Funding cuts hit USC humanities
Tomo Chien & Maggie Bell
April 16, 2025
Good morning. It’s Wednesday, and we’re reading about how the Coachella payment plan is actually kind of smart. Onto the five USC, Los Angeles, and California stories you need to know for today.
1.
At least 11 USC projects were kneecapped by funding cuts at the low-profile National Endowment for the Humanities. One grant would’ve funded an architecture professor’s book. Another funded a Chinatown history project. “This really is symptomatic of the Trump administration’s attack on intellectual life,” said professor Ginger Nolan.
2.
The Undergraduate Student Government slashed thousands of dollars in funding for programming assemblies next year thanks to a projected decrease in its budget. Affected groups include the Black Student Assembly, which lost 17% of its funding, and the Queer and Ally Student Assembly, which lost 22%.
3.
Patty Smash at the corner of 29th and Hoover streets appeared to abruptly close yesterday. The smashburger joint, which opened in January and occasionally doled out free burgers in an attempt to draw students, had replaced Roadside Tacos, which itself just recently opened.
4.
A Viterbi lecturer created an AI grading program that’s meant to be a significant time-saver for faculty. Supaclass, co-founded by USC part-timer Bennett Lee, provides a preliminary test grade based off of the rubric fed to it, at which point human graders are meant to review the results.
5.
A team of burglars stole $10 million in gold and jewels from a downtown jewelry store Sunday night. In a heist straight out of “The Italian Job,” the thieves apparently drilled holes through multiple reinforced walls, then managed to break into two of the jeweler’s massive safes. “This was serious digging,” a police captain said.