USC announces 2025 honorary degree recipients

USC President Carol Folt will confer honorary degrees to three individuals who have shown remarkable dedication to film, the arts, and culture during the university’s 142nd commencement ceremony on May 15 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

The honorees this year, chosen by a committee composed of students and faculty, include filmmaker and alumnus Jon M. Chu; alumna and arts advocate Maria Rosario Jackson, a former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts; and writer and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams.

USC’s commencement will see more than 18,000 degrees conferred, including over 1,000 doctorate degrees, across the institution’s ceremonies. Attendance is expected to exceed 60,000 individuals.

Jon M. Chu 

Jon M. Chu is a celebrated filmmaker recognized for his visually captivating blockbuster productions. Recently, Chu directed Universal Pictures’ critically well-received Wicked, which received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and secured two victories. His memoir, Viewfinder, published in the summer of 2024, details his path from his upbringing in Silicon Valley to breaking into Hollywood and directing major studio films. Chu’s 2018 film, Crazy Rich Asians, emerged as a global sensation, earning numerous award nominations and ranking among the top 10 highest-grossing romantic comedies in history. It marked the first contemporary studio film in over 25 years to present an all-Asian cast, making strides for Asian American representation in Hollywood.

Featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s “Power 100” and acknowledged as one of Variety’s “New Hollywood Leaders,” Chu is an alumnus of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He provides mentorship to current students and alumni and funds the Jon M. Chu APAA Cinematic Arts Scholarship to support projects centered on Asian Pacific culture in film, television, and interactive media.

Chu will deliver the keynote address at USC’s 142nd commencement ceremony.

Maria Rosario Jackson

Maria Rosario Jackson has devoted her professional life as a researcher, scholar, educator, administrator, and policymaker to understanding and enhancing the role of arts, culture, and design as vital components of vibrant communities. She is the first African American and the first Mexican American woman to head the National Endowment for the Arts. Before taking on the role of NEA’s chair, she spent nearly ten years on the National Council on the Arts.

Her passion for the arts was nurtured by her parents, who encouraged her to embrace and affirm her cultural heritage while also learning about others as she grew up in Los Angeles. She was awarded her bachelor’s degree from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, her master’s degree from the USC Price School of Public Policy, and a doctoral degree in urban planning from UCLA. Her work integrates social sciences with arts and humanities-based approaches to comprehensive community revitalization and systemic transformation.

Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams is a distinguished American author, educator, environmental activist, and advocate for public lands. She has penned over 20 books, including Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, a revered work in environmental literature. Williams has testified before Congress regarding women’s health issues, visited the White House, camped in the unspoiled wildernesses of Utah and Alaska, and served as a “barefoot artist” in Rwanda.

She has earned various accolades, including the Robert Marshall Award, the highest honor bestowed by The Wilderness Society to an American citizen; the Wallace Stegner Award; a Lannan Literary Fellowship; the Los Angeles Times’ Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement; and the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing. She is a 2025-26 Emerson Collective Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and serves as a writer-in-residence at Harvard Divinity School.