“I see an opportunity with USC Thornton to take an already legendary school and help shape its 21st-century vision of what a music school can be.”

“My USC experience played such a fundamental part in who I have become, both as a filmmaker and as a person…I’m honored and humbled to be asked to be the commencement speaker celebrating the 2023 graduating class…”

“I’m by nature a more reserved, shy person; I don’t usually want to rock the boat. But it was my brother who said, ‘You know you can use your voice, even if it shakes,’ and that really resonated with me.”

“This is about making an impact, using engineering and innovation to do some good in the world.”

“It’s been a great partnership, in that we bring different strengths and experiences to the table but are both passionate about the same thing—developing new ideas and technologies to improve the learning outcomes for these cadets.”

“I’d like to thank all my USC brothers. I know we didn’t finish the way we wanted to, but the culture and bond that we found will last forever. As I said, we still have do have unfinished business.”

“I don’t change who I am — I’m always the same person, whatever audience I’m in … [but] I felt immediately I don’t have to change anything about me. I can be my authentic self at USC because they’re telling me that’s what they want — they want authenticity in their teams.”

“This work has direct implementation in improving health conditions for people with disabilities or medical conditions. And I’m really, really happy about that.”

“Both my parents are doctors, so I thought about going into medicine, and being around all the team doctors at Stanford and with the Lakers, I realized I wanted to go into the medical field and hopefully become a team physician myself one day.”

“Don’t stop. Make a plan and just keep going because it’s never too late to make a change or learn or grow. You’re never too old. You could be 41; you could be 60. Just don’t give up on the dream to keep going.”

“Most women like me didn’t know what our rights were. When anything would happen to us that wasn’t fair, we just thought, ‘That’s the way it is.’”

“I’m so thrilled to be empowering so many students, especially in a department that is primarily non-cis-male identifying at the moment, in the student body. Equipping them with high level technical skills that are immediately translatable into the greater theatre production world.”

“We started to realize that these brands were spending millions of dollars a month on influencer marketing, but they were not using any software. Everything was done manually. All their data was handled on Excel spreadsheets.”

“It’s really having to trust, even though the federal government has not always been great to Native communities, but to trust that our voices are being heard and the voices of those being impacted by ICWA are heard.”

“USC helped me build a foundation for my pedagogy, and I would love to help future educators in the same way.”

“Just coming into the room with confidence and letting people know that, while people may underestimate me because I’m a woman, a person of color, or someone from a different religion than they are, I am just as knowledgeable, just as skilled, and I deserve a seat at the table.”

“I’m used to being held accountable in every job. I’m taking that approach. If I don’t perform, I have no business being here.”

“One of the big things that drew me to this trip was the teaching component. It is so much more valuable for us to spend our time educating other practitioners to leave a lasting impression and to hopefully make every subsequent group of students better than the one before them.”

“The creative process isn’t just when you’re writing it, it’s also when you’re performing it and when you’re mixing it and then when you’re doing the video. So the process of making it just gets spread out and I like that.”

“The actual learning was a redemption. Learning is so much better when you’re older. I wasn’t intimidated by the professors … If I messed up, it didn’t bother me.”

“Public policy isn’t just something you learn in the classroom. I value the fact that (USC) Price understands this on a very fundamental level.”

“A lot of my work is very much responding to where I come from, with my family immigrating here, but also where I’m living right now in South Central, and Crenshaw Dairy Mart being in Inglewood.”

“People think you can’t do certain things because of your disability and that just annoys me. I’m stubborn, and I don’t like to be told what to do or what I can’t do by other people.”

“So much of what I did was enabled by the kind and supportive faculty and staff and the resources that I had access to. Being a member of the Trojan family is something that will always stay with me.”

“It’s just a really inspiring environment. I knew that with my passion being multifaceted and wanting to be a changemaker and shake things up, being in a space with people who are like-minded to have those same kinds of goals was really important.”

“I’m so grateful to all the women who really fought for Title IX because my life would have been so different. I hope it’s something that we always celebrate because it really did make such a huge difference for the women of my generation.”

“I accepted this important assignment because it is a consequential opportunity to help inform federal investments into high-impact, responsive, and rigorous research that actually does something to fix longstanding inequities that chronically disadvantage particular schools and long-underserved student populations.”

“We got the highest level of education with the best professors at USC Price so we do all we can to support the university.”

“I’m really interested in what it looks like to have America in the room. And I think the face of America is often someone who is many things.”

“I was greatly influenced by my immediate family. It was not a question of, ‘What are you going to do when you grow up?’ It was, ‘What are you going to be when you grow up and what are you going to do for the community?'”

“I would compare flight school to earning a graduate degree. It is a challenging pursuit. You must be able to draw knowledge from paper, then apply it to working with your hands and implementing what you have learned.”

“The Trojan Family is very real. I have gotten to meet incredible students, staff and faculty, which has given me amazing friends and mentors. Everyone’s willingness to collaborate and passion surrounding their interests is contagious.”

“I want to make sure that as people come through our digital doors, they are getting the training they’re looking for and the support they need as queer actors.”

“It was so surreaI. I was telling myself, ‘You did it. You did it. You did it.’ It’s not all about the summit. It’s really about the journey going up there, pushing yourself and doing the best you can.”

Two USC pharmacists share an inside look at how L.A. fights the coronavirus at one of the largest vaccination sites in the country.

“I don’t want anybody to carry a burden for 50 years before they get to the edge of the bridge with all these things behind them. If I can develop techniques and training to help someone, that’s what I want to do.”

“I can’t open my mouth and not talk about diversity. I mean, look at me. I’m incredibly proud to wear that badge — especially at a place like USC.”

“I accidentally created my dream job, because this is everything I care about: theatre, giving back in ethical style, and access to theatre for a new generation.”

“What Title IX did is put women in visible roles you hadn’t seen them in before. Title IX was a cornerstone to begin to fight these other battles. It was a huge, huge building block.”