’s honorary trustee.
Kim, who beforehand served within the U.S. Division of Justice, has a deep private connection to the college; his dad and mom had been worldwide college students from South Korea who attended USC. Kim himself graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard School earlier than incomes a grasp’s diploma from the London College of Economics and a JD from Harvard Legislation College.
