The vision of USC Games, which is a collaboration between the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and the Viterbi School of Engineering, is for the initiative to expand and support other aspects of diversity and equity, such as salary support for Black and Indigenous faculty and labs and projects that address issues affecting marginalized communities.
Gerald A. Lawson, who the fund is named after, led the team who invented the interchangeable ROM cartridge used in the Fairchild Channel F gaming console in the 1970s . Before his death in 2011, Lawson was honored as an industry pioneer by the Interactive Game Developers Association. In 2019, Lawson posthumously received the ID@Xbox Gaming Heroes award at the Independent Games Festival, for his contributions to the games industry.
“It’s humbling to publicly announce this Fund in the wake of the verdict in Minneapolis, since Danny Bilson — the Director of USC Games and Chair of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive Media & Games Division — and I started working on its framework during the racial justice marches in Summer 2020,” said USC Interactive Media & Games’ professor and head of marketing, Jim Huntley. “We felt strongly that it should honor Mr.
Looking ahead, donations to the fund will be ongoing while returns from the endowment will support qualifying games program students — known as Lawson scholars — in both the Cinematic Arts and Engineering schools, beginning in the Fall 2022 semester. The initiative will be featured at the USC Games Expo, the University’s annual event showcasing student games, on May 15.
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