USC Annenberg Media

10/08/2025

USC alumna Xindi Zhang’s film, “The Song of Drifters,” received a gold win October 6 in the alternative/experimental category for the 2025 Student Academy Awards.

Zhang graduated in 2025 from the School of Cinematic Arts’ expanded animation research and practice master’s program. The award-winning film was her thesis.

The film blended many different animation techniques and tools, as well as “AI morphing,” with documentary-style interviews.

Zhang describes the film as “a mental journey for people who travel in different places and couldn’t settle down, and how they figure out how to find their own belongings throughout this drifting life.”

This film drew inspiration from her own personal experiences.

“This film actually is like a mental therapy to my identity issue,” Zhang said. “I couldn’t figure out where I want to settle down because I’m about to be in either that age or in that stage to live somewhere longer, not just in a transition or something. I figured it was just not possible to choose a place because I don’t get any sense of belonging to anywhere I’ve lived.”

Read more at the link in our bio.

📝 Kayla Xu and Ella R. Dunn
📸 Photo courtesy of Xindi Zhang

10/07/2025

Following the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education invitation on Wednesday, the USC American Association of University Professors sent a petition rallying for USC to reject the compact.

The petition currently has over 500 signatures from various faculty, students and alumni. The petition states that academic excellence comes from upholding USC’s current values in changing times.

Some faculty members are worried about how classroom dynamics would be impacted if USC signed the compact.

Read more at the link in bio.

✍ Sierra Namvari .namvari and Kaylee Eiber
📸 Ling Luo

10/06/2025

All 57 student academic advisors at the Viterbi School of Engineering have been laid off, sources confirmed to Annenberg Media.

Those advisors were told they would be able to reapply for their jobs, but that only 44 positions would be available, likely at a reduced salary. Laid off employees were given 60 days’ notice on Monday, Sept. 29, according to a Viterbi professor who requested anonymity to be able to share details freely.

As of Monday morning, students hadn’t yet been told that their advisors have been laid off.

When asked how the school would continue supporting student success in the wake of what is, effectively, a complete turnover in advisement, Viterbi provided this statement:

“Student academic and professional success is a top priority. Student support at USC Viterbi will continue without interruption.”

Faculty within the school sent a collective letter to Dean Yannis C. Yortsos in protest of the layoffs, expressing what the professor described as “profound concern” that remaining staff who already bear high workloads were facing the consequences of “upper-level mismanagement” by the college.

The loss of Viterbi’s academic advisors are the latest in a series of mass layoffs across the university, with the total number of laid off employees up to at least 692.

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ Sophie Sullivan ( )
📸 Tomoki Chien

10/03/2025

Read more at the link in our bio.

10/03/2025

Universities across the United States could change their policies on international students, diversity and ideological values in exchange for federal funding, according to a recent proposal sent by the Trump administration.

The White House sent letters to nine major universities on Wednesday, which included a nearly ten-page “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” If signed, the schools would secure their federal funding.

Other key requirements in the compact include freezing tuition for five years, adopting stricter definitions of gender and changing university policies that allegedly punish conservative ideologies.

USC is currently “reviewing the Administration’s letter,” and has provided no further comment about their plans for the compact, according to a university statement.

Read more at the link in our bio.

📝 Matthew Suh and Maria Laguna
📸 Ling Luo

10/01/2025

Near the end of 2017, the United States Navy filed a notice of intent to begin purchasing human cadavers from the University of Southern California. The purpose: Use dead bodies in trauma surgery training for the Israeli Defense Forces.

Since that notice, the Navy has paid USC more than $860,000 for at least 89 “fresh cadaver bodies,” 32 of which were used specifically for IDF training at Los Angeles General Medical Center.

One contract is still ongoing. The Navy has already paid USC over half a million dollars, but the most recent contract allows for an additional $225,000 worth of cadavers to be purchased at the Navy’s discretion, which would bring USC’s total earned for the last seven years to nearly $1.1 million.

While the three contracts in question make up less than 1% of USC’s 367 contracts with the Navy, Annenberg Media was unable to locate any other U.S. university that had similar contracts involving the IDF. (See the other contracts here and here.)

Medical professionals are also raising questions about whether families of the dead have any idea that their loved ones might be used to train soldiers. USC says it operates the programs in accordance with regulations.

Read more at the link in our bio.

📝 USC Annenberg Media
📸 Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

10/01/2025

Dining hall food that goes uneaten is helping feed people in the community surrounding USC. In a process called food recovery, USC Hospitality recovers uneaten food and packages it for donation to the surrounding community.

“Food is recovered as part of the cleanup process after every meal,” explains Carlos Perez, USC Hospitality’s Operations Manager. After this recovery process, “uneaten food is packaged and prepared for next-day pickup by the St. Francis Center.”

This partnership began at least seven years ago and has “provided around 3,000 to 3,400 meals to the St. Francis Center,” said Perez.

Located just 1.5 miles northeast of USC campus, the St. Francis Center works to provide “hunger relief to homeless and extremely low-income families and individuals in Los Angeles,” according to their website.

The center is open to everyone from Wednesday to Saturday, and allows people to pick up food from both their walk-up and drive-through distribution lines. Excess food recovered from USC dining halls typically “helps to feed upwards of 200 people every day,” said Ariana Vega, a Program and Operations Supervisor at the St. Francis Center.

Read more at the link in our bio.

📝 Evie Milias
📸 Evie Milias

10/01/2025

10/01/2025

As his solo concluded and the rest of the musicians joined back in, the audience erupted in applause for junior trombonist Kazeem Dairo, a member of the USC Thornton Honors Combo.

Jazz Nights at Carson, a weekly performance showcasing various Thornton jazz ensembles, returned for the fall 2025 semester on Monday with two jazz combo performances.

“I want the audience to feel the joy that we get to feel from playing with each other,” Dairo said.

The performance series is set to run almost every Monday evening of the fall semester at Thornton’s Carson Soundstage, featuring the music of various Thornton jazz ensembles, ranging from small combos to big bands. All of these events are free and open to the public.

Christopher Renfrow, a junior studying vocal arts who attended Monday’s performance, said the event series allows Thornton students to share “cross-genre support” for other musicians.

Read more at the link in our bio.

📝 Kaylee Eiber
📸 Kaylee Eiber

10/01/2025

Tilly Norwood, a rising brunette bombshell, is collecting a horde of Hollywood haters. Why? She’s not a real person.

As of Saturday, the A.I. generated “actress” is circulating the market for agents. So far, she has made an appearance in one comedy sketch: “The AI Commissioner,” a film produced by video production company Particle 6. Though the cost to feature the actress in productions has not yet been released, she is now licensed for producers to use.

Particle6 and their image generation studio Xicoia, the developers who created Norwood, are pushing for agencies to sign the actress.

“We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman,” said Particle6 CEO Eline Van Der Velden in an interview with Broadcast International.

Particle6 produces custom A.I. characters to “lead campaigns, connect with audiences, and scale across the social media landscape,” according to the company’s website.

The development of the A.I.-generated “actress” and the push for Norwood’s character to enter the film industry has sparked outrage from creatives like Emmy-winning actor Lamorne Morris, known for his work in “Fargo” and “New Girl.”

Read more at the link in our bio.

📝 Tyler Kuslaka
📸 Tilly Norwood/Instagram

10/01/2025

Doja Cat’s fifth studio album “Vie,” released Sept. 26, feels like a gamble on nostalgia and reinvention. An L.A. native known for defying expectations, she turned to the 1980s for inspiration, such as synths, neon-bright production and campy spectacle, without fully abandoning the emotional vulnerability that fueled her earlier work. When questioned about the theme, Doja responded, “The concept is very pointed towards love, romance and s*x — and discourse in relationships.”

The album begins with “Cards,” where she leans into chance and uncertainty. Over shimmering synths, she builds to a chorus that goes, “Maybe I’ll fall in love, baby / Maybe we’ll win some hearts / Baby, just play your cards.” It’s playful but laced with risk, setting the record up as a gamble on intimacy and self-invention.

From there, “Jealous Type” takes a bolder turn, draped in disco-pop rhythms. The chorus “Boy, let me know if this is careless, I / Could be torn between two roads that I just can’t decide / Which one is leading me to hell or paradise? / Baby, I can’t hurt you, sure, but I’m the jealous type” lands somewhere between a confessional and a dance-floor chant.

“I’m so excited for the era now after this,” one fan wrote Reddit. “I just know she is going to bring it!” Others mentioned how the anthem is reminiscent of Madonna and Janet Jackson, but filtered through Doja’s sly humor.

Read more at the link in our bio.

📝 Milica Samardzic
📸 AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

09/30/2025

With long lines extending along USC’s Greek Row, hundreds of students eagerly waited Saturday to enter fraternity houses hosting notable musical performers Soulja Boy and Acraze.

Kappa Alpha Order (KA) and Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) jointly hosted DJ Acraze, and musical artist Soulja Boy performed at Phi Sigma Kappa (Phi Sig).

The performances are just the latest in the trend of USC fraternities hosting well-known musical artists. In addition to these parties, Pi Kappa Alpha (PIKE) had Diplo and Major Lazer perform at parties, and KA hosted DJ group Loud Luxury, just in the first six weeks of the fall semester.

Read more at the link in bio.

✍ Olivia Giangeruso and Asiana Guang
📸 Michael Chow