In our current world, the issue of public service and good government is resurfacing as a major challenge facing the country. The social contract between government and citizens is changing. The interest in public service and a search for the common good in society are growing, not just in government but in non-profits, philanthropy, and business.

Public-private problem solving: Founding Dean Emery Olson was a former associate dean of the USC Business School and became interested in a new school focused on volunteerism, the public sector and ways the public and private sectors can work together. It is no accident that the school contained "citizenship" in its title.

This cross-sector focus for problem solving has served as a hallmark of the school, including urban planning and development. Today it is a defining feature of how we train students and the kind of collaborative governance and problem-solving research and teaching in which we engage.

It epitomizes the inter-university consortium formed in the last two years with USC, the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington and the Eller College's School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Arizona.

Multi-disciplinary, problem-focused: We began as a multi-disciplinary entity with a degree in public administration and classes in urban planning. Over the years, the public administration discipline expanded to include public policy and health administration; and urban planning created the real estate development program. Ten years ago, when all these disciplines came together once again under a single school, we seized the opportunity for more in-depth inter-disciplinary scholarship and teaching to address the major issues facing the country.

We're proud of our capacity to apply multiple fields to address these issues. We have formed interdisciplinary research centers such as METRANS, Lusk, Keston, and CREATE. We also focus not just on the problems but on how society solves the problems through its constitution, institutions, and decision making processes--known as governance. The Bedrosian Center on Governance and the Public Enterprise encompasses research and outreach on these policymaking and institutional processes.

There are also many cross-field studies in SPPD. A good example is the expertise housed inside SPPD on the current financial crisis where policy, management, planning, and development each bear on the reasons and solutions to the crisis.

Ties to the community of practice: the initial 1929 courses of the Institutes of Government sponsored by the new school were taught in Los Angeles City Hall as intensives for continuing education.

This past year we taught over 500 state, local officials and non-profit leaders in executive education courses. Today, we also have several community projects, internships, advisory boards, and adjunct faculty participating in the school. We address real-world problems in partnership with practitioners. Providing continuing and executive education, in-person and through distance learning, is a major objective of our school and other policy and planning schools. In the words of Charles Lindblom, we are committed to producing Usable Knowledge that advances academic theory but also makes an impact in the world.

Entrepreneurial: the formation of the new school in 1928-29 was groundbreaking for urban planning, public administration and for public affairs schools, with SPPD being the first of its kind west of the Mississippi.

Over the decades USC and the school have led in entrepreneurial investments in new activities and degrees. We established centers in Washington D.C. and Sacramento. We pioneered in planning research and education, and in the real estate development program, one of the first in the country. Most recently, this past year we established one of the first Executive Masters in Leadership degrees in the country. We are pioneering in working to establish centers on integrating immigrants, healthy communities, and the future of California. Our school will continue to be entrepreneurial in changing and seizing the opportunities of today.

Global: As early as the 1940s the school was offering training programs for officials from around the world and offering executive education to several other countries. We also had a growing number of international students and research projects, long before globalization became the norm. The planning program developed international teaching labs to connect students with practitioners in other countries.

Today we are globalizing our curriculum; offering executive education to international students; recruiting abroad for students across our degree programs; investing in research partnerships in Korea and China; and formally partnering with the Peace Corps and the World Bank.

Excellence: From the beginning, the school was committed to national quality and excellence and has served as one of the top ten schools in the nation over its history. Today we continue to raise the standards for faculty scholarship and student performance. Our Ph.D. program has admitted students with the highest GRE scores of any program at USC. We are ranked in the top 5 in city and non-profit management and in real estate development. Our faculty members continue to win many prestigious awards for their lifelong scholarship and for specific books and articles, and our students receive numerous fellowships and honors.

These elements that defined our past also define our vision for the future of the school: public-private and multi-disciplinary problem solving, outstanding academic excellence tied to the community of practice, entrepreneurial endeavors and global reach, with a strong commitment to public service and the common good.

There are disturbing parallels with our times and the late 1920s when our school was formed. We live in turbulent economic times. We face dangerous and rapidly-evolving international developments. We also confront challenges to good government and public service and the role of government in society. Certainly, our collective hope is to avoid the calamities that started 80 years ago which brought the country and the world to their knees through the Great Depression and World War II.

But as Abe Lincoln said, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew." As dean, I am committed to working with all of you to build on the strengths of our legacy to rise to the occasion and to think anew and act anew about the many challenges and opportunities ahead of us.

Thank you!