Six honorary degrees to be given at commencement


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USC will award honorary degrees to six candidates for their outstanding contribution to their fields of specialty at the 133rd Commencement on May 13.

The recipients, who were announced on April 4, will be Larry Ellison, founder of the Oracle Corporation as well as this year’s commencement speaker; Alejandro G. Iñárritu, an Academy Award-winning Mexican filmmaker and director of the films The Revenant and Birdman; Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles County District Attorney; Mark Stevens, a managing partner of S-Cubed Capital and a member of the USC Board of Trustees; Mary Stevens co-chair of Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton, California; and Selim Zilkha, co-owner of Zilkha Biomass Energy.

Margo K. Apostolos, co-director of the Cedars-Sinai/USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance Medicine Center and an associate professor of dance, is the chair of the honorary degrees committee.

“Each year, the committee tries to elevate the standard of excellence,” Apostolos said. “I think this year the recipients indeed reflect the extraordinary achievements in their respective fields.”

The Office of the Provost manages the process of the honorary degree. Apostolos added that any member of the USC community including faculty, staff, student, alumni or trustee could nominate a candidate.

The potential candidate can have exceptional achievements outside of their academic area too.

“You could have artists, scholars, engineers, business people, but the criteria we look for is that they have extraordinary achievements in their work, and that varies with every profession,” Apostolos said.

Ellison founded the Lawrence Ellison Foundation that supports biomedical research on aging and age-related diseases and disabilities. Iñárritu recently became the first director to win two consecutive Oscars in 65 years. Lacey is the first African-American to be elected since the office’s establishment in 1850. Last year, Mark and Mary Stevens  endowed the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute. They also established the USC Stevens Center for Innovation in 2004. Zilkha is a member of the Keck Board of Overseers for the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at Keck, which is dedicated to researching Alzheimer’s, has been named in his honor.

The process of naming the honorees goes through several steps. The Honorary Degrees Committee reviews the nominated candidates and selects a group of nominees who are then recommended to President C.L. Max Nikias. Nikias forwards the list of nominees with outstanding distinction to the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees. The board is entrusted with the responsibility of awarding the honorary degrees. Apostolos said that this year the committee made a greater effort to reach out to students for nominations.

According to Apostolos, there was a significant increase in the student nominations for this academic years. The nomination process is confidential, and the nominee cannot be informed that his or her name was put forward. Those who are actively employed by the University are not eligible for nomination. The nominees for the May 2016 commencement were ranked at the March 2015 meeting after being reviewed throughout the 2014-2015 academic year.

“I do have to say that I made an effort as the chair of the committee this year, to specifically reach out for student nominations,” Apostolos said. “Along with Jacob Laux, administrative assistant, Office of the Provost, I visited the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Government and explained the nomination process to the students, took questions and encouraged them to submit nominations.”

Jereme Barnett-Woods, a graduate student majoring in electrical engineering, lauded the committee’s efforts in selecting candidates from different backgrounds.

“It is great that USC has relations with these honorary degree recipients. Each one of them excels in their field of interest and adds great character to our school,” Barnett-Woods said.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Margo Apostolos was the director of dance at USC Kaufman. Apostolos is the co-director of the Cedars-Sinai/USC Glorya Kaufman Dance Medicine Center and an associate professor of dance. The Daily Trojan regrets this error.