The USC Sol Price School of Public Policy has seen an increase in its female student population. This year, the school has a total of 100 female students in both its graduate program and undergraduate program, which was launched nearly three years ago. With 350 students enrolled in both programs, female students now represent nearly 30% of the total population, making USC the largest educator of female real estate professionals in the country. The school recently hosted a Women in Real Estate luncheon to promote and encourage women to pursue leadership positions in real estate. The alumni panel included Clare De Briere, founder of C+C Ventures and chair of ULI Los Angeles; Lindsay Garcia, assistant VP at US Bank; Rose Olson, SVP of development at Related California; and Jessica Palmquist, senior acquisitions analyst at Clarion Partners. To find out more about the luncheon and the increase in the program's gender diversity, we sat down with Sonia Savoulian, associate director for programs in real estate at the USC Price School, for an exclusive interview.

GlobeSt.com: Why do you think that the number of female students is increasing in the real estate program?

Sonia Savoulian: One of the reasons that I am thinking about is the way that undergraduates choose real estate as a field of interest. The traditional path has been majoring in business and along the way gravitating toward finance and then settling on real estate as the primary field of interest, because it is a tangible asset. There is a population of students that absolutely goes down that road. What we have done differently with our undergraduate program is that we have taken the essential elements of a traditional business real estate finance curriculum and married it with the essential elements of an urban planning degree. We start by thinking about creating places that positively impact people's lives. We think that women are being attracted to our program because it is starting from improving communities and improving the quality of life, and wanting to do that through real estate.

GlobeSt.com: Have you seen the same increase in enrollment for the general business program?

Savoulian: No, we have not. That is what is making me think that it is the orientation of real estate as place as opposed to real estate as a financial investment vehicle that is really contributing to the growing diversity.

GlobeSt.com: Has the school done anything to encourage more student enrollment?

Savoulian: Diversity has always been our aspiration. Part of what we feel our roles as educators are is to train a more diverse talent pool that will choose real estate as a profession. The challenge that we found in our master's program is that we needed people that had already chosen real estate in some capacity and then wanted a graduate degree. The undergraduate program creates a completely different opportunity in that you are able to capture people before they even begin their careers, and get them excited about real estate.

GlobeSt.com: You recently hosted a Women in Real Estate Luncheon. What was the impetus to this event?

Savoulian: We discovered that we have been getting a lot of women interested in our undergraduate real estate program, and when we look at the enrollment in both the undergraduate and graduate programs, we have 100 women enrolled. With such a substantial number, we wanted to make sure that we were providing the support that would encourage women to pursue a career in real estate. With the sheer number of women in one sitting studying real estate, I am going to guess that is the biggest population of female real estate students, and that was really the important starting point. We now have a collective mass of female students that have said they are interested in real estate, so we want them to build a career that will allow them to grow into leadership positions in the profession.

GlobeSt.com: You had an impressive line-up of female leaders in the industry.

Savoulian: That was absolutely intentional. To achieve a leadership position in the commercial real estate industry, you have to start off your career doing something where you are using real estate finance skills. You have to develop your real estate finance skills sets. When we bring our alumni onto the panel, these are people who are viewed as leaders in the industry. We see a lack of diversity taking place on the real estate principal side, the companies that actually own and manage real estate assets. We want to make sure that our young female students see seasoned professionals who are alumni of our program in those positions.

GlobeSt.com: Why do you think that the number of female students is increasing in the real estate program?

GlobeSt.com: Have you seen the same increase in enrollment for the general business program?

GlobeSt.com: Has the school done anything to encourage more student enrollment?

GlobeSt.com: You recently hosted a Women in Real Estate Luncheon. What was the impetus to this event?

GlobeSt.com: You had an impressive line-up of female leaders in the industry.

Instant Insights /

USC Sees Growing Gender Diversity in Real Estate Program

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