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Two More Top USC Administrators Step Down Amid Scandals

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Two more longtime administrators with the University of Southern California are departing as the school attempts to revamp its image in the wake of multiple scandals, and ahead of the arrival of its new president.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Michael Quick, along with Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs and Professionalism, Carol Mauch Amir, will step down in June, interim President Wanda Austin wrote in a letter circulated to faculty Tuesday.

Two More Top USC Administrators Step Down Amid Scandals
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Michael Quick (left) and USC General Counsel Carol Mauch Amir. (Credit: USC)

Both Quick and Amir have worked at USC in various capacities since the early 2000s.

Last month, USC announced that it had named Dr. Carol L. Folt to be the school's twelfth president.

Folt, the former chancellor at the University of North Carolina, will take the helm at USC beginning July 1. She will be the first female president in the school's history. Folt will take the reins from Austin, who has served as interim president since the resignation of Max Nikias last May.

USC has been plagued by a series of scandals over the past few years. USC was one of several elite schools named in the nationwide admissions bribery scandal in which wealthy parents paid millions of dollars in bribes to get their children admitted.

In January, a former USC men's basketball assistant coach pleaded guilty for his role in a pay-for-play scandal in which schools would funnel money through shoe companies to a player in exchange for their commitment.

In May of 2018, USC revealed that longtime former USC gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall was being investigated for sexual misconduct. Since then, hundreds of women have come forward accusing Tyndall of misconduct and alleging the school attempted to cover up his behavior. That scandal prompted Max Nikias to step down.

In August of 2018, USC revealed that it had hired and fired former California Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-West Los Angeles) as a professor. USC asked the U.S. Attorney's Office to conduct a criminal investigation into a recent suspicious $100,000 donation from a campaign fund controlled by his father, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. The 30-year-old Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was hired by USC as a professor despite not having a graduate degree.

In April 2016, Carmen Puliafito stepped down as dean of the USC Keck School of Medicine after it was revealed he had partied with underage girls and provided drugs to his girlfriend, who was a prostitute. The California medical board later ordered Puliafito be stripped of his license to practice medicine.

In November 2016, Dr. Rohit Varma, a noted ophthalmologist, was named dean to replace Puliafito. However, in October 2017, he also resigned amid a report that 15 years prior, USC reached a financial settlement with a female researcher who accused him of sexual harassment.

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