A World-Class University

A World-Class University. University of Southern California. , Because a superior faculty is at the heart of any university's stature, USC has long been committed to attracting the best and the brightest men and women to teach its students. During its early years, the university's growing reputation drew such outstanding scholars as James Maine Dixon, widely honored in Europe, North America and Asia for his interpretations of the poetry of Robert Burns; Rockwell Dennis Hunt, known as "Mr. California" for his works on the state's history; Emory S. Bogardus, a pioneer in the field of sociology; and Thomas Blanchard Stowell, an expert in the psychology and history of education. , Building on that foundation, USC continued to attract increasingly eminent faculty over the following decades. By 1969, the university had achieved such an outstanding reputation for research and scholarship that it was elected to membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities. , To achieve international prominence, the logical next step, USC began to forge enduring alliances with the private sector, which were essential in order to provide world-class faculty with the facilities they needed to carry out their work. Thanks to the vision and generosity of countless donors, the university was able to transform its outstanding faculty into one of international consequence. , Among the scholars who helped USC achieve this distinction was George A. Olah, world-renowned chemist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who joined the faculty in 1977. Olah's work, which explored ways to activate organic chemical compounds in reactions previously thought to be impossible, attracted the attention of alumna Katherine Bogdanovich Loker and her husband, Donald, and they created a partnership with the university that was to have great consequence. When Olah cofounded the nation's first university-based institute to study hydrocarbons at USC, the Lokers' gifts made it possible for the university to open a dedicated building in 1979 to house the institute, which was named in their honor. , The Lokers also endowed a chair in organic chemistry, held by Olah, who served as scientific director of the institute. In 1990, Katherine Loker, now widowed, gave $7 million to build a new wing onto the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute building. , Within the institute's walls, Olah continued his work, creating a new field of chemistry that had considerable theoretical and practical importance. His research led to lead-free gasoline, cleaner high-octane gas and the promise of other nonpolluting fuels, and it revamped basic research in biomedicine and industrial chemistry. Olah obtained more than 100 patents and authored more than 900 research papers, almost singlehandedly establishing USC as a center for advanced industrial chemistry. , In October 1994, the Lokers' investment in USC and their confidence in Olah paid off: he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. The significance of the award was celebrated throughout the region. As the Los Angeles Times declared in an editorial immediately after the prize was announced: "The underlying message...is clear: USC is a top notch research university."