December 3, 2025
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to let you know that Joel Curran, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, will be leaving USC on December 31 and returning to his native North Carolina to consult and be closer to his wife and family. During his two and a half years at USC, Joel helped guide the university’s communications strategies and issues management through several historically challenging periods on campus. He also restructured the Communications Division to foster more creative and robust storytelling, and created the USC Communications Cabinet to facilitate greater strategic alignment among the university’s 23 schools, as well as its administrative units, the Department of Athletics, and Keck Medicine. Joel has been an integral part of our senior leadership team and will be missed.
I’m pleased to announce Megan Jordan – our Vice President of Executive Communications and Strategic Initiatives – has agreed to serve as interim Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer beginning on January 1, 2026.
Since joining USC in 2024, Megan has overseen communications for the President’s Office and has worked to refine and align university messaging, raise awareness for the president’s strategic initiatives, and strengthen the reputation of the university. Over the past year, she also assumed responsibility for University Marketing, Creative Services, and Advancement Communications and Marketing.
Megan joined USC from Claremont McKenna College where she served as Chief Communications and Marketing Officer. Previously, she held corporate communications leadership roles with Southern California Edison, Herbalife, and Kaiser Permanente, among others. She also spent a decade advising executive leadership with clients Nestle, General Motors, Hilton, Kia, and Philips while with global public relations firms MSL, Cohn & Wolfe, and Zeno Group.
She earned her B.A. in Public Relations from the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, where she has continued to teach as an adjunct professor. She also has served on Annenberg’s Public Relations Board of Advisors since 2018. Megan boasts 18 Trojans among her extended family, including three of her four children.
Please join me in thanking Megan for taking on this essential role at USC, and wishing Joel well as he moves on to the next chapter of his career.
Fight On!
Beong-Soo Kim
Interim President