(Photos by Xinhua/Wang Ying via Getty Images and Al Seib / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
GEOFFREY GARRET, THE DEAN of USC’s esteemed Marshall School of Business, had been on the defensive for weeks.
An April 17 letter signed by 52 professors alleged that declining enrollment and cuts to graduate programs were putting the school’s viability in jeopardy. Days later, L.A. Material published the letter, prompting Garrett to promise a town hall that would “address the faculty concerns directly.”
But if he thought the meeting would calm things down, he was mistaken. On stage at USC’s Edison Auditorium on May 4, Garrett faced a near riot, weathering a barrage of attacks from professors both in person and on Zoom.
“This is disappointing,” one professor said.
“Very disappointing,” agreed another.
“It’s incredibly tone-deaf to waste the time of 260+ people,” said a third.
“Seems like a waste of time, but maybe that’s the point?” declared one particularly withering professor, who proceeded to share Garrett’s seven-figure salary in the webinar chat.
“It felt like in the movies, where you need to rush onstage and pull the person off because it’s getting worse and worse,” said one staffer who witnessed the blowup. “Just cut the lights. Kill it.”
On Wednesday, USC announced that Garrett, 67, will leave his position as dean in August. He will assume a newly created role as Special Advisor to the President for Global Strategy and Engagement, with a mandate to “strengthen USC’s relationships,” “expand our international reach,” and “advance opportunities,” according to a Wednesday memo from Provost Andrew Guzman.
The new role will spare Garrett — a veteran academic leader who previously led the University of Pennsylvania’s vaunted Wharton School of Business — the embarrassment of a vote of no confidence that Marshall faculty had scheduled for July.
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The role also plays to Garrett’s strengths. The Australian-born academic has cultivated extensive ties with USC donors and alumni around the world, and last year was appointed to chair a special committee on artificial intelligence.
“He’s someone who thinks globally and has as good a sense as anyone as to how things are going to unfold geopolitically — and what the challenges and opportunities are for USC,” Beong-Soo Kim, the university’s president, said in an interview.
Garrett did not respond to requests for comment.
The uproar at the business school marks one of the first high-profile challenges for Kim, who is still relatively new to his role. A former federal prosecutor, Kim was tapped in 2020 to be the university’s chief legal officer before ascending to the top job last year. Compared with his predecessors, Kim has relatively little experience as a higher education administrator, especially for someone now overseeing 25,000 employees.
The dust-up leaves vacant the deanship of one of USC’s largest and most prestigious preprofessional schools. Kim now has the latitude to handpick three of the university’s most high-profile roles. In addition to Garrett, Yannis Yortsos, the longtime dean of USC’s engineering school, will leave his post in July, and Andrew Guzman, the school’s provost, will step down after the university appoints his replacement.
William Tierney, a USC education professor who is an expert on university presidents, predicted others in key leadership posts would cycle out as Kim looks to build his administration.
“You have to get rid of the old guard,” Tierney said.
Andrew Call, the dean of USC’s accounting school, which operates within the business school, will serve as interim dean. In addition, USC has approached Jim Ellis, the beloved former dean of the business school — whose ouster in 2018 prompted protests and acrimony among trustees and donors — to act in an advisory capacity to Call, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
For months, faculty at the business school had been sounding the alarm about falling enrollment and declining rankings. Among their critiques: They felt that too much power was given to nonacademic administrators, and that Garrett was failing to place enough of an emphasis on graduate programs.
Between the disastrous town hall on May 4 and Wednesday’s announcement, faculty intensified their pressure on administrators for change.
A delegation of professors met with Kim on May 21 to make the case for nixing Garrett, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. Professors later scheduled a vote of no confidence for July 1.
In the intervening weeks, Kim and Garrett reflected on his future, and the dean seemed more keen on helping USC navigate political and economic currents, according to a source briefed on the conversations. Delving into the particulars of elevating USC’s MBA program will fall to his successor.
By Wednesday morning, the no-confidence vote had become moot. Kim met with faculty again, giving advance notice before broadcasting Garrett’s new role.
Tomo Chien can be reached at [email protected] or tomo.213 on Signal.
Matt Hamilton can be reached at [email protected].
