Message to Iovine and Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation Faculty, Students, and Staff
From: Charles F. Zukoski, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
I am writing to share the bittersweet news that Erica Muhl, the inaugural dean and former founding executive director of the USC Iovine and Young Academy, will be stepping down from her position to become President of the Berklee College of Music, effective July 1, 2021.
On behalf of the USC community, we express our deep appreciation for Dean Muhl’s visionary leadership. When the Academy was founded in 2013 with a generous gift from entrepreneurs Jimmy Iovine and Andre “Dr. Dre” Young, its future was unwritten. Now one of USC’s professional schools, the school is nationally recognized as a pathbreaker in new models in higher education, including the development of multidisciplinary and integrative programs.
Dean Muhl has positioned Academy students to succeed in realizing and creating the careers of the future. Academy students develop transdisciplinary expertise, learn to think critically and work collaboratively. Emphasizing cooperation rather than competition, the Academy under Dean Muhl’s leadership has inspired students to innovate with ethics and empathy at the core of their work.
Over the course of the past seven years, the Academy has steadily expanded its academic offerings. In addition to its signature Bachelor of Science degree and its online Master of Science in Integrated Design, Business and Technology, the Academy recently launched a set of new minors that include collaborations with the Keck and Annenberg schools, and a new Master of Science in Product Innovation. Last year, the Academy opened Iovine and Young Hall, a state-of-the-art maker space that includes adaptive classrooms and a nanofabrication lab. The school is on a solid foundation thanks to Dean Muhl’s financial stewardship, and it continues to prioritize new merit scholarships and innovative partnerships that support unique opportunities for its students.
Dean Muhl has had a long, distinguished career at USC. She has been a Professor of Composition with tenure since 1991 in the USC Thornton School of Music where she also served as associate dean. In September 2012, she was appointed as Dean of USC Roski School of Art and Design, a position she held through June 2018.
We will soon launch an advisory committee to conduct an international search for the Academy’s next dean. We will keep our community updated. In the meantime, President Folt and I wish Dean Muhl the best as she embarks upon her next steps.
cc: Office of the President
Academic Deans
President’s Senior Leadership Team
Provost’s Leadership Team
Academic Senate
Staff Assembly
GSG President
USG President