Eye on the Prize : Gleeful Officials and Faculty Hope USC’s First Nobel Will Help the Campus Finally Shed a Stereotype as an Academic Lightweight

Across the USC campus on Wednesday, the news that chemist George A. Olah had brought the university its first Nobel Prize was greeted with joy and grateful relief. There is, it seems, nothing like the first time.

USC has plenty of Heismans in its trophy case but desperately wanted a Nobel. “It was,” one USC official commented dryly, “like an unscratched itch.”

Never again would USC face the indignity of being left off the list of major California institutions with Nobel laureates on their faculty. Stanford has won 14 prizes, Caltech 12, even cross-town rival UCLA has been able to boast three.

And now, the University of Southern California. “Certainly, this university has wanted a Nobel winner for some time,” USC President Steven B. Sample, exclaimed on Wednesday in something of an understatement.

The prize, faculty and students explained, gives USC powerful ammunition as it tries to shed an old and annoying stereotype as the University of Spoiled Children, or worse, the University of Second Choice for serious academics.

Although it is unlikely that George Olah will ever be more famous than another USC alumnus, O.J. Simpson, the Nobel was welcomed as a sign that the school long regarded by some as more interested in gridiron yardage than international acclaim is deserving of new respect.

Sample said he is pleased that the prize was awarded after a $120-million gift from Walter B. Annenberg for communications programs at USC, one of the largest grants in the history of higher education.

Combined, the Nobel and the Annenberg grant “will have a synergistic effect. That will be very helpful in student recruitment, fund raising and faculty recruitment,” USC’s president said.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, USC’s dean of admission and financial aid thought ahead to this Saturday’s football game with Stanford when he thought about the prize.

Why not, said Joseph Allen, have the USC marching band spell out the word Olah on the playing field? After all, Allen noted, the Stanford band has taunted USC’s academic reputation in the past by forming the average SAT scores of Trojan freshmen, which traditionally lag below the Stanford scores.

“It’s wonderful to have this new symbolism,” Allen, more seriously, said of the Nobel. “It’s strong evidence that this is a place that has improved its academic quality and is committed to keeping that going.”

David Merkowitz, public affairs director of the American Council on Education in Washington, agreed that the Nobel will boost USC’s national reputation. “Having a Nobel laureate on the faculty is a sign of enhancement,” he said. “And I’m sure they will use it for good measure in terms of recruiting and marketing.”

In recent years, USC has been pushing for admission into the big leagues of national and international research universities. The school, situated south of Downtown, ranks about 20th among American universities in the amount of federal research aid it receives, $225 million annually.

Five years before UCLA was admitted to the Assn. of American Universities, USC won entrance in 1969 to that premier organization of research institutions, whose membership now totals just 56 schools.

More recently, the university has been seeking to bolster the reputation of its undergraduate programs, long the butt--justified or not--of in-house criticism and jokes from rivals Stanford and UCLA.

USC leaders say that work is bearing fruit in recruiting of better-quality students. The current crop of USC freshmen had an average SAT score just over 1100, a rise of about 100 points over a decade ago, although still well below the level at Stanford or UCLA.

“This will help our reputation,” agreed Michelle Ladd, a senior who is managing editor of the Daily Trojan student newspaper. “People will see us for something other than football, for a while at least.”

During the afternoon, several hundred faculty, staff and students gathered for a champagne reception in which Olah was applauded for more than a minute as he stood at the podium.

Olah said the prize represented a sign that the university was “maturing,” and that its image was changing to that of being a serious research institution.

Seated as he talked was Katherine B. Loker, an alumna who has donated millions of dollars over the years in support of Olah’s work.

“I am so excited I am speechless,” she said. “When we first met him, I knew he was a Nobel Prize individual.”

She said Olah was the first to call Wednesday morning with news of the award.

“Then my sister called five minutes later and said, ‘Your man won.’ ”

During one of the many speeches, Philip Stephens, the chairman of the chemistry department, drew a round of laughter when he declared: “It is even more important to USC than the football team winning the national championship.”

But on a more serious note, he said the award “makes a statement that USC is a research university of the first rank.”

Ironically, the Nobel may have its most important effect in Southern California, USC officials said Wednesday. In some respects, the university is more respected out-of-state than locally, partly because of the cross-town shade cast by UCLA and Caltech.

“In some ways, it’s harder to be recognized in your own back yard,” said Morton Schapiro, an economist who is USC’s dean of letters, arts and sciences. He forecast future Nobels for USC faculty, a game usually played by those other local schools.

“It’s good to get your first, but there will be other ones,” Schapiro said.

Still, the recent edition of The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges declared that: “USC likes to think of itself as an extended family. Not everyone will fit into this clan, but students ready to spend four years partying, meeting future business contacts and doing a little studying might want to enroll.”

Olah himself alluded to USC’s image in remarks to his chemistry department colleagues just hours after getting the big phone call Wednesday morning.

“I think you should have a balance in any institution and USC is maturing, combining a first-class science and medical research effort with a successful athletic program,” he said.