USC Alumni Awards
Each year the Alumni Association has the great honor of celebrating the best and brightest alumni and friends of the university with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award, the Outstanding Black Alumni Award, the Outstanding Veteran Alumni Award, the Outstanding Young Alumni Award and the Honorary Life Membership Award. In addition, the President of the Association’s Board of Governors bestows the Bethea Volunteer Service Award at the end of their term, every two years. These awards are the highest honors reflecting the ideals cherished by South Carolinians that include service, integrity, character and leadership.
2023 Award Winners
Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award
David Beasley
A former governor of South Carolina, Beasley most recently served as the Executive Director for the United Nations World Food Programme. He accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the WFP in 2020.
Jeff Charney
Jeff Charney, a 1981 graduate of the College of Information and Communications, is one of the nation’s most heralded, creative Chief Marketing Officers as well as a relevant and disruptive voice in today’s marketing community.
Bobby Donaldson
A scholar of southern history and African American life and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Dr. Donaldson’s research and writings explore African American intellectual thought, print culture, education and religion.
Outstanding Black Alumni
The Hon. J. Michelle Childs
Childs was appointed by President Joe Biden to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in July 2022. She currently serves as the president of the Federal Judges Association. Childs was the first African American female partner at a major law firm in the state of South Carolina.
Outstanding Veteran Alumni Award
Col. (Ret.) Keith June
Keith spent over 30 years serving our nation in the Army. His military career took him around the world with assignments in Germany, Panama and multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Kuwait and Bosnia. He also served on the Joint Staff, the Army Staff and completed a special assignment with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Outstanding Young Alumni Award
Rebecca Krynski Cox
Hailed by The New York Times as a “vibrant soprano…with a secure, appealing sound and eye-opening volume,” Rebecca Krynski Cox opens the 23-24 season with Dayton Opera as Rosalinde (selections from Die Fledermaus). This spring, Ms. Cox returns to Florida Grand Opera for her role debut as Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème, and joins the USC Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist for Brahms’ A German Requiem.