Michael Preston, former USC vice provost for strategic initiatives, professor emeritus and former chair of political science at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, has died. He was 80. Michael B. Preston was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California. From 1989-1995 he served as Chair of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He was a specialist in American Politics, Urban Politics and Black Politics.Professor Preston is the author of Racial and Ethnic Politics in California, volumes I and II; The New Black Politics; and The Politics of Bureaucratic Reform: The Case of the California State Employment Service. He had been Associate Editor of the National Political Science Review and Urban Affairs Quarterly; he was also a reviewer for numerous professional journals and the National Science Foundation. He was President of the Western Political Science Association and served as Vice-President of the American Political Science Association. In addition, he also served on the Board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and on a Task Force of the Los Angeles Urban League.Professor Preston also received outstanding teaching awards from the Mortar Board and the Department of Black Students. He frequently chaired panels and was a participant in conferences across the country discussing racial and ethnic politics in big cities, particularly the politics of Los Angeles and Chicago. He received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974; he joined the USC faculty in 1986, after spending 13 years at the University of Illinois-Urbana.
