To all of today’s graduates, I can’t imagine what’s going through your minds right now. I never had the opportunity to go to a great university like this. I didn’t get here today like you did — by studying hard and excelling in school. Yet here I stand before you at this amazing crossroads in your life. So the question of the hour is what can I teach you? How can I help you even in the slightest way to be ready for whatever comes next?

So I asked myself, how did I get here? After a lot of thought, I realized there have been two life lessons that changed everything about me. These were moments that shook me, scared me and humbled me. In the end, these moments are two big reasons I am here today. And since my education came in the music business, you may recognize some of the names and think, how can this guy’s stories possibly apply to me? Yet I truly believe these two experiences apply to absolutely anyone and anything you want to do in this journey called life.

Let’s start with something I learned when I was 23 — not much older than most of you guys. It’s been the subtext to whatever success I’ve had. I have tried to instill this lesson in everyone who works for me, and the ones who have learned it, are still working for me.

I started my career as a second recording engineer, which sounds fancy but the reality is that I answered phones, I cleaned the floors and I made tea and coffee. That may not sound impressive, but it allowed me to learn my business from the ground up and it’s the kind of entry-level job that anybody starting a career should be happy to take. And it got me in the same building with John Lennon who — after the 50th cup of tea I served him — felt my enthusiasm and willingness to learn and allowed me to sit in on his sessions.

From there, I got the opportunity to work with Bruce Springsteen to help him record an album called Born To Run. Born To Run became a landmark album. If you don’t know it, ask your parents. But to my mother and father and their friends, Born To Run wasn’t Bruce Springsteen’s album — it was Jimmy Iovine’s album. They thought it was all about me. And before long, I began to believe that too.

So I was thrilled when Bruce and his manager and producer Jon Landau asked me to engineer the follow-up that eventually became Darkness on The Edge of Town. Back in those days, the first thing you did when making an album was record the drums. The job of getting the right drum sound fell to the recording engineer — and that was me. We spent six weeks working around the clock trying to get the sound that Bruce had in his head. And no matter what we did, it just wasn’t coming.

You cannot imagine everything we tried. We put the drums in the hallway. We put the drums in the elevator. We put the drums in the bathroom. We did everything but put the drums underwater. All I can remember is Bruce constantly saying to me, “Jimmy, I hear the stick hitting the drum.” At a certain point, I looked at him, and said, “Bruce, it is a stick hitting a drum!” But he was the Boss and that didn’t satisfy him. We were stuck. The sound I was getting was CLUNK-CLUNK-CLUNK and the sound Bruce wanted was BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

So eventually, Bruce suggested bringing in some other guy from New Jersey of all places who could help me get this elusive drum sound. And I thought, “Why do I need help? What am I, half as good as I was two years ago?” To me, it sounded like a massive vote of no confidence. After six weeks of putting a microphone everywhere you could possibly imagine, I felt humiliated. I felt embarrassed. To use a word I hear way too often from 20-year-olds who work at my company, I felt disrespected. I felt so disrespected I wanted to suggest one more place Bruce could put that microphone.

I went back to the hotel where we were all staying, and I told Jon Landau, ‘I quit, I’ve done nothing but support this guy, and now he’s embarrassing me.” Looking back, I was just a beginner in the record-making process, but in the arrogance of my Brooklyn youth, I felt as if I had already arrived — that I knew everything. Boy, was I wrong.

Bruce’s manager looked me STRAIGHT in the eye, and said, “Hang on, Jimmy, I’m going to tell you something that will go against every instinct you have about how to react in a situation like this: “THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU.”

Then Bruce’s manager said: “I want you to understand something called `The Big Picture.’ I’d never heard about this Big Picture. In my mother’s house, I was The Big Picture.”

Bruce’s manager continued, “And at a moment like this, it’s not about how you feel, Jimmy. It’s about Bruce Springsteen and his album. That’s the big picture — not your feelings, or anyone’s feelings.”

Inside, I had absolutely no idea what Jon meant. I wanted to scream. I wanted to argue. I wanted to walk. But for reasons I’m still thinking about three decades later, I did the opposite. I didn’t protect my ego. Instead, I paused for just a moment and listened to someone who might actually know better. So I told Jon, “You got it” because I did want to learn and this advice sounded like Aristotle to me. I had no idea who Aristotle was, but I liked the sound of his name. Jon told me, ‘I want you to walk in that room and tell Bruce Springsteen “I am here to support you. I will do whatever you need me to do.”’

So that’s what I did.

Turned out, the other guy from Jersey couldn’t get the drums right either. Somehow we got closer to the sound Bruce wanted and we moved on together. Six weeks later, not only was I still on Bruce’s team, but he also gave me one of the greatest songs he ever wrote called “Because The Night” that I produced for Patti Smith. That was my first hit record as a producer and launched my career. Listening to Jon’s five words — “This Is Not About You” — became the tipping point for every gift that’s followed in my life.

At that moment, I began to learn how to push aside my own personal issues and my desperate need to be right so I could focus on what was truly important — the greater good. Don’t worry, I wasn’t cured — I still battle with these issues of insecurity, ego, pride, and especially fear every day. Too often those issues get in the way of me seeing The Big Picture. But what I have learned is some of these powerful insecurities can be harnessed into life’s greatest motivator, the strongest 5-hour energy drink ever. It’s called a little old fashioned fear.

I know about fear. I was once fired from two jobs within 90 days. I felt as if the sidewalk was collapsing behind me, but that insecure feeling always kept me moving forward. Rather than stop me in my tracks like a headwind, I began to learn how to make those same insecurities the tailwinds to propel me forward.

Okay, now let’s fast-forward a little bit . . . maybe 30 years.

My second pivotal life lesson came in 1999, and now I was feeling like the King Of The World. I had built the hottest record company in the world, Interscope Records, the home of great artists like Dr. Dre, No Doubt, Eminem, The Black Eyed Peas and we had just signed U2. We were on a roll. We felt invincible. Nothing could touch us.

Except . . . Napster.

As a founder of Interscope Records, a company built on people paying for music, I was instantly scared to death. My God-given insecurities kicked in again. See I grew up in Brooklyn, so I knew the difference between going to a store and paying for something, and the opportunity to get it for free. I felt this stealing thing could really catch on.

So I went to see one of founding guys at Intel named Les Valdez. Somehow I thought I could reason with the industry that was about to destroy mine.

Fear, at times, makes us protect and defend what we think we already know. But sometimes in life, you need to learn a new lesson. And between you and me, in my experience, the most intelligent people that I meet are the ones who can best articulate what they don’t know. That’s not what I did with Les that day. I just kept trying to tell him how I thought things should be.

After listening to me for 20 minutes, Les finally spoke. He looked me in the eye, and said, “Wow, Jimmy, what a nice story. But you know what? Not every industry was made to last forever.” That statement was so profound and so true and so insightful and — to me — so devastating, I nearly retired right there and then. I walked into Les’ office thinking I was Elvis, and I was gently reminded Elvis was dead.

The lesson Les taught me is one I believe is increasingly important to learn in the fast-changing world we live in today. Think about this: EVERYTHING YOU KNOW COULD ALREADY BE WRONG.

When I got outside Les’s office and stopped sweating, I called my buddy Doug Morris, the Chairman of Universal Music and my boss at the time. I said, “Doug, we’re screwed.” Okay, I might not have used that exact word — but hey, I was upset. I said, “Doug, these guys don’t want our land. They want our water to take back to their land.”

At that moment, I was scared to death. In fact, at this moment, I am scared to death speaking in front of all you people. But I want you all to get comfortable with your fears because fear is a fact of life that you can use to your advantage. Because when you learn to harness the power of your fears, it can take you places beyond your wildest dreams. Because here’s the good news; fear has a lot of firepower.

I’ve spent my life working with many of my heroes and maybe some of yours too. From John Lennon and Bruce to Bono, Eminem. And let me tell you, I never met a great artist who wasn’t afraid of not living up to people’s expectations. But all of the greats used their fear to inspire them. I think today of the way John Lennon broke ground by speaking of his fears and his belief in change in a song called “Working Class Hero.”

As John sang,

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be

John was a guy who could really express his fears and conquer them.

In the music business back in 2003, we were standing at a crossroads. We could desperately defend the past and keep digging the same hole, or we could open our eyes to the future. Trust me, it’s a lot harder to change directions at 55 than at 25 — and I think your parents will vouch for me.   Les inspired me that day to go find my way in a music business that was evolving. The old model was changing. So I began to think that maybe there was some way to harness the culture of the old music industry in a whole new way.

Around that time, I was lucky enough to get to know Steve Jobs from Apple. I was representing Universal Music dealing with iTunes. After three years of hanging around Steve and the team at Apple, I thought I could learn a lot from these guys. They were breaking new ground. They were changing the game. And they were winning.

I noticed how Steve took all the music and videos from the world and built a beautiful shiny white thing called the iPod to play them on. We loved this shiny little white thing. The only part my friend Dr. Dre and I didn’t like were the shiny white ear buds that came with the shiny white iPod because they sounded terrible, sound wasn’t Apple’s focus. So we thought what if we make a beautiful shiny black thing so you can properly hear what’s in Steve’s shiny little white thing? So with my friend, Dr. Dre, there we had the beginning of Beats. It wasn’t that simple, but you get the idea.

I learned even at 50, I had to be a beginner again — and that’s as Zen-like a statement as you’ll ever hear from me. So who believed that Dr. Dre and I could sell hardware? No one. But we believed in ourselves. We harnessed our fear into power and turned it into action.

Today each one of you have an excellent reason to believe in yourselves. You’ve earned a degree from USC. You are graduating from one of the greatest universities in the world. Remember when you grew up hearing about people that are privileged? Congratulations you are now officially privileged. Because you know what privileged means — it means you have an edge. And whatever your background, wherever you come from, you now have the undeniable edge of a first-class education.

But please remember this — your diploma does not represent the end of your education, but the beginning of your continuing education. Continue to listen and learn, with humility not hubris. Because that diploma you hold in your hands today is really just your learner’s permit for the rest of the drive through life. Remember, you don’t have to be smarter than the next person, all you have to do is be willing to work harder than the next person.

So now, that you’ve heard the stories that changed my life, it’s time for an announcement we hope will change some lives for the better in the future here at USC. Walking around USC today, it seems everyone’s a doctor. Which is funny because I brought my partner today who also happens to be a doctor. So in the words of Slim Shady, will the real Dr. Dre please stand up and join me onstage?

DRE
USC! Great to be back in my hood — up to some good. Congratulations to the graduating class of 2013!

JIMMY
At Beats, Dre and I have found it really difficult to find kids with an education that encompasses technology, the arts and innovation. So with USC, we’re creating a brand new program right here. It’s called the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy of Art, Technology & the Business of Innovation.

The Class of 2013 is among the first in history to have grown up in our new world where the distinctions between the arts and technology are disappearing So Dre and I are teaming with this great institution to create a new kind of Academy to address this reality. We want to do our part to prepare more brilliant students to do great and unexpected things.

What we need are schools — dream factories — that are broad enough to inspire, challenge and satisfy the curiosity of the next wave of game-changers that have a feel for technology and the liberal arts. That’s what we plan to do right here at USC.

In closing, because I believe in people doing the unexpected and being innovative, I would like to try something that’s never been done at a major graduation ceremony. Rather than quote William Shakespeare or Robert Frost, I close with the words of my favorite poet, R. Kelly, who penned my personal Karaoke anthem. So let tonight be the reward for all of your hard work, and the “Ignition” to a continuing education of the rest of your lives:

Today is your remix to ignition
You’re hot and fresh out the kitchen
You got the entire student body here
You got every graduate here wishin
Parents they might be sippin on coke and rum
And they might even get a little drunk
So what, it’s their USC graduation baby
And tonight they’re gonna have some fun!

JIMMY

So have a fun weekend and a great life and especially a great night!

DR. DRE
Peace! We out.

As Dean Ernest J. Wilson III welcomed graduates to the ranks of USC Annenberg alumni, he thanked them for the hard work they’ve done as students, interns and collaborators while also completing successful studies.

“We live in an extraordinary and dynamic era where media and communication is at the center of everything we do. The information age is upon us, and much of the established order is completely up for grabs,” Wilson told the graduates and their families at the School of Journalism ceremony.

“Journalism graduates, public relations graduates, this is not only your day today — this is your time,” he added. “This is your era to seize this world and reinvent it.”

Acknowledging the work USC Annenberg students are doing to contribute to the news and communication economy, Wilson said, “Many of you are already working day and night to make this truly the golden age of your fields, both in terms of content and in terms of commerce.”

Wilson cited the “Annenberg advantage” as the path that will help graduates be productive in the work force. USC Annenberg tears down “the old, rigid silos of the past,” builds cooperation and “ensures that our sharp, flexible and inventive graduates can walk into any environment, any enterprise, and know that they could do any job in the place,” he said.

Wilson also thanked Geneva Overholser, director of the School of Journalism, for her leadership over the past five years. Overholser will step down from her role next month.

Calling Overholser “universally respected” and “extraordinarily effective,” Wilson said the administrator has “gone beyond our sky-high expectations.”

“Professor Overholser has been an indefatigable advocate for the Fourth Estate as the backbone of democracy,” said Wilson, adding that she remains committed to digital technology, diversity and information in the public interest.

“She has joined me in my own favorite slogan: ‘Innovate, Innovate, Innovate.’ ”

School of Journalism ceremony

As one of her last acts as director, Overholser delivered the commencement speech to the School of Journalism, taking the chance to tell graduates how well their time at USC Annenberg will prepare them for “a lifetime of productive work.”

Geneva Overholser, David Westphal, editor-in-chief of the Center for Health Reporting, and University Professor Geoffrey Cowan (USC Photo/Gus Ruelas)

“You now have all the tools you need, all the academic grounding, all the theory and practice, to go into your respective fields at this moment of enormous change — this moment of enormous potential,” she said. “You are fully equipped to use that preparation to shape these fields — journalism and public relations — for the better. And I expect you to do just that.”

Acknowledging the complex job market that awaits graduates, she added: “There has never been a more interesting time to enter these fields than at this moment. You get to reinvent them. You get to write new rules, shape new economic underpinnings and create new connections with the people formerly known as the audience. You get to find new ways to enrich the civic conversation in this country, help people live fuller lives and create a stronger citizenry.”

Overholser also took the opportunity to address the journalism naysayers — those who say “journalism is over.”

“The journalism that you are helping reinvent is just coming into its own. More people want to be part of it than ever. And the potential for a better, fairer, more inclusive form of information in the public interest is boundless,” she said.

And that new inclusiveness makes journalism a more exciting field than ever before.

“What was a top-down, too often arrogant craft, one that left lots of people out, is now a wide-open experiment in progress,” Overholser said.

In fact, she noted, thanks to the disruption of the old-school models, journalism and public relations graduates have a shot at jobs that wouldn’t have been open to them years ago.

“The fact that the old, rigid system — in which you had to work your way up over a period of decades — has collapsed means that you fresh graduates can go directly into jobs you could never have dreamed of entering before — and this applies to journalism and PR grads equally,” she said.

“You can hit the ground running, putting to work your open minds and your digital skills, your understanding of social media and your excitement about the future.”

At the same time, while “everything seems up for grabs,” graduates need to keep in mind the tenets that have not changed. Integrity and good judgment are paramount qualities that “remain absolutely critical,” Overholser said.

“Along with your smarts and your skills, you must be sure to bring integrity, to bring good judgment, to your work. Now when things are changing, these two [along with courage] are needed more than ever. Your skills, however dazzling, cannot compare in importance to your moral leadership.”

The jobs held by recent graduates should inspire anyone with lingering doubts, said Overholser, who listed a few of the jobs that USC alumni are holding, including such posts as the Sacramento bureau chief for Reuters, an investigative TV reporter in Albuquerque, Texas, a multimedia writer for The Seattle Times and a production assistant for ESPN. USC Annenberg graduates, she said, have found opportunities at The Texas Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, ABCNEWS.com, the Huffington Post and People.

USC Annenberg students celebrate at the School of Journalism ceremony. (USC Photo/Gus Ruelas)

As for public relations, the list goes on. Recent graduates are managers of community affairs, directors of media and communications, risk analysts, publicity coordinators and senior account executives. They work for Ogilvy, Weber Shandwick, Porter Novelli, Burson-Marsteller, MLB.com, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, The California Endowment, Disneyland, General Motors, City of Hope and World Wrestling Entertainment.

“We have a publicist for Kobe Bryant and a manager of public information for the Tournament of Roses,” she said.

“And, by the way, there is a whole lot of Trojan Family help behind that wonderful list of jobs and a whole lot of Trojan Family help in front of each of you,” she added.

On a personal note, Overholser left the new USC Annenberg graduates with a thought on the notion of trying to “have it all” as they pursue career and family.

“Life is full of twists and turns, and you won’t always be in charge of them,” she said. “What you’ll be in charge of is how you respond to them. Keep love in your heart and hold fast to your passion for good work, and you’ll be fine.”

School of Communication ceremony

Speaking to the School of Communication graduates and their families, Los Angeles County Supervisor and former LA City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky drew on the experiences of two successful leaders he has worked with — USC President Emeritus Steven B. Sample and John Wooden, the legendary head basketball coach of the University of California, Los Angeles.

He called Wooden a “life coach and a philosopher” and Sample “the man who led USC into the 21st century with soaring academic achievements and a commitment to the community.”

Yaroslavsky, who quoted Wooden, said everyone is ultimately informed by their character: “Character is more important than reputation because reputation is merely what other people think of you; character is what you really are, and only you know what that is.”

He added: “Politics is my line of work, and I can tell you that in my profession, we spend far too much time worrying about what other people think of us and far too little pondering who we really are and communicating who we really are.

“What people think of us is important,” he continued. “But what’s far more important are our core values — the values that we are willing to defend regardless of what others think.”

Yaroslavsky cited The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, Sample’s book in which he urges leaders not to form an opinion before gathering relevant facts and arguments.

“A leader who jumps to a conclusion before hearing all the facts will, more often than not, regret it,” he said. “Leaders command a stronger and more loyal organization when their team members know that their opinions will be heard and valued, even if they are contrarian points of view. Avoid the temptation to jump to conclusions before you have all the facts.”

Again quoting Sample, Yaroslavsky said, “Leaders aren’t the only ones with good ideas. Good leaders get their best ideas by keeping an open mind and open ears wherever they go.”

Sample wrote that artful listening “is not just an asset — it’s a necessity,” Yaroslavsky said.

And Sample and Wooden both agreed that great leaders give credit elsewhere but accept blame themselves.

“Any leader who fails to grasp this basic principle will not long endure in that leadership role,” he said. “In any organization, nothing builds confidence in a team, and success in an enterprise, more than the knowledge that the leader will have your back when the going gets tough. People who feel this way about their leader will go to the ends of the earth for him; those who don’t will do the bare minimum, if that.”

Yaroslavsky also touched on the shift in communication since he first took office in 1975 and how important communication is in politics, where “perception is reality.” His own website features interactive pages, stories, links to social media and a video channel dubbed ZevTV.

“Back in the day, traditional print and broadcast outlets were the only way to get your message out,” he said, recalling that he used to be known as the master of the 30-second soundbite. “Today, if you can’t say it in six seconds, you’re out of the story.”

But no matter how news consumers access their information, whether via smart phones or tablets, “the bottom line remains that communication is transmitted through the voice of the communicator’s character,” Yaroslavsky said.

“Today, your schooling is formally completed, and I warmly congratulate you on that outstanding accomplishment. But your real education begins now, as you embark on the next chapter of your lives. As you do so, I wish you an abundance of character and wisdom. Good luck to each and every one of you.”

Based on the long-standing Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) Study conducted every two years in the United States since 2002, the global survey analyzes current practice, trends and new developments in the profession, providing country data and comparative analysis of the practice between countries and continents.

“The public relations profession is growing and changing, and the Global Alliance believes that we must understand this evolution in order to promote high standards and be effective advocates for the value of PR to organizations and to society,” said GA Chair Daniel Tisch. “This ambitious survey will provide global benchmark data that can help us chart our profession’s development in the years to come.”

Professor Jerry Swerling, director of the Strategic Communication and PR Center, said: “With GAP VIII to be fielded in the fall of this year, the GAP study has established itself as a leading source of actionable U.S.-centric data of use to practitioners and scholars alike. Now, in keeping with the globalization of the discipline, the time has come to take a world-centric view of how it is evolving in different settings.

“We’ll gradually roll out the concept with the ultimate goal of establishing a truly global, cooperative research network,” Swerling added.

The GA and USC will announce the first participating countries in the next few weeks and expect to begin the research later this year.

“The GA-USC partnership is a perfect combination of expertise and resources,” said Professor Anne Gregory, Global Alliance chair-elect and chair of the GA’s Research and Education Committee, who led the initiative with USC colleagues. “GA members can provide access to the world’s largest pool of public relations practitioners, and USC has the expertise to conduct a study of this scale and sophistication. We expect this survey to develop into the most important reference point for the profession in the coming years and look forward to working with USC and our partners in countries across the globe.”

“I’d been wanting to do this for 10 years and finally technology caught up,” Weintraub said. “When President [C. L. Max Nikias] made clear he wanted online classes that made sense, I raised my hand really fast.

“I’ve known we needed to do this for a long time,” she added. “If working professionals weren’t going to come to us, we needed to go to them.”

Friday will mark the first commencement ceremony for students who earned an online degree from USC Annenberg. Known going forward as the trailblazers of the school’s advance into online education, 47 working professional men and women will earn their degree in the Master of Communication Management (MCM), coursework that prepares students to manage the process and flow of communication. The focus is on integrating organizational, strategic and marketing communication whether applied in the corporate, governmental or nonprofit sectors.

The program launched in September 2011; there now are about 140 students enrolled.

USC Annenberg also offers a communication management degree on campus, and it’s actually the school’s oldest graduate degree. Every faculty member who teaches online has a PhD and also teaches on campus.

“The program is just as rigorous as the on-campus program,” said Weintraub, who has been teaching an online class at USC Annenberg since 2003. “The bottom line is it’s exactly the same degree, the same program, just a different delivery system.”

And Weintraub soon confirmed that the delivery system attracts exactly the kind of client USC was looking for — working professionals. The classes are stacked with men and women working in public relations, journalism, marketing, corporate communication, education, human resources and health care.

The students, who hail from Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington were drawn to the program because it promised to be rigorous and demanding.

“I didn’t feel comfortable doing any other online program,” said graduate-to-be Daniel Kopec, who writes and produces documentary films for PBS in Seattle. “Even in the workplace, I knew the degree would be recognized and would have value, and it wouldn’t be viewed as a second-tier degree.”

“Personally,” said Kopec, “it was such a huge achievement for me because you want a master’s degree to be challenging. So it was fulfilling to know I could operate at that level.”

Weintraub maintained that the online degree is in many ways more difficult than the one offered inside the halls of USC Annenberg. That’s because the degree is designed to be learner-centered. In other words, students are tasked with “pulling” information rather than having faculty “push” it toward them.

In a traditional classroom, faculty members deliver lectures, and students discuss the material. But online, students are compelled to pull materials together in an active way. One example is a project that tasks MCM students with solving problems as the chief communication officer of the course’s fictional company. On their own and in groups, they integrate the readings, online materials and data gathered to create a strategic communication plan.

“I suspect it feels like they live in a universe of homework,” Weintraub said. “As they are not in class for three hours a week as the on-campus students are, it completely changes the frame of instruction. I don’t know if the workload is heavier, but I suspect it feels so.”

She admitted to sending students mini-pep talks throughout the semester.

“I remind them, ‘You wanted a rigorous master’s program. You didn’t want an easy one.’ ”

John Perez, a health care project manager for the University of California, Davis, Medical Center in Sacramento, said: “I remember many times during the program, thinking, ‘There’s no way I can get through this. And when I got done, I thought it was one of the most difficult things I had done in my life. Now there’s no way I’d do anything differently.”

Perez operates at a higher level now after completing the MCM program, he said.

“When information comes in that’s major or significant for this organization, I look at it very differently than I did two years ago,” he said. “I’ll pause, see what the source is, what the risks are, gather my initial thoughts and then present them to the key leaders to see if this is the direction we want to take.

“In the past, I would have a knee-jerk reaction, do something quickly and deal with the fallout. I think strategically now.”

Online MCM students also honed their time-management skills during the program.

“It definitely isn’t for everybody,” said Jennifer Davies, 27, who works in corporate communications for Nevada’s statewide energy utility and got engaged, married and bought a house while earning her degree. “You have to be task-oriented or you’re going to fall behind. Whatever’s going on, you can’t go to bed until it’s done.”

At the same time, she said, “It’s perfect for working professionals who don’t want to give up their jobs and move to LA. All they need is a computer and the ability to carve out time and make it a priority.”

Davies said she appreciated the real-time aspect of the program and investigating communication blunders or marketing campaigns that had popped up in the news only days or weeks before. The online platform offers the flexibility to update content regularly.

“Then we would read about it, research it, discuss it, analyze it, respond to our classmates and offer feedback. So it’s really an all-encompassing experience. You really apply what you learn,” she said.

Now Davies said she’s much more analytical in her job, especially now that she has training in marketing and can connect the dots of how theory, organization and application work in the communication world.

“You get so caught up in learning your job that you don’t think about the strategy behind it,” she said. “It’s important to know where you want to go before you get going.”

The hard work has paid off. Davies recently accepted a new job with the city of Las Vegas as an assistant public information officer. With nearly 500 other applicants vying for the position, Davies is certain her MCM degree helped set her apart.

Meanwhile, though they were separated by states and time zones, the MCM students became friends.

John Perez, left, presides over the wedding of classmate Anna Tretyakov and her husband.

Perez, who’s also an ordained minister, officiated at the wedding of classmate Anna Tretyakov. Some students became the best of friends and talked daily. Others flew regularly to visit each other. A homecoming reception last fall drew more than 50 (including some first-year MCM students) from all over the country. They couldn’t wait to lay eyes on each other for the first time in person.

And that, program leaders said, was by design.

The goal of the degree is not just to impart theory and content. Faculty members also were intent on students graduating with the ability to work with colleagues from unfamiliar backgrounds.

To that end, they required group collaboration as a central focus of each course and not by groups that students chose. They were assigned to groups, which were mixed and switched up regularly. No cliques were allowed, said Neil Teixeira, director of distance learning for USC Annenberg.

“It’s new challenges, new experiences, new people to meet and work with,” Teixeira said, referring to a method that reflected the real-world working environment where professionals must work with people they don’t know.

“You can’t rely on just working with a team you know. You have to be prepared for the collaborative environment no matter who’s in it,” he explained. “If we can prepare our students to manage team projects and team expectations well, we can prepare them for all kinds of environments and provide a skill that is going to be applicable in almost any field.”

The strong bond also was forged because of the students’ unique position as the first class in the program, Teixeira said.

“We told them, ‘You’ll make suggestions that will lead to innovations that will impact students to come. I think that empowered them to say, ‘We’re part of a special group at Annenberg,’” he said.

And their input was crucial, Weintraub said.

“I feel particularly proud of these students because they were the early adopters,” she said. “They were the pioneers. They partnered with us and gave us feedback, and their commitment was phenomenal. There was no way of envisioning the rigor, the demands on their time, and they stuck with it. Every graduate is special, but you only have one first-born.

“I said, ‘We’re going here’ and who knew we’d actually arrive? And we’re right on schedule.”

The way Nicholson saw it, there would always be one reason or another to put off getting his graduate degree. Why let orders to report to Afghanistan get in the way?

On May 17, Nicholson will be one of 47 students who will have earned MCM degrees. It will be the first USC Annenberg commencement ceremony for a master’s degree delivered online. Other graduates completed their coursework from their home states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington as well as California.

Nicholson, a native of Southern California, has traveled throughout the world after 16 years as an active-duty U.S. Army officer, and he’s accustomed to moving house and home for work. When he started the master’s program, he was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas while completing a program at the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies. Four months later, he was on his way to work at NATO strategic headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he spent the next year — and three semesters.

He’s now back home at Fort Leavenworth with his wife, Emily, his 8-year-old daughter, Allie, and his 6-year-old son, Noah.

As a public affairs officer for the Army, Nicholson’s workdays in Kabul began at 7 a.m. and lasted until 8 or 9 p.m. After that, he “hit the books,” so to speak. He worked every day. He slept four to five hours a night during most of the one-year deployment.

“I tried to stay in a routine,” Nicholson said. “As long as I could stay in a routine, I could keep it straight.”

He usually had Friday mornings off, and he’d use that time to catch up. Nicholson said he discovered the structure and rigor of a military career served him well as he pushed himself to meet the demands of working a full-time deployment while simultaneously earning a master’s degree.

“There was no room for procrastination whatsoever,” he said. “It was an extremely busy year, and I appreciated the flexibility of the program and how it was delivered.”

His classmates and professors stayed flexible as he traveled beyond Afghanistan for work to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, to Turkey for a strategic communication conference and to Germany to train incoming military and civilian staff. But the onus was on him to work ahead of schedule and stay accountable in the group projects that are a focus of the program.

Part of Nicholson’s job in Kabul was crisis communication. Early in his deployment, news broke of the burning of Korans at Bagram Airfield in Kabul. Citizen protests escalated into deadly riots that drew international attention.

“Turn on the news, and if you see stuff going on, you’ll know I’m busy,” he told his colleagues. But he’d also shoot them an email letting them know he was tied up, and he’d check back in as soon as he could.

“I can’t even imagine the obstacles he had to overcome to make sure things were getting turned in on time,” said classmate and fellow graduate Jennifer Davies, a corporate communications officer for Nevada’s statewide energy utility. “We talked about having to go to work all day — and who knows what he was having to do all day — and still was getting it all done.”

Others in the program appreciated Nicholson’s unique take on lessons and projects, Davies said.

“I think that military perspective was enlightening, and he’d had a lot of leadership roles and knew what worked and what didn’t,” she said. “He offered a lot of really great and candid feedback because he’d been in those situations, both as a leader and as the person being told what to do. He offered a really rounded perspective for us.”

In some ways, taking on the MCM program while working on the other side of the world made sense, Nicholson said.

“When you deploy down there, all you have to do is work. I wasn’t kicking in doors, but it was heavy-thinking type of work. I did need a break and would switch to schoolwork,” he said.

And that was when he discovered a symbiosis between his job and studies.

Nicholson’s focus in public affairs is on strategic communication planning, which gelled perfectly with the coursework of the MCM degree.

“I work in a field that directly applies to what I was studying,” he said. “It contributed to the work I was doing on a daily basis, so both fed into each other. I brought ideas from what I was learning and immediately used them in my day-to-day environment.”

Gaining that rounded perspective — considering communication problems from all angles by moving back and forth between school and work — paid off.

Nicholson said he still taps into his academic experience and the perspective he gained from his diverse classmates, almost daily.

“There are more areas you’re able to make connections with, both from an academic and a practitioner sense,” he explained. “In the program, we were all working in the field — some were in marketing firms, public relations firms — everyone was in the communication field. It gave us all better breadth.”

He added that he wasn’t the only one juggling many hours of work with the rigorous MCM program.

“I saw the same discipline in people who were working in other fields,” he said. “Most people had full-time jobs, families and these classes going on, so you learn pretty quickly how to manage your time. Because we all have a lot to balance.”

As a senior fellow, Katz will help develop, lead and advise on programs and research projects related to broadband, mobile and media initiatives. He joins a distinguished group of CCLP senior fellows that includes journalists and media executives, such as Cinny Kennard, Adam Clayton Powell III and Narda Zacchino, authors and policymakers, such as Dan Glickman, Richard Reeves and Morley Winograd, and leadership scholar Warren Bennis, among others.

“I am excited to be joining USC Annenberg and contributing to the important work of its Center on Communication Leadership & Policy,” Katz said. “I look forward to working with this outstanding community of leaders and scholars to help advance the power of communications technologies and media to serve the public interest.”

University Professor Geoffrey Cowan, CCLP director and president of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, said: “Zac Katz is a brilliant legal mind who has been engaged in many of the major communication policy debates of recent years. He brings a wealth of experience to our work in this area. I am delighted that he has agreed to serve as a senior fellow.”

As FCC chief of staff, Katz manages the agency’s policymaking and operations. He previously served as Genachowski’s chief counsel and led a number of high-priority initiatives, including protecting Internet openness and creating the Connect America Fund, the largest broadband infrastructure program ever established.

Katz joined the FCC in 2009 from the Office of White House Counsel and previously practiced law at Munger, Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles.

He received his law degree from Yale University, where he was editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal and a leader of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. Before law school, Katz worked with technology companies at a strategy consulting and investment firm in Silicon Valley, Calif.

Parks is a former editor of the Los Angeles Times whose assignments have taken him around the world and whose coverage of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa earned him the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. From 1997 to 2000, Parks served as editor of the Times, a period during which the paper garnered four additional Pulitzer Prizes.

“Michael Parks is a real star. His extraordinary wisdom and experience will be invaluable to our students, faculty and staff,” said USC Annenberg Dean Ernest J. Wilson III.

Construction is moving forward on Wallis Annenberg Hall, an 88,000-square-foot, five-floor building scheduled to open in fall 2014 on the University Park Campus. The building will feature a 20,000-square-foot digitally converged newsroom, multipurpose broadcast studios, an open layout and spaces that reflect the school’s dedication to transparency, collaboration and experimentation.

Along with the new construction, USC Annenberg has launched a $150 million fundraising initiative that will invest in the incoming generations of students and scholars exploring the digital future. The drive will pay for capital projects to enhance Wallis Annenberg Hall — labs, studios and technology — as well as student scholarships, fellowships, residencies, research centers and startups led by students and faculty. The initiative is part of the $6 billion Campaign for the University of Southern California.

“We have great students and a terrific faculty that is looking forward to taking full advantage of this wonderful new building and all the opportunities that it will provide in developing an even more innovative program for our students,” Parks said. “I’m proud to lead the USC Annenberg Journalism School as we move closer to this remarkable milestone.”

Parks joined the USC Annenberg faculty in fall 2000. The following year, he became interim director of the School of Journalism. He was named director of the school in March 2002 and finished his term in June 2008. From his first overseas assignment covering the war in Vietnam as Saigon correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, Parks has reported on major international news events from a variety of international cities, including Beijing, Moscow, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Jerusalem.

As editor of the Times, Parks was responsible for news coverage and editorial page positions of the largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States. Under his direction, the newspaper established an enhanced online news site.

At USC Annenberg, Parks has guided the creation and adoption of an innovative core curriculum that trains students to report stories for print, broadcast and new media. The school expanded its international reporting programs and its focus on developing expertise in covering diverse communities.

The School of Journalism also deepened its commitment to mid-career training and professional development for journalists through the work of the Online Journalism Program, the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program fellowship, and the Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center.

Parks will be the interim replacement for Geneva Overholser, who is completing her five-year term as director in mid-June. The search will continue for a long-term director.

During her tenure, Overholser launched several key initiatives, including the award-winning digital news site Neon Tommy and civic engagement projects. The school strengthened its digital expertise, doubled its public relations faculty and added a total of 12 new faculty members to the school.

Under her direction, USC Annenberg strengthened the curriculum and news laboratories to give students a deeper practicum experience. In addition, partnerships with outside media organizations expanded, giving journalism and public relations students the opportunity to work alongside professionals in their fields.

An ambitious new project aimed at measuring the social impact of media is being launched by The Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The center’s Media Impact Project is supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Announced today, the $3.25 million in funding over the next two-and-a-half years will establish the Lear Center as a hub for best practices, innovation and thought leadership in media metrics.

Welcoming the support, USC Annenberg Dean Ernest L. Wilson III said, “We’re delighted that Gates and Knight have recognized the Lear Center as a leader, and the Annenberg School as a center of excellence, in measuring media engagement and impact.”

The collaboration will help media organizations, journalists and social change-makers build on the power of storytelling through data and impact measurement.

Despite advances in big data, surprisingly primitive metrics are still commonly used to assess audience engagement with content and its effects on individual perceptions and behaviors. Page views, TV ratings, “likes” and retweets alone don’t reveal how media influences people’s awareness or actions. This is a challenge for organizations that hope to connect audiences with important social issues and support long-term change.

To address this problem, the Lear Center aims to develop a deeper understanding of media’s influence on social trends and individual behavior. A team of researchers, including social and behavioral scientists, journalists, analytics experts and other specialists will collaborate to test and create new ways to measure the impact of media.

Content creators, distributors and media funders can ultimately apply these techniques to improve their work and strengthen engagement.

Lear Center Director Martin Kaplan will serve as the project’s principal investigator along with Lear Center managing director and director of research Johanna Blakley as co-principal investigator. Key contributors will include USC Annenberg School analytics expert Dana Chinn, as well as an open source tool analytic development team headed by Carl Kesselman, professor of industrial and systems engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and a fellow at the Information Sciences Institute.

The Lear Center is also recruiting project leaders, technical experts and members of a distinguished advisory board from across disciplines. In addition, partners in the private and nonprofit sectors will help advance the field globally.

For more information, visit MediaImpactProject.org

Zayas’ reporting project, which consisted of a three-part series titled “In God’s Name,” revealed ongoing abuse at children’s homes. The research took one year to investigate and revealed that children’s homes are allowed to operate unlicensed and unregulated by any government agency in Florida if they claim a religious affiliation.

The project included video interviews, footage shot inside the homes and a searchable list of homes with substantiated abuse cases.

To report the story, Zayas, alongside Times photographer Kathleen Flynn, used public records, interviewed dozens of children and families who had previously attended the homes and gained access to the facilities.

The judging panel for the $35,000 annual award, presented for the past 24 years by the School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, hailed the “doggedness” Zayas demonstrated in reporting the story.

“The series documents Florida’s utter abdication of regulation of these homes and shows how families were misled in entrusting their sons and daughters to religious-based camps with no accountability to anyone,” the panel stated. “The story was well-organized and its multimedia presentation compelling and powerful.”

Zayas explained in the forum how the story started. She said the seed that catapulted her project was an email dated back to August 2011 from someone whose friend had a family member inside a “boot camp”-style home in the Florida Panhandle.

After meeting the woman, Zayas quickly found several anonymous stories on online forums and message boards accusing the home of excessive discipline and of forcing children to undergo excessive exercise. Those tips, along with several Google searches and new archives, allowed her to find several scattered stories over the years of sex abuse allegations, accounts of children kept in isolation and even a survivors network for former students of one home.

Meanwhile, Zayas figured out that the only agency regulating self-proclaimed religious children’s homes in Florida is a nonprofit made up of people who run the homes — a group that is regulating itself.

Group homes in general have to be licensed, but this agency — called the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies (FACCCA) — teamed up with a legislator in 1984 to get an exemption passed for homes that claim they’re Christian-affiliated. So instead of being overseen by the government, the homes are overseen by the FACCCA.

“It’s a self-regulating, private group that allows corporal punishment,” Zayas said. “Another thing I found out was that no one had ever taken a thorough look at them. All of this was a green light telling me to keep looking at FACCCA.”

Since the homes are private and located mostly in rural and isolated areas, Florida’s famously open laws regarding public records laws were not a silver bullet. Zayas, though, was able to get one-line summaries of each abuse allegation from the state Department of Children and Families.

She also went to each law enforcement agency whose jurisdiction included one of the homes and asked them for every interaction they’d had with the facilities. She found 165 allegations of abuse and neglect in just the past decade alone.

Zayas also searched lawsuits filed by former students and their families. She ended up with stories — corroborated by witnesses — of students being forced to stand until they urinated, confined in isolation for days and exercised until they vomited who were being bruised, bloodied, shackled, pinned down and choked into unconsciousness.

At the forum, Zayas showed students and faculty clips of interviews she conducted inside the facilities with the pastors, children and a self-appointed “colonel” of one military-style school. She and Flynn traveled around the state, gaining access to the homes to see the operations for themselves.

Gaining access, Zayas said, was probably the most important part of the investigation. Talking to those who run the homes, hearing their side and seeing how they operate made it a much stronger account, she said.

“Being able to go there and experience it for myself allowed us to tell a much more fair story,” Zayas said.

She also explained how she got into the homes. Gaining entry into the homes was not easy — her first set of informal emails that breezily asked for a visit were ignored.

“By August, I was able to send an email that looked like this: ‘I’ve spoken to 10 former students who attended the school while you served as its leader, eight of whom were there in the last two years. Each one described your system of discipline and control as one in which girls tackle, restrain, supervise and discipline other girls.’ ”

Soon after, Zayas said, “the preacher let us in.”

After Zayas’ story was published, that school — the Lighthouse of Northwest Florida — was closed. Zayas also found that the state of Florida was sending foster children to unlicensed homes, which is illegal. The Florida Department of Children and Families pulled those children out after the stories ran.

Seeing inside the homes also brought home how these children were affected by the abuse, she said. At one home where children were forced to eat “stuff” — punishment food that consisted of bowls of vegetables swimming in vinegar — Zayas ate a bowl herself. Afterward, she suffered a stomachache that lasted three days.

Besides outlining for her audience exactly how she reported the story, Zayas offered several tips for young journalists embarking on an enterprise story:

• Keeping your editor in the loop will keep them interested and give you precious time for reporting.
• Write from the very beginning of the reporting process. Especially when working with a lot of documents and interviews, it’s important to document your findings. “From that very first memo I wrote to my boss, I gave him weekly memos. … Writing from the beginning is such a great way to organize your thoughts and digest all of the massive amounts of information you’re getting.”
• Stay organized. With every interview, Zayas condensed the information to a paragraph and gave the synopsis to her editor, who was able to look at what she was gathering with a critical eye. Organization time is not wasted time.
• List findings early. “It’s kind of like being able to see a Polaroid picture as it’s developing. You get all of the findings, and they start getting sharper and sharper.”
• Don’t settle for low hanging fruit. Zayas recalled that she wanted to publish several accounts she’d gathered from a decade ago, but her editor pushed her to find more current information, which made the story more powerful.
• Don’t make assumptions about access. “I thought no one in their right mind would let me into these places, and they did.”

Smiley’s talk focused on advice for students, a critique of politicians and mainstream media, and an argument for the importance of public media. He drew upon his life as a broadcaster, author, publisher, advocate and philanthropist to guide students in their own professional lives and update them on the state of public broadcasting.

He urged students to constantly push themselves to do their best work so they can succeed in the profession of their choice. The student-centered discussion precipitated Smiley’s keynote address at the James L. Loper Lecture in Public Service Broadcasting, which USC Annenberg hosted later in the evening in downtown Los Angeles.

“In the end it’s the high-quality level of work that’s going to get you over the top,” said Smiley, who hosts shows on PBS and Public Radio International and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. “If you are the best at what you do, the world will find you. Just keep pushing and pushing, and if your stuff is that good, somebody will discover you.”

Smiley also advised students to take advantage of the opportunities they have at USC Annenberg.

“You are blessed to be here,” Smiley said. “I was looking yesterday at your faculty list, and the professors you are taught by are an august group of people. Thank you for the work you’re doing and the invitation to be here today.”

While introducing Smiley to the audience, Dean Ernest J. Wilson III told students, faculty and staff that they were “in for a treat.”

“We’re absolutely delighted to have Tavis Smiley here, which is the latest example of what we call the ‘Annenberg Advantage.’ I want to personally thank him as a friend and colleague for sharing his experiences with our students and for speaking at our distinguished Loper Lecture series.”

Wilson also introduced Smiley at the Loper Lecture held at the California Club. Wilson described to the audience, which included USC Trustee Frank Cruz and LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, how USC Annenberg’s goals align with those of public media. He pointed to similarities in the missions of public broadcasting and USC Annenberg, including advancing dialogue, diversity and digital tools for better communication.

Since its inception in 2005, the Loper Lecture has featured prominent leaders, such as Vivian Schiller, the then-head of NPR; Brian Lamb, the founder of C-SPAN; William Baker, the leader of WNET and WLIW; David Fanning, the founder and executive producer of Frontline; and Judy Woodruff, co-anchor of PBS Newshour.

“Public television and radio are more necessary and relevant now than ever before,” Smiley told the students. “Some questions just don’t get asked if we don’t ask them. Some issues don’t get raised and some conflicts around the world don’t get covered if we don’t cover them.”

He said public media is especially needed in today’s fragmented and filtered media environment.

“The most trusted source in this country for years running — more than the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and network news — is public media. It has been PBS and NPR for years running, and it isn’t even close.”

Smiley said he has been called a lot of names as an outspoken public media voice, but he has not been called a liar.

“Nobody is going to push back against the facts,” he said. “Am I right about the poverty numbers, the suffering, the unemployment, underemployment and drones? It’s about putting facts on the table and debating them.”

He told students it is important to seek the truth in their roles as members of the media.

“If you’re going to be a journalist — I’d never call myself a journalist because I’m not trying to be fair and balanced — if you’re going to report the news, you need to tell the truth about the conditions in this country,” Smiley said.

He added that mainstream media and politicians often gloss over delicate issues such as poverty. He said, for instance, that journalists have talked about a “jobless recovery” from the recession, which he said is impossible because you can’t have a true recovery without jobs.

After moderator and journalism Professor Marc Cooper announced that time for discussion was over, the audience let out a groan. Smiley then insisted that he be able to answer a few more questions before leaving to deliver the Loper Lecture.

Students applauded him for staying longer, and Smiley left them with more valuable advice, including:

• Look for topics and ideas that won’t get covered.
• When you put facts on the table and tell the truth, people get it.
• People would rather see a sermon than hear a sermon: You need to be a living example of the things you talk about.
• Bring your own unique flavor. Put your own stamp on it. Do it the way you want.
• Interviews and conversations are two different things. You don’t want interviews, you want conversations.
• Commit yourself to doing what you want to do. At the end of the day what matters is whether you come prepared.

As Smiley’s roundtable discussion ended, the audience stood and applauded.

USC alumna Adena Andrews ’07 smiled and said, “I needed that.”