When he was dean of the USC Gould School of Law, Scott Bice '65, JD '68, along with his wife, Barbara, spent a lot of time courting potential major donors. They"d invite USC alumni over for dinner, take them to football games and spend evenings at the donors' homes. At one dinner, Bice found a large check made out to USC Gould tucked under his plate. His host later told him: "Scott, I want you to know that after you left, I walked out onto my patio, looked up at the stars, and thought: This is the best day of my life." The conversation confirmed for Bice the notion that in philanthropy, the gift means as much to the giver as it does to the cause.
With that in mind, the couple decided to leave $3.5 million to USC Gould through their estate plan. Of this amount, $1 million will establish the Barbara F. Bice Public Interest Law Foundation Endowment, which will support summer grants to law students working in public interest law. The remainder will support the Dean's Discretionary Fund and has been designated toward a new building.
Why so generous? For the Bices, it's about a generational compact. Because tuition only partially covers the cost of a student's education, the rest must come from philanthropy by people who, as Bice says, "went to the school, did well and feel an obligation to give back."
This "obligation" is one that the Bices have more than fulfilled. Realizing how much the former dean's education contributed to the couple's success and happiness, they want future generations to have the same opportunity.
Bice, who was also the Robert C. and Nanette T. Packard Professor of Law at USC Gould, was basically born a Trojan. Both his parents attended USC (as did his sister), and he remembers cheering for USC at football games when he was six or seven. A native of San Marino, California, he says that he never seriously considered another university. He earned a business degree in 1965, graduated from USC Gould in 1968, and has spent almost his entire career there, with two notable exceptions: Right out of law school, he spent a year as a clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and in the late 1970s, he taught one year at the University of Virginia.
Although Barbara is not a USC alum, she says she became a Trojan on her wedding day, and adds, "Being part of an institution and watching it evolve and just get better and better—it was like raising a family."
As USC Gould's interim dean, Franita Tolson, so eloquently puts it, "Scott and Barbara have made an indelible impact, not just on the law school, but also on the lives of all the students they've mentored and helped over the years. They exemplify what we all aspire to be as Trojans: altruistic, empathic and inclusive."