Inside Idea for a Voice-Activated Alarm Clock Into Hot New Company Moshi Lifestyle

Home , Berle Adams, Daily Trojan, James Marsters, Johnny Yune, Laurie Brand, Norman Lear Center

›› page 25 Entrepreneur Jonathon Nostrant ’09 turned an Inside idea for a voice-activated alarm clock into hot new company Moshi Lifestyle. Features

24 Masters of Their Own Universe Hard-working entrepreneurs in their early 20s are pouring out of USC’s Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. By Starshine Roshell

32 Transit Tales Take a ride with USC Transportation, whose fleet is larger than those at many other universities and rivals the public transit systems of some cities. By Carl Marziali

38 The Consummate Listener There are many original thinkers at USC, but nobody quite like Josh Kun, who’s become the go-to scholar on popular music and the politics of cultural connections. By Elizabeth Segal

44 The Personal Is Medical Personalized medicine is the new standard at USC Norris Cancer Hospital, one of only a few facilities in Southern California built exclusively for cancer research and patient care. ›› page 38 “I always knew, from very early By Katie Neith and Sara Reeve on, that I wanted to be around music. I decided then to devote my life to being a fan.” Green & Serene – USC professor Josh Kun, author of Audiotopia: Music, Race and ›› page 34 America and coauthor of And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost

USC Trojan Family Magazine Spring ’10

Published by the University of Southern California Volume 42 Number 1

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 1 Spring 2o1o

columns 4 Editor’s Note 5 President’s Page Celebrating entrepreneurism and innovation, which seem to be part of USC’s very DNA. 22 64 Last Word There are few places where people don’t enjoy a cup o’ Joe.

17 Arts & Culture The release of a treasure trove of newly discovered Woody Guthrie recordings; Indian playwright Girish Karnad visits USC.

20 Lab Work Lessons to be learned from the 17 1918 H1N1 flu, and clues to drug resistance in leukemia.

22 People Watch David Bohnett ’78, as chair of the LA Phil board, promotes departments new youth orchestras. 7 Mailbag 48 Family Ties What’s on readers’ minds. The USC Alumni Association welcomes three generations of 10 What’s New Trojans back to campus. After 19 years in which USC achieved a rise unparalleled 53 Class Notes in American higher education, Who’s doing what and where. Steven B. Sample will step down. On the cover: Happy Trojan tram riders. Illustration by Tim Bower 13 Reaching Out School of Social Work students develop legislation aimed at keeping homeless children housed with their parents.

›› Page 10 Steven and Kathryn Sample: “The presidency of USC has been far more 15 Shelf Life than just a job. It has been a calling, an all- Multi-talented Tim Page’s book consuming passion.... Our years here have on growing up with undiag- been simply exhilarating.” nosed Asperger’s Syndrome; and a long-forgotten journal by the legendary Norman Corwin.

For past issues of USC Trojan Family Magazine, visit www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/trojan_family 13

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 3 [ editor’s note ] The Beginning of an Era Trojan Family Magazine I’ve been trying to remember what USC was like before Steve and Kathryn Sample came to USC town 19 years ago. When USC Trojan Family first announced the new president’s arrival in the Editor spring of 1991, we called him “a man of uncommon scope” – little guessing how prophetic that Susan Heitman

phrase would be. You can read (on page 10) about the spectacular changes he Art Director engineered during his USC presidency; a series of honors and celebrations are Rick Simner

scheduled through the summer, and we are preparing a tribute for the next issue senior Editors Allison Engel of this magazine. But I also wanted to look back at what we said about him when Diane Krieger he arrived, a relative unknown who had been president of the University at Buffalo, Contributing Writers State University of New York, and see how it sounds today. Susan Andrews, Andrea Bennett One of the first things he told us was, “When my wife Kathryn and I were Alex Boekelheide, Mary Bruce Ariel Carpenter, Anna Cearley interviewing at Buffalo in 1982, everybody was down on the university .... I started, Talia Cohen, Mel Cowan after I’d been there about a year, to talk about UB becoming one of the really best public universities Lori Craig, Jackson DeMos Cadonna Dory, Bill Dotson around. At first, people thought it was just silly, but nobody thinks it’s silly anymore.” Beth Dunham, Kevin Durkin Two things stand out in that quote. One is his relentless drive not only to change the university James Grant, Kirstin Heinle Richard Hoops, Pamela J. Johnson itself, but to change the university’s perceptions about itself. He was known then – and is known Timothy O. Knight, Ross M. Levine now – for seeing the glass half full rather than half empty, and for persuading those around him to Meghan Lewit, Eric Mankin Carl Marziali, Steve McDonagh share this view. A former USC colleague told the Los Angeles Times in October, “Sample understood Cynthia Monticue, Annette Moore that university leadership involves both improving substance and marketing the change. The bril- Jon Nalick, Katie Neith liance of Sample is that he does both.” Eddie North-Hager, Justin Pierce Sara Reeve, Leslie Ridgeway The second prophetic note was including his wife, Kathryn, in his presidency. He consistently Gilien Silsby, Kukla Vera talks about the job in terms of “Kathryn and I.” His letter to the USC community announcing his Lauren Walser, Suzanne Wu

impending retirement begins, “Having had the profound privilege and joy of serving this university managing Editor Mary Modina for 19 years, Kathryn and I are today formally announcing my retirement from the presidency of USC, effective August 2, 2010.” Design and production Russell Ono We invite you to share your own thoughts about the Samples, their presidency and the effects Stacey Torii

they have had on USC. Go to http://search.usc.edu and click on “Share your messages ....” Photography – Susan Heitman Allison Engel (coordinator) Dietmar Quistorf

advertising/Circulation Manager Vickie Kebler Moving? (213) 740-3162 USC Trojan Family Magazine Please attach your current mailing label and send to: USC Trojan Family Magazine, University of Southern California University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-7790. Los Angeles, California 90089-7790 Or e-mail us at: [email protected] tel: (213) 740-2684 / fax: (213) 821-1100 e-mail: [email protected] web: www.usc.edu/trojan_family name class year USC Trojan Family Magazine (ISSN 8750-7927) is published four times a year, in February, May, August new address and November, by the University of Southern California, Office of University Public Relations, 3375 S. Hoover St, Los Angeles, CA 90089-7790.

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4 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 President’s Page By Steven B. Sample

At 6 a.m. on a Wednesday morning in October nearly 16 years ago, USC Distinguished Professor George Olah was officially informed that he’d won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He was recognized for his research in hydrocarbons, research that holds tremendous promise for developing cleaner and more efficient fuels. Within hours of the good news, we arranged a reception at USC for that afternoon to celebrate Professor Olah’s spectacular achievement. have truly benefited from the “brain gain.” Like so many other scientists, artists and in- USC itself has benefited substantially from tellectuals, Professor Olah had fled his native our ability to attract some of the world’s best Hungary during the “three-day open window” faculty as well as postdoctoral fellows, graduate following the Soviet invasion of Hungary in students and undergraduates. 1956. Several of his fellow Hungarian refugees Entrepreneurialism and innovation seem to attended our reception that afternoon, delighted be part of USC’s very DNA. Perhaps this stems to be part of the congrega- from the audacity of USC’s founders, who, like tion of congratula tions. At all pioneers worth their salt, saw and seized op- one point during the festivi- portunity and built a university where there ties, someone claimed that was only a mustard field on the outskirts of a the United States was the frontier village. Perhaps our entrepreneurial only country that taxes a spirit derives from our location in Los Angeles – Nobel Laureate’s prize a city that enthusiastically embraces originality money. “Not only that,” and creativity, whether manifested in the arts, chimed in another voice, communications, science, technology, transpor- “as the laureates come tation or business. back to the states, their As you’ll see in an article in this issue about medals are weighed by our own Trojan entrepreneurs associated with customs and they get the USC Marshall School of Business and the taxed on the value of Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Stud- the gold in the medal!” ies (“Masters of Their Own Universe,” p. 24), (Now as it happens, neither of these as- USC is doing its part to encourage and support sertions is true. But at the time, we all thought smart people with great ideas who are attracted President Steven B. Sample, left, and USC Distinguished they were true.) Amid loud tsk-tsks of disap- to this university from around the globe. Just as Professor George Olah, center, proval at this notion of taxing Nobel Prize we’re doing through the Alfred Mann Institute lift flutes of champagne with others in 1994 to celebrate money, George Olah spoke up. In my mind’s for Biomedical Engineering at USC and the Olah’s Nobel Prize. eye, I can still see him at that moment – taller USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, the lat- than nearly everyone else in the room, poised ter of which has spun out 15 start-ups and raised and thoughtful, and with tears welling up in his $115 million in capital in only two years. Just as eyes, he said to his fellow Hungarian refugees, we did, and continue to do, for Distinguished “Aren’t we lucky to be in this country and to be Professor Olah and hundreds of other faculty able to pay these taxes?” researchers who are on the cutting edge in Today when I recall Professor Olah’s com- their respective fields. It makes me very proud ment, it is a powerful reminder to me of the ex- to lead an institution that is so good at being tent to which America has been a magnet for so original. l many of the world’s greatest minds – in science, engineering, medicine, the arts and literature. This country has developed an ethos that encourages originality and supports innovators and entrepreneurs through research funding and market success. In turn, we as a country

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 5 Mailbag

quoted ›› “USC, supported by men and What I remember most, though, was women like Virginia Ramo (who helped when Mrs. Ramo told Mrs. Annenberg and Mrs. Young that they had to stop asking me raise the millions needed for scholarships questions. As she pointed out, everyone like mine), offered me an opportunity to else was just about done with lunch and I see much more of the world. I often say had not yet started eating mine. I had grown up in a one-high-school that I was raised in Nevada but came of town. USC, supported by men and women age at USC.” like Mrs. Ramo (who helped raise the millions needed for scholarships like mine), of- Music for the Masses table. I remember each of them asking fered me an opportunity to see much more Thank you for the article on the USC questions about what I was doing, how the of the world. I often say that I was raised Thornton School of Music’s 125th anniver- dorm was holding up (I lived in Marks Hall, in Nevada but came of age at USC. That sar y (“With a Song in Their Hearts,” Winter one of the oldest buildings on campus). lunch, in its way, shows why. 2009, p. 28). I am very happy to read about Was the faculty-in-residence program (new Russell West Jr. ’88 the progress and innovations taking place, at the time) a good idea? Did my clubs get N E W Y O R K , N Y especially the opportunity for students to enough support? I remember each of them Value Added major in popular music performance. listening to what I had to say, and I re- I appreciated with interest the article “Vir- The school of music today is the school member then student affairs vice president tue Takes Time” (What’s New, Autumn I wish I’d had when I enrolled in 1978. Al- James Dennis looking on as well. 2009, p. 19). When viewing the article from though we got a great education in classical music performance, theory and history, the school at that time did not give us any information about the real world of the con- [last word] Four-Legged Friends temporary music business. It’s great to see USC now embrace the Were we being sneaky or just careless? That was the real puzzler in our value in all kinds of music, and include cur- latest Last Word, which featured two different clues identified as No. 9. Of ricula that will help students succeed in this very competitive industry. the 142 entries, few failed to point out this numbering anomaly. But was it Linda Normando Cicino ’82 an error? Or an insidious trick? “I figure you guys are pretty adept at drop- LA HABRA, CA ping clues, so I hesitated at elevating the second 9 to a 10,” writes Lyle Remembering Virginia Parrish ‘56. Alas, we are not nearly as clever (or cruel) as readers would I am sure you will receive many remem- imagine, and the redundant numbering was just an old-fashioned typo. brances of Virginia Ramo (In Memoriam, However, two common errors that did cost points involved identifying “Gordo” as the space explorer Winter 2009, p. 60); this is mine. I came to USC as a Trustee Scholar in of clue No. 1 and “Little Sorrel” as the famous Civil War mount of clue No. 5. Both were good guesses, September 1984. A couple of years later, I but Gordo, as canny Last Worder Robert Knecht Schmidt BS ‘00, MS ‘01 notes, was a squirrel monkey, met Mrs. Ramo – who may or may not have had a role in selecting me for a Trustee a New World species not likely to be born in Cameroon. As for Little Sorrel, he couldn’t have carried Scholarship. We met when the Student Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson to Appomattox, since the Confederate hero had been mortally Affairs Committee invited several student wounded two years earlier. The correct steed was Robert E. Lee’s “Traveller.” leaders to lunch, as it did a couple of times each year. Now that I look back, I’m rather Drawn randomly from 114 correct entries, these five winners will receive Borders gift certificates for impressed it would take the time. Odd, their efforts: Charlette Bond, David Cherryhomes ’97, Marina Clifton ’86, Edith Frampton and Don Ross isn’t it, that a committee charged with stu- PhD ’91. Congratulations to all our animal-appreciating Last Worders. dent affairs would want to talk to students? I sat between Wallis Annenberg and Answers ›› 1. Ham, the chimp 2. Dolly, the sheep 3. Secretariat 4. Seabiscuit 5. Traveller Lorna Y. Reed; Mrs. Ramo was across the 6. Jumbo 7. Hanno, the elephant 8. Laika 9. Chips, the war dog 10. Elsa, the lioness. l

We welcome letters from readers although we do reserve the right to select and edit for space. Please include your name, address, e-mail address, degree and year of graduation, if applicable, with each letter and mail to: USC Trojan Family Magazine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-7790 or e-mail us at: [email protected]. Please note that, because of our production schedule, it might be several months before your letter appears.

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 7 a religio-spiritual view, I remembered the Wayne’s World Cynthia Villasenor, assistant dean of development story of creation from the Judeo-Christian It was with great interest and pleasure that at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, replies: tradition that relates how mankind was cre- I just finished Rick Jewell’s article about The Michael Wayne Film Preservation and ated in the likeness of God and that virtue John Wayne (“John Wayne, an American Restoration Fellowship [named after John was likely natural at that time. The refer- Icon,” Autumn 2008, p. 32). I am a big Wayne’s eldest son, who died a few years ago] ence in the article to virtue as “nobler” John Wayne fan, and am always interested was established by Gretchen Wayne, Michael’s seems to indicate that such a way provides in learning more about him. wife, and Batjac Productions, Inc., to fund the a better quality life. To attend to such an A few weeks ago while at church, I met a Michael Wayne Fellow in the USC School of aim might be easier if virtue were a habit woman who indicated that she had been at Cinematic Arts archives. that stayed close to the significance of its an event with a man she thought might be separation from emotional fluctuation. a [Wayne] family member, and mentioned 30-Year Splash It almost seems as though the article be- something about a football scholarship, or This year, Swim With Mike, the physi- gins to reveal the bridge that may be form- perhaps an academic scholarship, related cally challenged athletes scholarship fund, ing between Western and Eastern spiritual to John Wayne. Maybe it was in Wayne’s celebrates a special milestone. Its annual thought, with science as a way of shed- name? I would be interested in finding out Swim With Mike fundraiser – to be held at ding light or introducing Eastern spiritual more. the McDonald’s Olympic Swim Stadium thought. This can lead to a better under- I am a moderator of the Original John on the University Park campus on April standing of wholesome virtues. Wayne Message Board, at www.dukewayne. 17, 2010 – will mark 30 years of this unique Maureen Kris (Halikis) ’84 com, and it is just such little tidbits about our philanthropic effort. LOS ANGELES, CA hero that we enjoy learning. It pleases us Over three decades, Swim With Mike has greatly to know that Duke is still an integral expanded its fund-raisers to other locations Last Word In part of USC, as well as a part of its history. and campuses – Hawaii, Hong Kong, Stan- I have a great time working on the Last If you could share a little more informa- ford University, University of Connecticut, Word challenges! Even when I don’t get a tion regarding the scholarship, or perhaps Princeton University – and seen its recipi- chance to submit them, they are still a lot of forward my e-mail on to someone who ents attend universities across the nation. fun. Thanks for putting them together. knows more about it, I would appreciate it. The effort began as a one-time event Andrea Weigel, BA ’95 Chester Berrlow organized by friends of Mike Nyeholt ’78, Templeton, CA Ben lomond, ca an All-American swimmer at USC who was

8 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010

Swim With Mike also offers students sup- For more information about Swim With port to navigate the challenges as they gain Mike, please visit www.swimwithmike.org independence. Here’s what the family of Claire Adams ’10 civil engineering graduate Chad Hendrick- Swim With Mike newsletter editor son ’07, MA ’08 of Cerritos, Calif., wrote for CAMPUS a recent Swim With Mike newsletter: “For the families, being surrounded by Notice Board others who have faced the same chal- We need your assistance in preserving the lenges offers comfort and inspiration heritage of our university. The USC Uni- as their children succeed in ways once versity Archives exist to collect, preserve thought impossible. and make available records having perma- “Once a year, as we come together to nent value in documenting the history of support one another and raise funds, it is a the university and USC-related organiza- ila Av b y D an photo comfort to know we are not alone, and real- tions as well as the activities of faculty, staff Mike Nyeholt ’78 after swimming laps at the 29th ize there are so many people that care and and students. Books, manuscripts, USC annual Swim With Mike. are willing to give of their time, talents and periodicals and newspapers, posters, pho- paralyzed from the chest down, to purchase resources to make a difference. tographic images, disc and tape recordings, a specially equipped van. So much was “Upon recently sharing with a Swim and other items are available for research raised that day that Nyeholt suggested that With Mike board member how amazed we under supervised conditions. the excess money be used to create a physi- were with the Swim With Mike family, that Gifts of any items contributing to docu- cally challenged athletes scholarship fund they are always ready and willing to help, mentation of the history of USC will be at USC. Over the years, the swim-a-thons her response was: ‘This is what the Trojan greatly appreciated and carefully preserved. have raised more than $9.6 million to pro- Family and the Swim With Mike family are Please contact me at (213) 740-2587 or vide more than 93 scholarships to athletes all about!’ [email protected], or visit us at www.usc. at 34 universities. Currently, there are 42 “We feel blessed to be a part of this fam- edu/ arc/libraries/uscarchives scholar-athletes receiving financial support ily. With continued support, this tradition Claude Zachary – a dozen of them at USC. will continue to make a positive impact for USC University Archivist While the financial support is critical, many years to come.” CAMPUS

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USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 9 What’s New

News & Notes on all things trojan

American university to have received five Steven B. Sample to Retire gifts of $100 million or more (see below); and also secured seven school naming gifts: The visionary leader is widely credited for an institutional USC Leventhal School of Accounting, USC rise that is unparalleled in American higher education. Marshall School of Business, USC Rossier School of Education, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, USC Roski School of Fine Steven B. Sample, president of the Uni- “If there were a tagline for his leader- Arts, Keck School of Medicine of USC and versity of Southern California since 1991, ship style,” said USC Board of Trustees USC Thornton School of Music. announced in November that he will retire chairman Edward P. Roski Jr., “it would be Significant faculty achievements dur- in August 2010. ‘Never let up.’ And the results have been ing this time included the awarding of the “For Kathryn and me, the presidency nothing short of spectacular. Nobel Prize in chemistry to USC profes- of USC has been far more than just a job,” “From the very start he understood the sor George Olah and the conferring of the Sample said. “It has been a calling, an all- entrepreneurial zeal of USC and fueled our consuming passion to move this university desire to be excellent. Again and again, he ahead farther and faster than any other uni- would achieve his objectives for the univer- versity in the United States. sity but would then push even harder, urg- “We have been blessed to have pursued ing everyone to reach for even higher goals. this mission in the company of many col- Filling his shoes will be a big job for the leagues and friends who share our commit- trustees as we search for his successor.” ment to USC’s advancement. Our years here have simply been exhilarating.” Sample became the 10th president of USC Sample’s 19-year presidency has seen in March 1991, after service as president of dramatic changes at USC. Under his lead- the University at Buffalo of the State Uni- ership, the university: versity of New York. • Became a highly selective undergradu- Under his leadership, USC has become ate institution; world renowned in the fields of communica- • Saw the excellence of its faculty rise to tion and multimedia technologies, received new levels; national acclaim for its innovative community • Completed the largest fund-raising cam- partnerships and solidified its status as one paign in the history of higher education; of the nation’s leading research universities. • Created a global network of scholars During his tenure, USC climbed 25 points in and programs, especially around the Pacific the annual U.S. News & World Report college Rim; rankings, an increase that is unprecedented • Built successful partnerships in its for its rapidity and magnitude. neighborhoods to spur economic and edu- Among the milestones of the past 19 years cational development; and is a national record-setting fundraising cam- • Embraced its role as the largest private paign which, at its conclusion in Decem- employer and key social force in the City of ber 2002, had raised $2.85 billion. During Los Angeles. Sample’s presidency, USC became the only

Running the Numbers

Sample’s tenure is marked by five $100 million-plus gifts – a national higher ed record alfred Mann establishes USC Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering $112.5M w. M. Keck Foundation endows Keck School of Medicine of USC $110M annenberg Foundation establishes USC Annenberg Center for Communication $120M annenberg Foundation endows USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism $100M USC alumnus George Lucas & Lucasfilm Foundation endow USC School of Cinematic Arts $175M

10 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 MacArthur Fellowship to USC law profes- Our Cities: A Survey of Best College and sor Elyn Saks. University Civic Partnerships. CapitalConnections At the undergraduate level, USC ad Sample, the university’s first holder of vanced rapidly as a highly selective univer- the Robert C. Packard President’s Chair, is ›› MISSING WOMEN Historian Philippa sity, with SAT scores rising more than 300 an electrical engineer, a musician, an out- Levine of USC College presented a lec- points and the number of freshman appli- doorsman, an author and an inventor. In ture at the Library of Congress in mid-July cations nearly tripling since 1991. This fall, 1998, he was elected to the National Acad- at the annual International Seminar on USC enrolled 232 National Merit Scholars emy of Engineering for his contributions to Decolonization. Decolonization is a term in its freshman class, a dramatic increase consumer electronics and his educational used to mark the period after the Second from 33 in 1991 that placed USC among the leadership. In 2003, he was elected to the World War when European imperial powers nation’s top five universities in the number American Academy of Arts and Sciences. rapidly lost their colonial overseas posses- of National Merit Scholars. He is an active member of USC’s faculty, sions. Says Levine: “My lecture asked why teaching with management expert Warren in studies of this phenomenon, questions In 2000, USC was proclaimed “College of the Bennis a popular course, “The Art and Adven- Year” by Time magazine and the Princeton ture of Leadership.” His best-selling book, of gender – and the role and experience of Review, in recognition of its community The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, named a women – are seldom addressed.” Levine, partnership programs. USC ranked among “must-read” by Harvard Management Update, who normally specializes in the 19th cen- the top five in the nation in a survey of has been translated into five languages. l tury, said the topic was of interest to her “Great Colleges to Work For” (Chronicle of as a historian of empire and of gender. Higher Education, 2008), was named a “col- A Web site including Steven Sample’s letter to the li vz ey lege with a conscience” for its service learn- USC community, a photo gallery and the oppor- ›› BONUS POINTS With taxpayer outrage j o hn

by ing and community involvement in 2005 tunity to share messages with the president can be simmering over bonuses Merrill Lynch and and this year ranked no. 1 in the Saviors of found at http://search.usc.edu AIG paid after receiving federal bailout ph o t money, USC Marshall School of Business President Steven B. Sample professor Kevin Murphy appeared before and Kathryn Sample the House Financial Services Committee in June to discuss executive compensation, his field of expertise. Murphy testified that regulating compensation “will cripple” the financial services industry. He argued that it’s not “in the taxpayers’ interest to elimi- nate bonuses or limit the top pay of executives,” adding, “Banks are losing their best people… precisely the people who understand the complex interests that got us into trouble.” Public anger is understand- able, Murphy said. “But we shouldn’t make policy decisions when we’re angry.”

›› PAKISTANI PROMOTERS USC dean of religious life Varun Soni and Rob Asghar, a USC Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy University fellow, went to the U.S. Department of State to discuss the Pakistani diaspora community and to explore a relationship with the USC center. As a result, Soni and Asghar ended up helping organize the Concert for Pakistan on Sept. 13 at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York. The concert drew nearly 2,000 music fans, allied in their concern for the people of the Swat region. “By bringing together musicians from around the world, the concert put a human face to the serious challenges confronting Pakistan’s three million internally displaced people,” says Soni. l

For news on USC in Washington and Sacramento, visit http://uscnews.usc.edu/capital_connections

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 11 current USC faculty experts in pharmaco- economics, public insurance and health- care financing. The center’s research will focus on five key areas: reducing unnecessary spending, improving insurance design, understanding how public policy affects medical innovation, identifying the macroeconomic consequences of U.S. health-care costs, and improving comparative effectiveness and outcomes research. Goldman said the new center’s anticipated research projects include study of how cover- age gaps in federally funded programs impact patient health and how insurance designs affect physician-prescribing behavior.

leonard schaeffer was the founding chairman and chief executive officer of Left to right: Leonard and Pamela Schaeffer, Dana Goldman WellPoint, the nation’s largest health insurance company, and a recognized expert in health policy and health economics. go figure He led WellPoint from 1992 through 2004 and continued as chairman through Health Policy Headquarters 2005. He is currently chairman of Surgical Care Affiliates and a senior adviser to TPG USC’s new Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Capital, a private equity firm. Economics is headed by RAND’s Dana Goldman Schaeffer is also a veteran member of the board of councilors at SPPD, and he holds the Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair, A major new research center focus- Medicine and Public Policy at SPPD, as a select executive-in-residence appoint- ing on health policy and economics has well as a faculty appointment at the School ment accorded by the university president been established at USC, executive vice of Pharmacy. and named for one of USC’s founders. He president and provost C. L. Max Nikias Two of the three new faculty members lectures and writes widely on health policy announced in late September. – Geoffrey Joyce and Neeraj Sood – have issues. The Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for been appointed associate professors at – James Grant Health Policy and Economics is funded by the School of Pharmacy; the third, Darius a $1.2 million operating gift from Leonard D. Lakdawalla, has been appointed associate Information on the activities of the Schaeffer Schaeffer and his wife, Pamela Schaeffer. professor at SPPD. They will be joined in Center can be found at http://healthpolicy.usc.edu “At a time when the nation is struggling their research and outreach activities by with health-care reform, we are honored to announce the creation of this new interdisciplinary center, which will bring together USC’s extraordinarily wide range of exper- [CHIMP CHAMP] Goodall Spreads Hope tise in order to address one of the most significant issues of our time,” Nikias said. Jane Goodall, internationally renowned anthropologist and world The Schaeffer Center is headed by Dana conservationist, filled Bovard Auditorium on Oct. 6 with both a capac- Goldman, a nationally recognized expert in health economics who was recently elected ity crowd and a renewed sense of hope for a world in need. Goodall to the Institute of Medicine, one of the has been a distinguished adjunct professor and co-director of the Jane highest honors in the fields of health and Goodall Research Center at USC College for 19 years. She also is an

medicine. He joins USC from the RAND jeff o rl ws k i

Corporation, where he headed its health adjunct faculty member in USC’s Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Good- by economics, finance and organization divi- all, who began her career in Gombe Stream National Park (Tanzania) in 1960, has spoken to people ph o t sion. Three of his former RAND colleagues have also been recruited to USC. in 64 countries about her chimpanzee research. At Bovard, she shared several of her unique experi- The Schaeffer Center is a collaboration ences that paint a vivid image of a global environment in peril. “Each one of us must do everything in between the USC School of Policy, Plan- our power to slow down climate change,” she said, emphasizing the difference that individuals and ning, and Development and the USC t o m q ueally / g oo dall

School of Pharmacy. In addition to his post small groups of people can make in saving other creatures. – Susan Andrews by as director of the Schaeffer Center, Gold- man holds the Norman Topping Chair in ph o t Read more about Jane Goodall’s speech and visit to USC at http://tinyurl.com/y9th64g schaeffer

12 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 Reaching Out TrojanCONNECTIONS

›› SPORTS CAMPS Trojan Kids Camp, which has been running for 42 years, offers Keeping Families Intact community youth a three-week program that promotes a healthy lifestyle. Each day, children Social work students help draft a national bill to protect participate in swimming, dancing, tennis, bas- homeless parents and children from being split up. ketball and football. Field trips to the Malibu mountains, Lego-building and working on computer skills are also on the agenda. “The Congresswoman Maxine Waters intro- icy classes researched statistics related to kids love it so much,” says Arvin Varma, duced legislation developed by USC School homelessness, conducted interviews, rallied of Social Work students to mandate that stakeholders and made connections with assistant director of Recreational Sports, who federal agencies re-prioritize their funding key legislators to help draft and build sup- directs the program. “Every single one was to help keep homeless children housed port for this comprehensive bill. The work crying on the last day of camp this summer.” with their parents whenever possible. was part of their social advocacy project. Youth Impact, founded four years ago by The resolution affirms that children Fertig, clinical associate professor and Riki Ellison ’83, a former USC and National should not be denied the right to be housed head of the social welfare policy sequence Football League player, is a football-oriented together with their families based on what for the School of Social Work, wrote the leg- program for at-risk boys in the sixth and seventh neighborhood they live in or how much islation, but says he couldn’t have done it grades. The free program offers boys a daily money they make. without the work of the students. structure that incorporates character develop- “It’s important that Congress acknowl- “The magnitude of their commitment ment, mentoring, coaching and teaching. edge the fundamental right of children exceeded my expectations,” he says. to adequate housing,” says Waters. “Nearly Fertig has a long history of advocating for ›› TROJAN-POWERED SCHOOL The 200,000 children and youth are homeless the homeless, which he believes represent a doctorate of education program at the USC each night in America. It is appalling and “failure of our social service safety net.” He unacceptable that so many children are discussed the issue with his students, who Rossier School of Education has been trans- living on the streets without shelter. The decided to pursue it. forming the Glendale Unified School District dangers of not having safe and adequate Instead of a simple class assignment, into a success story for urban public educa- housing are especially harmful to children’s Fertig felt it would be a good opportunity tion. Superintendent Michael Escalante health and development.” for students to see firsthand how policy can EdD ‘02, says that over time, his school district Led by their professor, Ralph Fertig, affect the life chances of vulnerable popula- and the Ed.D. program at USC Rossier have students from several social welfare pol- tions. Fertig, who has worked with Waters become inextricably connected. Scores of graduates from USC Rossier’s doctoral program hold leadership roles in just about every area of the Glendale school district. Thirty percent of students there are English-language learners, and 50 percent have some measure of poverty. Yet Glendale Unified consistently exceeds the statewide average in student scores.

›› FRESHMEN GIVE BACK During their first weekend as Trojans, hundreds of USC freshmen chose to volunteer their time in the community they just started calling home. More than 450 USC students participated in the 14th annual Friends and Neighbors Service Day hosted by the USC Volunteer Center. Students worked at more than 30 project sites around Los Angeles. “The fact that the Children’s Nature Institute had 20 organized volunteers who were eager to work in a focused way probably helped them do a week’s worth of work in three hours,” says center director Melissa Gaeke, about students at a children’s garden in Griffith Park. l michael k lein by

For more on USC neighborhood outreach, visit http:// communities.usc.edu illustrati o n

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 13 on anti-poverty issues for decades, reached Instead of contacting politicians, the advo- students who participated had to be com- out to his friend to see if she would be sup- cacy team made community connections mitted. Many worked weekends and over portive of his students working on a bill. by targeting social welfare agencies. The spring break to help get documentary foot- Waters, who is also chair of the of the agencies were asked to call and write letters age, waking up at 5 a.m. and going to the House Subcommittee on Housing and of support to their district and state legisla- downtown Los Angeles skid row where Community Opportunity, liked the con- tive representatives. numbers of homeless families live. cept. She asked Fertig to bring her the MSW student Rosa Guerrero says it felt Erin Dowler was one of several students research, rationale and language for the bill, “surreal” to be a part of this project – she who attended a congressional hearing at and she committed to introduce it. never thought that she would have been Los Angeles Community College where Excited by the challenge and realiz- able to contribute to such an important and the issue of homelessness was discussed. ing the enormity of the project, students progressive bill. This is where the students submitted their immediately got to work. They split up As part of the PIE team, Guerrero had draft to Waters. Video footage of the hear- into five teams – research, person-in-the- the job of finding and interviewing home- ing is also included in the documentary. environment (PIE), legislative, advocacy less families. She says it was difficult hear- Dowler, who helped on the advocacy and and communications – to make the work ing parents describe how their children communications teams, says being involved more manageable. were taken away because of their inability in this project has expanded her idea of While the research team found statistics to find housing. social work and has given her insight and and numbers to describe the extent of the “In doing the interviews, we discovered experience with the legislative process that issue, members of the PIE team inter- homeless women had difficult times recov- she hopes to utilize again in her career. viewed homeless parents and their children ering their children from foster care,” she “This experience was so powerful,” she to give a face and real voice to the problem. says. “They could not get their children says. “To see something start from the Group members also took video footage of back because they did not have housing, beginning and watch it evolve into this the interviews that was later included in a but many places would not give them huge federal bill that is going to be intro- documentary the students made to record housing until they had their children.” duced. It’s amazing to be a part of it all.” their efforts and progress. They plan to These types of stories emphasized the – Cadonna Dory share the documentary with agencies and need for the legislation and individuals to build support for the bill. motivated Guerrero and The legislative team spent much of its the other students to work time sending emails, making phone calls even harder. and writing letters to legislators to inform This was not a typi- them of the bill and gather support for it. cal class assignment, and

[city savior] USC is Top Neighbor

USC is the most neighborly university in the country, according to Evan S. Dobelle, president of Westfield State College. Dobelle, who as president of Trinity College in the late 1990s oversaw that university’s notable neighborhood outreach effort, placed USC and the University of Pennsylvania at the top of the list of Saviors of Our Cities: A Survey of Best College and University Civic Partnerships. “This is another affirmation that USC is making a difference in our communities,” says Thomas S. Sayles, vice president of USC’s government and community relations. The institutions were selected because of positive impacts on their urban communities, including both commercial and residential activities such as revitalization, cultural renewal, economics, community service and development. Dobelle published his first Saviors of Our Cities survey in 2006. USC topped that list as well. The survey highlighted USC’s Family of Schools program, its service- learning emphasis as seen in such programs as the Joint Educational Project, and the Business Expansion Network, which provides start-up and ongoing support for local businesses. Criteria for judging schools included the length of involvement with the community; real dollars invested; presence felt through payroll, research and purchasing power; faculty and student involvement in community service; continued sustainability of neighborhood initiatives; and effect on local student access and affordability to attend college through elementary and second-

ary school partnerships. – Eddie North-Hager Sweet Temptations, one of a series of bilingual fotonovelas produced by the USC School of Pharmacy to promote community health awareness

14 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 that he had never understood. Shelf Life “My worst years with Asperger’s were mostly in my childhood,” he says. “Once you’ve been around the block a few thousand times, you start to get the hang of it. I still struggle today, but I’m more or less used to myself now and I know what cir- cumstances will be difficult for me and mostly avoid them.” Page was a classical music critic for 30 years, at The New York Times, Newsday and finally The Washington Post, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1997. In early 2008, he came to USC, where he is a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and also holds a position at the USC Thornton School of Music. “After covering more than 3,000 concerts, I was a little tired of it and delighted when the USC job came along,” he says. “I consider myself an extremely lucky man.” “In general, I’ve found that people here treat each other with dignity and decency. I’m especially impressed by my students, who are so smart, curious and open-minded – much more so than they were when I was An Awkward Childhood… going to school 30 years ago. There’s this weird idea that today’s students are apathetic In professor Tim Page’s critically lauded memoir, and purely hedonistic, and I don’t find that he writes about his attempts to feign normalcy despite true of the USC students I’ve met at all.” Page is known for his intense focus on undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome. various seemingly unrelated subjects – he has published books on the musicians Glenn Gould, Virgil Thomson and William Parallel Play: Growing Up absent-minded professor times five, in our Kapell, the authors Dawn Powell and Sig- with Undiagnosed Asperger’s own worlds.” Still, he hesitates to stereo- rid Undset and the 19th-century agnostic By Tim Page type. “You’ve got to remember – when preacher Robert Green Ingersoll – but says DOUBLEDAY, $26 you’ve met one person with autism, well, he is currently “between extracurricular you’ve met one person with autism. We’re obsessions.” USC professor Tim Page lived undiag- a pretty varied lot.” “The most important thing for me now is nosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form Parallel Play has received rave reviews to settle in at USC and be of long and help- of high-functioning autism, until he was 45 from major media, including The New York ful service here,” he says. “Annenberg has years old. Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times recently started an arts journalism master’s “I felt like an alien, always about to be and O, The Oprah Magazine. “In fascinat- degree program, and I want to help shape a exposed” says Page, now 55, who recently ingly precise detail and often to pricelessly new generation of critics.” penned a memoir about his adolescence as a funny effect, [Page] describes ways in which – Kirstin Heinle loner. Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiag- his efforts to feign normalcy have backfired,” nosed Asperger’s, was published in September. Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times. The book had its origins in an article “Recalling an adolescent clinch with a young overheard ›› written for The New Yorker in 2007. For woman who asked if he’d still care about her “Human settle- Page to revisit his awkward, disoriented the next day, he says he pondered the ques- ment of the moon is now childhood was sometimes painful. Still, in tion, then told her truthfully that he had no inevitable. Once you split the end, he is proud of Parallel Play. idea. ‘Wrong answer,’ he wryly recalls.” “It’s my story, no doubt about it,” he says. That particular review pleases Page up water into its parts, you d o ubleday “I told the truth, or as close to it as I could because, he says: “Janet Maslin really got can use it as rocket fuel get. And I’m especially glad that this is what Parallel Play. I had wanted to write what right there on the moon

c o urtesy o f they call an ‘easy read.’ You can finish it in could be described as a sad book with a lot of three or four hours. Asperger’s Syndrome humor or a funny book shot through with sad- to fly off to distant places, ph o t is a complicated condition and I hope that ness, and she understood that it was both.” making it economical.” Parallel Play will explain some things.” Parallel Play ends just as Page begins his Page says that a lot of “Aspies” (as they college career, a point in his life when he call themselves) are simply “the typical began to aquire some of the social skills – Madhu Thangavelu, USC engineering professor, on

page k indergarten Fox News about the discovery of water on the moon tim

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 15 overdue book New RELEASES

What Blood Won’t Tell: A History The Return of a Forgotten Journal of Race on Trial in America A diary written in 1946 during Norman Corwin’s by Ariela Gross Harvard University Press, $29.95 epic world tour finally sees print. Racial identity trials – court cases that determined a person’s “race” as well as his or her One World Flight: The Lost Journal rights and privileges – help explain of Radio’s Greatest Writer the history of race and racism By Norman Corwin, edited by in America, argues USC Gould Michael C. Keith and Mary Ann Watson School of Law’s Ariela Gross in her CONTINUUM, $24.95 multiple award-winning book. She recounts stories of these trials in An enthusiastic gathering at Barnes & American courts, from the early Noble’s Westside Pavilion store honored republic well into the 20th century, Norman Corwin, a Los Angeles literary treasure, in September. We had assembled contributing to ongoing debates over affirma- for a signing of his new book, One World tive action, identity politics and the construc- Flight: The Lost Journal of Radio’s Greatest tion of a color-blind society. Writer. [Corwin, 99, is writer-in-residence at the USC Annenberg School for Commu- This Lovely Life nication & Journalism.] by Vicki Forman Corwin had written the journal during Mariner Books, $13.95 his flight around the world in 1946. He had Vicki Forman’s memoir details her conflicting helped rally the nation during the war with emotions after going into premature labor his radio broadcasts and went on to write and giving birth to twins. Knowing books, films and memorable radio scripts. that the prognosis would not be The flight was his reward for winning the Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow gives a good good for her 23-week-old babies, first Wendell Willkie Award, established sense of the great writing and wit: Forman begged doctors to let by admirers of the 1940 Republican presi- I saw the church sitting under a distant cumu- them pass on as a miscarriage, dential nominee. During World War II, lus cloud of overwhelming magnificence – a but California laws required that President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed mighty towering cauliflower head crowned and doctors attempt resuscitation. Willkie a special envoy and sent him around studded with white, ivory and golden botryoids, the world to visit America’s allies. Willkie the peaks rouged here and there by the rays of a Weighing a pound each at birth, then wrote a best-selling book, One World, sinking sun. The trunk of the cloud shaded to blues her daughter, Ellie, died four days later, but whose goal is still far away. and purples out of the night that was advancing her son, Evan, lived for eight years with severe One of the benefits of teaching at USC over the plains to the east. This apocalyptic mass developmental difficulties. During that time, was the opportunity it gave me and my wife, sat, excessively and redundantly, on top of the Forman, a USC College lecturer, was her Nancy, to get to know Corwin, joining an most grandiloquent cathedral in the world, itself son’s advocate. army of friends he has accumulated, starting an architectural curiosity. I have seen some great shortly after his birth in Boston in 1910. skies in my years of looking up and down at Hidden Talent: The Emergence Corwin, confined to a wheelchair, could clouds, but there never had been one to match that of Hollywood Agents not be heard at first. Instead, his words were vision of tufts and battlements, that nest of hail by Tom Kemper delivered to the crowd by Michael C. Keith and thunder, rising above the vari-colored, University of California Press, $21.95 who, with Mary Ann Watson – both profes- spiraling domes and cupolas built for a mad Katharine Hepburn, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall sors of broadcasting history – had brought emperor. – behind each of these stars was the long-forgotten journal to publication. a hidden force: the talent agent. In After a while, bookstore personnel located Afterward, we wanted Corwin to auto- this first-ever history of Hollywood a microphone and Corwin took over. graph the book. The crowd was dense with agents, USC School of Cinematic His voice, while soft, is as clear and as others bent on the same mission. But I still Arts’ Tom Kemper mines agency sharp as his mind and wit. He took note of had enough of a reporter’s skill – and rude- writers in the audience, and was pleased to ness – to push my way through. archives to present an insider’s acknowledge the presence of another Los He wrote: “For Bill and Nancy. The view on their tooth-and-claw rise Angeles literary treasure, Ray Bradbury, best. Norman Corwin.” His small, careful to power during the studio era. It’s who was also in a wheelchair and made his printing was similar to the neat cursive with a tale of ambitious characters, savvy calcula- way through the crowd to greet Corwin, pro- which he wrote the journal. Brief handwrit- tions, muckraking, financial ruin and ultimate viding a wonderful moment in Los Angeles ten excerpts begin each chapter. triumph, and establishes the agent’s central literary history. Reading from the book “There was quite a throng to see us off,” role in the Hollywood business world. l were Corwin’s friends Eva Marie Saint, the he wrote as the journey began. There was great actress, and her husband, the direc- quite a throng to see his book off, too. tanner

tor Jeff Hayden. This selection about St. – Bill Boyarsky (courtesy of laobserved.com) mar k

Faculty books can be purchased at Trojan Bookstore. by Call (213) 740-9030 or visit www.uscbookstore.com ph o t

16 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 a shame not to take advantage of this stuff.” Arts & Culture Many of the films and filmmakers didn’t fit with Maltin’s course schedule. So, Ago decided to book them anyway, as a public service to the USC community. His efforts mean that USC students no longer have to trek to the Westside or Hol- lywood, where L.A.’s major art houses are located, to see first-run documentaries, for- eign films and indie projects. “In fact, a lot of this screening series came from the fact that I don’t like to drive to West Hollywood to go to the Sunset 5, but I still want to see these movies,” says Ago. “And it’s so hard to keep track of when they’re coming out, how long they’ll be in theatres – it’s just ridiculous how limited the releases are – and what theatres they’ll be playing in. I wanted to remove all the guesswork and all the travel involved with getting to see these wonderful movies.” Recent screenings have included Lee Daniels’ Precious, a double-prizewinner at Sundance; Spanish auteur Pedro Almodó- var’s Broken Embraces, Chinese director John Woo’s Red Cliff, and Italian filmmaker Art Films? We Got ‘Em Giuseppe Tornatore’s Baaria. Outside the Box Office is only possible Alex Ago fills the screens at Cinematic Arts with new because of the new SCA complex, which releases each week, all free and open to the public. boasts three theatres: the 200-seat Ray Stark Family Theatre which is “35mm capable,” a 106-seat theatre unpretentiously known as Drowning in a sea of suburban mega- screened before they open commercially, “Room 112” and a 70-seat theatre that goes plexes teeming with Hollywood block- and I have limited space.” by “Room 110.” busters, where’s an esoteric film buff to Ago got the idea for the series while The beauty of the series is that it is cost- go for succor? For the past year or so, the booking screenings for film critic Leonard neutral. answer – at least among cineastes in and Maltin’s popular “Theatrical Film Sympo- “It doesn’t cost me anything to run these around downtown L.A. – has been USC. sium” class, which spotlights a new release films, because they’re promotional screen- More specifically, the School of Cinematic each week. ings or sneak previews that the studios and Arts, where a new film series has, in effect, “I’d been getting all sorts of interesting distributors give to us for free,” he explains. turned the three theatres of the brand film screening invitations from the distribu- Ago doesn’t even require the services of a spanking-new George Lucas Building into tors I work with,” says Ago, who is himself projectionist. “I started this as something the city center’s premier art house. an ardent film lover. “And I thought it was I could manage personally with my staff Since its debut in January, the Outside the Box Office series has given free sneak previews of more than 50 new releases in world cinema, documentary and indepen- [turnstile WOEs] Do We Need Museums? dent film, with one or more of the filmmakers usually in attendance. The series has Even before the financial crisis hit, top museum directors worldwide knew they were operating in a featured exotic fare from Canada, China, bubble that couldn’t last. “Everything just got out of control,” says Selma Holo, director of the Inter- France, Germany, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Palestine, the Philippines, Russia, national Museum Institute and the USC Fisher Museum of Art. “Exhibitions got more and more and Thailand and the United Kingdom, not to more expensive, and more and more people needed to come in order to justify the cost.” Holo and mention from all around the United States. The brainchild of SCA special events Mari-Tere Alvarez PhD ‘03 of the J. Paul Getty Museum co-edited a timely new book on the subject, coordinator Alex Ago, the screenings hap- Beyond the Turnstile: Making the Case for Museums and Sustainable Values (Altamira Books). “We pen Wednesday nights, and frequently on really searched for a common language that would allow museums to evaluate themselves,” says Fridays and Sundays, too. Sometimes Ago squeezes in a double feature in which, he Holo. “The resulting handbook allows museums to look into the future and try to figure out how they admits, the films can be extremely mis- can prove and make the case that they are indeed indispensible to society.” – Suzanne Wu berndt matched, “but there are so many wonder- mar k ful movies coming out, and they have to be by For more on this book of essays about the role of museums, visit http://tinyurl.com/y9a6l2y ph o t

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 17 and not have to overburden the rest of the maintains the Out of the Box Office Web site was the staging of excerpts from his large school by taking projectionists away from (cinema.usc.edu/outsidetheboxoffice) to body of work. Theatre professor Jack Rowe other things. The campus had an opportu- accurately reflect future engagements, and teamed with MFA acting students to pres- nity to benefit from something with just a he encourages cinema buffs to check it reg- ent three scenes from different plays. little extra effort on our parts.” ularly. He also sends out weekly “eblasts” In Naga Mandala (1993), based on a Publicizing the screenings isn’t easy, announcing upcoming screenings to a list folktale, a neglected wife succumbs to the however. Because release dates can change, of 10,000 film enthusiasts. To join the list, charms of a cobra, magically disguised as distributors usually only commit to a pre- send a request to [email protected] her husband. The scene that Rowe staged view on short notice. Ago scrupulously – Diane Krieger was from the play’s prologue, in which a storyteller spies on a gathering of gossiping flames. Yes, in Indian folklore, flames can talk. A quaint conceit would have it that drama king extinguished flames don’t die; they rekindle someplace else, to chatter the night away. Global Thespian In the scene from The Fire and the Rain (1999), a priest’s wife encounters her old Famed Indian playwright Girish Karnad sees his work lover, returned from the jungle after years staged by USC theatre students. of solitude vainly seeking enlightenment. The third scene, taken from The Dreams

Imagine setting out to be Shakespeare, Students Amin El Gamal and Lisa G. B. Shaw and Tom Stoppard all rolled Hori in Karnad’s Naga Mandala. into one. Immodest as it sounds, that’s the goal Girish Karnad has set himself. But Karnad – who was at USC in Octo- ber, thanks to the support of the Visions and Voices program – has something in common with the Bard: He is probably the greatest playwright in his language (Kan- nada) as well as a popular actor, a prolific screenwriter and a successful film director. (If Shakespeare were alive today, does any- one doubt he’d be making movies?) Indian theatre is a fledgling art form, virtually nonexistent before 1947, Karnad explained at a well-attended Bing Theatre event produced by the School of Theatre. “The last of the great Sanskrit plays was written in the 9th century,” he recounted. Then came a thousand-year hiatus. “Play- writing stopped in India. Until the 19th century, there are no plays in any language.” Under colonial rule, Indian playwriting revived, but being a purely profit-driven wrights – with Karnad at the forefront – has of Tipu Sultan (2000), re-imagines how the enterprise, “no good plays came out,” in taken upon itself the Herculean task of fill- East India Company – with an assist from Karnad’s judgment. “Really serious playing the vacuum. the future Duke of Wellington – plotted writing begins only after Independence.” Winner of his homeland’s highest cul- the death of the famous Tiger of Mysore, In the last 50 years, a generation of play- tural honors, Karnad, 71, draws on pri- an 18th-century warrior-prince. mary sources ranging from oral tradition to Why these three scenes? “I wanted to Hindu sacred texts to East India Company show that this is a writer who does not write archives. “I’m challenged to try all forms,” the same play again,” says Rowe, who col- he says, “because I’m creating an entirely laborated with Karnad in the selection of overheard ›› “Physically, new body, a new living tradition. This the scenes. The evening ended in a Q&A there is no such thing as is felt not only by me but by other play- led by USC theatre dean Madeline Puzo. a breaking curveball in wrights of my generation. That accounts for It was Puzo, incidentally, who commis- the variety of styles in which all of us write: sioned Karnad to write The Fire and the Rain baseball. A curveball pitch historical plays, musicals. There’s almost a for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. is mostly in the hitter’s desperate need to create a tradition for the Karnad answered a barrage of questions language.” (Languages, really. India offi- with characteristic wit. He ended by saying:

mind.” pr o ducti ns cially has 29 major ones, though hundreds “I’m overwhelmed. I thought this was just more are widely spoken.) going to be a small student exercise.”

The occasion for Karnad’s visit to USC – Diane Krieger ta k e o ne

– Zhong-Lin Lu of USC College in U.S. News & by World Report, on his animation of a curveball ph o t

18 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 BASEMENT BONANZA Now PLAYING

Dusty Old Dustbowler ›› Getting Tapped Tony-winning USC Annenberg’s Ed Cray helps in the re-issue of lost hoofer Savion Glover bangs up the Bovard stage with “Bare Soundz,” a tap recital without songs from folk musician and activist Woody Guthrie. musical accompaniment that the Washington Post calls “a remarkable explosion of steel on It sounded too good to be true. Pristine misspelling is deliberate.) But the value of wood.” Glover and two other dancers become metal 78-rpm masters of more than a hun- the recordings is their quality, Cray notes. the music, creating a hard-hitting concert of dred recordings made by folk musician “I had no idea how good they were,” he pure choreography. Tuesday, February 23, Woody Guthrie in the mid-1940s, including says. “This is Woody Guthrie as nobody 7:30 p.m. in Bovard Auditorium. a few songs that had never been released, has ever heard him before.” had been unearthed in cardboard barrels in Cray says the short-lived Asch and Harris ›› Fifth of July Where does idealism a basement in Brooklyn. partnership may have come about because lead? Lanford Wilson’s 1978 play follows a But it was true. The aluminum masters aluminum and shellac (both needed to cre- group of college activists finding their way in had belonged to Herbert Harris, who had ate recording masters) were scarce during the real world after the Vietnam War. Living briefly been a business partner of Moses World War II. “Asch had aluminum and Asch at Disc Records. When Asch and Harris had shellac,” Cray says. in his childhood home in Lebanon, Missouri, Harris parted company, Harris received Many of the recordings were made in is gay paraplegic veteran Ken Talley and approximately half of the masters Guthrie marathon sessions during April 1944, when his lover, Jed. Part of Wilson’s Talley Trilogy, recorded in April and May 1944. Guthrie was in between voyages in the Fifth of July reunites Ken with his sister, niece After Harris died, his wife took custody Merchant Marine. (He made three voy- and aunt over the long holiday weekend. of the barrels. When she died in 1999, they ages, including two in which his boat barely When longtime friend John arrives with his went to a neighbor, who opened them 60 survived sinking. Once, before leaving the heiress wife, easy camaraderie cracks under years after the music had been recorded. vessel, Guthrie gathered up all the guitars the strain of unspoken conflict. Fifth of July It turned out that the sound quality of the and fiddles he could find.) runs March 4 through 7 in Bing Theatre. discs was exceptional. For these sessions, Guthrie invited gui- “Wow, he’s here,” said Nora Guthrie, tarist and fellow Merchant Marine Cisco ›› Into the Woods Journey back to Woody’s daughter, when she heard them. Houston to accompany him, along with “once upon a time” with Stephen Sondheim’s She told The Boston Globe: “Truthfully, for blind harmonica player Sonny Terry. They irresistible Into the Woods, this year’s School years I never got why Woody himself was produced about 300 discs, including mul- such a popular performer. They’re good tiple takes of the same song. of Theatre spring musical. A baker and his songs, but on recordings his voice always The “box” for the CDs is a scaled-down wife – childless and unhappy – go in search sounded muffled. It’s like I’m able to hear version of a vintage suitcase. Inside is a rep- of the ingredients necessary to lift a witch’s it for the first time now, and it all makes lica of Guthrie’s business card (“Woody, Th’ curse: a cow, a red cape, a pair of golden sense to me.” Dustiest of Th’ Dustbowlers”), a 1947 book- slippers and some magic beans. Directed Once the contents of the barrels were ing notice that shows him being paid $15 to by John Rubinstein, the show is chock full inventoried in 2006 and the peerless sound play at a children’s party and a postcard he of hummable Broadway tunes, including restoration engineer Doug Pomeroy was wrote in 1951. “Children Will Listen.” Into the Woods runs consulted, a call went out to the USC – Allison Engel April 1 through 11 in Bing Theatre. Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism’s Ed Cray, whose 2004 book, ›› All About Wagner For its spring Ramblin’ Man, is the definitive Guthrie production, Thornton Opera presents Wagner’s biography. little-known comic opera, Das Liebesverbot Rounder Records, which wanted to release the best of the recordings, asked Cray to give (Ban on Love), based on Shakespeare’s his recommendations on songs to include Measure for Measure. A flop at its 1834 pre- and to write liner notes. The “notes,” miere, it only had its North American premiere which he wrote with Rounder co-founder last year at Glimmerglass Opera. While we’re Bill Nowlin, turned out to be a 14,000-word on the subject of Wagner, why not delve a booklet that is part of a 54-song, little deeper? L.A. Opera music director James four-CD boxed set titled My Conlon, who is in the midst of a two-year Dusty Road. Ring cycle at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Cray and Nowlin worked delivers a lecture probing the composer’s on the notes over a six-month notorious bigotry, racism and prejudice. Das period, during part of which Cray Liebesverbot runs April 21 through 25 at Bing continued his full teaching load. The set came out in late August. Theatre. James Conlon’s talk is Tuesday, April One gem among the previously 20, at 7 p.m., also at Bing Theatre. l tanner unreleased works is a humorous mar k song called “Bad Repetation.” (The For daily updates on USC events and other campus by happenings, visit www.usc.edu/calendar ph o t

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 19 of Aging. “Prospective moms should reduce Lab Work risk of influenza by vaccination.” The researchers found that men born in the first few months of 1919 – the second or third trimester during the height of the epi- The 1918 Flu Legacy demic – had a 23.1 percent greater chance of having heart disease after the age of 60 than Cardiovascular disease followed those exposed in utero the overall population. Heart disease is the to the H1N1 flu during last century’s pandemic. leading cause of death in the United States. For women, those born in the first few months of 1919 were not significantly more likely to have cardiovascular disease than their peers, pointing to possible gender differences in effects of flu exposure. But women born in the second quarter of 1919 – the first trimester during the height of the epidemic – were 17 percent more likely to have heart disease than the general population in later life, according to the study. In addition, the researchers examined height during World War II enrollment for 2.7 million men born between 1915 and 1922 and found that average height increased every successive year except for the period coinciding with fetal exposure to the flu pandemic. Men who were exposed to the H1N1 flu in the womb were slightly shorter on average than those born just a year later or a year before, according to the study. The researchers controlled for known season-of- birth effects and maternal malnutrition. “Prenatal exposure to even uncompli- cated maternal influenza can have lasting consequences later in life,” says Crimmins, professor of gerontology and sociology at People exposed to an H1N1 strain of mild “three-day fever” with full recovery. USC. “The lingering influences from the influenza A in utero were significantly more “[The] 1918 flu was far more lethal than 1918-19 influenza pandemic extend the likely to have cardiovascular disease later in any since. Nonetheless, there is particular hypothesized roles of inflammation and life, according to a new study published in concern for the current swine flu, which infections in cardiovascular disease from the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health seems to target pregnant women,” says our prior Science and PNAS articles to prena- and Disease. Finch, who is also the ARCO/William F. tal infection by influenza.” “Our point is that during pregnancy, even Kieschnick Professor in the Neurobiology – Suzanne Wu mild sickness from flu could affect development with longer consequences,” says senior author and University Professor Caleb Finch ) at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. [DOCTOR TALK] Translation Please

Finch, USC Davis School professor Eileen ngress o c

Crimmins, lead author Bhashkar Mazum- f

When doctors and patients do not speak the same language, care can be jeopardized. Now, USC o der (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago), computer scientists, communication specialists and health professionals hope to create a cheap

Douglas Almond (Columbia University) library ( n and Kyung Park (University of Chicago) and effective speech-to-speech medical translation system. Professor Shrikanth Narayanan, who o

looked at more than 100,000 individuals directs the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, llecti o c born around the time of the 1918 influenza pandemic in the United States. hopes to deliver a SpeechLinks prototype within the four-year window of a $2.2 million National mpany o After first appearing in the spring and all Science Foundation grant. Narayanan will collaborate with fellow engineering faculty member c o t but disappearing in the summer, the 1918 o ph

Panayiotis Georgiou, Margaret McLaughlin of the USC Annenberg School for Communication & pandemic “resurged to an unprecedentedly nal virulent October-December peak,” the Journalism and researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Success will require a system o nati

researchers write. The outbreak of H1N1 that can perceive and interpret not just words, but also cultural and non-verbal cues. – Eric Mankin f o subtype influenza A killed 0.6 percent of the urtesy

total population. Most people experienced o c

Read more about how translations will become bicultural at http://tinyurl.com/ycoovmw o t o ph

20 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 Inquiring MINDS

›› ROBO-FRIEND Emily Mower, a Ph.D. student at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, works with robots that navigate the complex terrain of human emotional and social interaction. Her most recent research paper addresses the difficulty of extracting meaningful conclusions from the exhaustive number of variables that can affect a subject’s emotional classification of audiovisual input. Robots can influence a person’s emotional responses, but Mower says they are not going to take over the world any time soon. “They still have trouble not walking into walls.”

›› PROTEIN PIECES Computational bio- chemist Frank Alber compares determining the architecture of a macromolecular machine to solving a jigsaw puzzle. “There are millions of ways to combine the pieces, but there is only one solution,” says Alber, of USC College. DRUG DETECTIVES Replace each puzzle piece with proteins and you have the rough idea behind Alber’s Leukemia Puzzle approach to understanding the building blocks Keck scientists make progress on discovering why in a living cell. He will get closer to solving the puzzle now that he has been named a 2009 chronic myeloid leukemia cells become drug-resistant. Pew Scholar in the biomedical sciences, which comes with a $240,000 award. Researchers at the Keck School of Medi- Müschen said. “Now that we know at least cine of USC and the National Institute of one mechanism, we can work to develop ›› SMOKE NOW, PAY LATER Research- Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin therapies to counter the effects of activa- ers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC Diseases have discovered high concentration-induced cytidine deaminase in the have found that the lifelong effects of mater- tions of a specific mutator protein in cells chronic phase of the disease.” nal smoking during pregnancy may occur that develop resistance to drug treatment in Every year, 4,500 people are diagnosed through specific changes in DNA patterns. The chronic myeloid leukemia. with chronic myeloid leukemia in the scientists found that children exposed in the The finding helps explain why chronic United States; nearly 25,000 have the dis- womb to maternal smoking had differences in myeloid leukemia cells become drug-resis- ease today. Chronic myeloid leukemia is a DNA methylation, an epigenetic mechanism in tant and may lead to the development of slowly progressing cancer that usually occurs which small chemical compounds are added therapies that improve survival in patients. during or after middle age and rarely occurs to DNA. “This research could be important in Researchers led by Markus Müschen, in children. Patients with the disease have director of the leukemia and lymphoma an unusually high number of hematopoietic understanding how what happens in utero is program at the USC Norris Comprehensive stem cells (blood cell progenitors) that were tied to health outcomes later in life,” says one Cancer Center, found that the protein, acti- slated to become immune system cells but of the lead authors, Carrie Breton. vation-induced cytidine deaminase, which instead develop into cancerous cells that normally mutates antibody genes in B cells, damage the bone marrow and blood. ›› TONGUE-TIED How the tongue develops triggers resistance to Gleevec, the standard Gleevec increases overall survival for largely remains a mystery, according to Yang treatment for patients with chronic myeloid chronic myeloid leukemia patients to 95 per- Chai, director of the USC School of Dentistry leukemia. Chronic myeloid leukemia cells cent over a five-year period. When patients Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology. The often develop resistance to Gleevec, limit- develop resistance to the drug, they quickly National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial ing treatment options for many patients liv- transition from the chronic phase of chronic Research has awarded Chai $2 million to study ing with the illness. myeloid leukemia to a condition called blast the process. Research indicates that cells of The multi-investigator study, which fea- crisis progression, or fatal B lymphoid blast the cranial neural crest contribute to connec- tures major contributions from USC faculty crisis, with an average survival range of less tive tissue that serves as attachment sites for colleagues Michael Lieber, John Groffen, than seven months. Yong-mi Kim and Nora Heisterkamp, was The ongoing project is supported by two muscles, while cells from occipital somites published in Cancer Cell. research grants from the National Institutes become tongue muscle tissue. l michael k lein

by “Before this, we did not know why some of Health. patients developed resistance to Gleevec,” – Leslie Ridgeway To find more articles on USC research advances, visit http://uscnews.usc.edu/science_technology illustrati o n

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 21 unwavering determination to right wrongs, People Watch a very big heart and a fierce intelligence.” About his role as board chairman for the LA Phil, it is not exaggerating to say that Bohnett is shaping a new era for classical and contemporary music in Los Angeles. Being involved in the recruiting and hiring of Dudamel, who has energized the city and the global music world, is one thing. But helping create a network of youth orchestras mod- eled on El Sistema, the Venezuelan music education system from which Dudamel emerged, has the potential for extraordinary social and cultural change in the city. Bohnett has been an enthusiastic backer of new youth orchestras in the city. The first group of 102 youngsters played at the Hol- lywood Bowl. Younger, “feeder” orchestras are in the works. “Dudamel has said that the orchestra is a perfect metaphor for a community, and I agree,” says Bohnett. Recently, Bohnett returned to the USC Marshall School of Business to speak to Adlai Wertman’s class on social entrepreneurship. Wertman said: “David’s message was loud and clear – use your education, experience and resources to attack injustices.” Orchestrating Change Bohnett grew up in a socially active family in Hinsdale, Ill. When he moved to David Bohnett’s social activism is legendary, including California after grad school in Michigan, he his support of new youth orchestras in Los Angeles. helped found the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation chapter here and wit- nessed firsthand how education and aware- When incoming LA Phil music director nett Foundation funds social activism by ness can change public attitudes. Gustavo Dudamel conducted his ground- supporting LGBT programs, voting rights, “It’s important to know we all have a breaking first concert at the Hollywood handgun safety, animal rights, arts and voice,” he says. Whether through music, Bowl in September, David Bohnett ’78, education programs. social issues, preservation or entrepreneur- new chair of the LA Phil board, experi- Bohnett, who is low-key and person- ship, Bohnett, in his quiet but determined enced a welter of emotions. able, does not come across as the major way, is making himself heard. He was thrilled at the overflow audience player he is in Southern California. – Allison Engel of all ages and ethnicities – many of them “Don’t let the unassuming demeanor first-time Philharmonic attendees. fool you,” stated a 2009 profile in the He was moved by “Ode to Joy” played Los Angeles Times Magazine. “He has an by the young musicians of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles – a project dear to his heart. And he felt a pang of nostalgia, remembering how he came to USC at the age of [shirtmaker] Prez Praise h o use 18 with two suitcases and not knowing a

soul. A music lover, he used to go to Holly- When 17-year-old Kalief Rollins of Carson, white wood Bowl concerts regularly – sometimes Calif., met President Barack Obama on Oct. 19,

by himself – sitting on the back benches s o u z a / the because that was all he could afford. he gave the president a custom-made “Caution: pete

But that was before this business admin- Educated African-American Male” T-shirt. The by istration major who was fascinated by computers graduated and went on to found the shirt was the embodiment of Rollins’ labors as the head of his own clothing business – a business ph o t pioneering Internet portal and social media that won him the top $10,000 prize in the 2009 Oppenheimer Funds/Network for Teaching Entrepre- site GeoCities.com. It was before he started neurship Challenge. Rollins, who beat out 24,000 entrants, fine-tuned his plan and presentation skills the private equity firm Baroda Ventures and became CEO of OVGuide.com, the world’s in USC Marshall School of Business professor Bill Crookston’s summer seminar for high school stu- channing /o bama

most comprehensive video search site. And dents. Jackie Garcia, another seminar participant, advanced to the semifinals. – Anne Bergman philip it was before he became an influential phi- by

lanthropist whose 10-year-old David Boh- ph o t Read more about Rollins’ and Garcia’s projects at http://tinyurl.com/yj5bwkc b o hnett

22 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 A Conversation with David St. John David St. John, who has taught poetry, literature and film classes at USC College for 22 years, is on a creative tear. In 2009, W. W. Norton published an anthology of new poetry he edited with Cole Swensen, American Hybrid, to rave reviews. The ninth collection of his own poetry, The Face: A Novella in Verse, recently has been set to music by USC Thornton Hybrid Poet School of Music composer Donald Crockett for a professional chamber opera. St. John also Writing the libretto for a team-teaches an extraordinary interdisciplinary class, “Writer and Composer,” that brings chamber opera is but the graduate poetry and music-composition students together to create sophisticated, contemporary pieces. He spoke with USC Trojan Family Magazine’s Allison Engel. latest surprise from this Your anthology identifies poets who do not neatly fall into the experimental or honored poet who defies conventional categories. Why categorize at all? It’s been the fashion of criticism in this facile categories. country to want to categorize poets, and my co-editor writes about this scholarly preoc- cupation in her section on “the war of the anthologies.” The truth is that most poets tire of these limiting definitions pretty quickly.

Have critics pigeonholed you? They have seemed not to know where to put me. My influences are so located in film and 20th-century cinema as well as really old-line 19th- century French symbolist poetry that I think I’ve always been somewhat of an anachronism.

In the poetry world, is it usually every man or woman for him or herself? I feel really fortunate that when I was a young poet, I had Philip Levine and Donald Justice, Charles Wright and Norman Dubie, as well as Galway Kinnell and Adrienne Rich in my corner. My first book was taken by Houghton Mifflin because Galway Kinnell sent my poems to his editor. And he did it without telling me. It was a simple act of generosity.

How did you meet Kinnell? I was 19 years old. Kinnell came to Cal State Fresno where Philip Levine taught. I was lucky because all of the great poets in America at that time came through Fresno to read because they wanted to visit with Levine. By the time I was 20, I had met W. S. Merwin and all the poets I mentioned earlier except for Dubie. It changed my life. Here were these men and women whom I admired more than any adults I had ever met. It made being a poet a very reasonable goal.

This spring will be your fourth “Poet and Composer” class. How has it evolved? We now have a class of singers attached to the class, which means we can workshop the compositions and pieces as we go along. A number of the compositions have gone on to be performed outside class – one at Carnegie Hall. Also, the collaborations of the poets and composers have gone on in several cases for years. This is the best example of an “across- the-college” course that I have seen in any university, in terms of fulfillment of its potential.

How did the class come about? [Composition professor] Frank Ticheli asked if I would be interested in teaching with him. What he did not know is that I had tried to make this class happen about 13 years before. But times have changed and it has grown into the most fun teaching I’ve ever done. What Frank Ticheli has been able to do in bringing to the poets a complex understanding of how to write for music has been nothing short of breathtaking.

Did the course lead to your collaboration with Donald Crockett? It did. I first met Don when he came to talk to the class about his setting of Michael Ondaatje’s poem The Cinnamon Peeler. Then Don asked if he could set two of my poems and I said, “Of course.” About three years ago he said, “Let’s do a chamber opera together.” And so I wrote the libretto, and Don got a Guggenheim to write the opera. He’s lined up the most famous conductor of new music, Gilbert Rose. Paul Desveaux, who directed Philip Glass’s Les Enfants Terribles, is the director.

That one course has sparked quite the chain reaction. I’m consistently stunned and thrilled by the quality of work done in the class. It’s fostered not only these valuable student relationships that have gone on and out into the world, but also these faculty relationships. l channing Classes like this should be the norm, not the exception. philip by To read about the opera collaboration between St. John and Donald Crockett, visit http://tinyurl.com/yavnqad ph o t

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 23 Undaunted by the recession, hard-working entrepreneurs in their early 20s are pouring out of USC’s Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies – and launching imaginative new businesses. Masters of theırown Universe Photographs by Mark Berndt

By Starshine Roshell

Widely recognized among the nation’s best programs in entrepreneurship, the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies is one of the prized programs in the USC Marshall School of Business. Each year, it turns students’ big ideas into big plans of action, sending students out into the workforce to launch their own carefully mapped and creatively conceived ventures. In a tough economy, that also requires having the skills and resources to create their own jobs. According to the Kauffman Foundation’s annual Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, the recession is actually spurring entrepreneurship; Americans started more businesses last year than in the year prior. The Greif Center has established itself as a leading program by doing things differently. It offers entrepreneurship as a major concentration similar to marketing, management or finance. With both graduate and undergraduate programs, the dedicated faculty – nearly all of whom are veteran entrepreneurs themselves – use innovative coursework to help students develop

24 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 If you’ve ever had an 8 o’clock class, you know that college students have a tempestu- ous relationship with alarm clocks. But 2009 Marshall grad Jonathon Nostrant turned the beeping appliance into a booming business. He founded Moshi Lifestyle, a company that makes voice-activated alarm clocks. In response to commands uttered from bed or across the room, the Moshi clock calls out the time, date and temperature, sets an alarm, turns on a night light, and lulls users to sleep with rainforest sounds. In its first year, the company did more than $2 million in sales to retailers including Bed, Bath & Beyond and Brookstone. Nostrant and his clock won first place in the undergraduate category of the Greif Center’s 2009 New Venture competition, an honor that proved to him “that hard work really pays off.” And Nostrant has never shied away from hard work. The son of a San Fernando Valley entrepreneur, Nostrant launched his first business when he was 12. “I started a DJ company called DJs at Your Door,” he says. “We provided dancers, emcees and DJs for bar mitzvahs and birthdays.” He always knew that one day he’d trade dance floors for circuit boards, as electronics and computers have been lifelong passions. While visiting China as a junior at USC, he learned about new voice-recognition technology that enables electronic devices to respond to verbal commands. “It’s going to be the future,” says Nostrant, who envisioned not only an alarm clock that could be controlled without pushing buttons, but also a series of products based around this core technology. And the name Moshi? It’s a word used when answering the phone in Japan. “It’s just a fun name,” Nostrant says. “Moshi moshi!” Back on campus, he applied his Greif coursework to his new idea, testing its feasibility, creating a business plan, brand and sample product, and marketing it. Next up for Moshi Lifestyle are more voice- recognition gadgets from radios to iPhone docking stations. “Basically,” Nostrant quips, “we’re taking over the nightstand.” www.moshilifestyle.com

Jonathon Nostrant [Partner, Moshi Lifestyle, developed a voice-activated alarm clock, 22] “Entrepreneurs are alchemists,”banker Lloyd Greif once said. “They add value to existence – turning iron into gold – through strength of will, intelligence and a determination to succeed.”

the skills and mindset to manage new business ventures. BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report have called the center one of the nation’s best entrepreneurial programs, and both the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine have ranked the program no. 1 in the country based on course offerings, opportunities to learn outside of the classroom, and number of former students and professors who have started businesses. Indeed, Chris DeWolfe and Josh Berman of MySpace are Greif graduates (both MBA ’97); Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea ’71 is an adjunct faculty member. USC has been offering a series of entrepreneurial courses since 1971; it’s the oldest program of its kind in the United States. But it was in 1998 that investment banker Lloyd Greif, who graduated from the program with his MBA in 1979, donated $5 million to endow the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. At age 42, Greif was the first entrepreneur graduate in the country to endow an entrepreneur program, and his was the largest gift ever given to USC from a person in his 40s. The son of an Auschwitz survivor, Greif had worked full-time at a Ralphs grocery store while pursuing his undergraduate economics degree at UCLA and then his master’s at USC. He launched his business, an entrepreneur’s investment bank called Greif & Co., with the help of alumni connections through the Trojan network, and his gift was a way to show his gratitude to the university. “Entrepreneurs are alchemists,” he once said. “They add value to existence – turning iron into gold – through strength of will, intelligence and a determination to succeed.” The Greif Center program may be uniquely situated for success. “Southern California is a significant entrepreneurial breeding ground, more so than a lot of other places,” says center director Gene Miller, citing the area’s diverse industries, from entertainment and hospitality to biotechnology and electronics. Greif students are required to take advantage of their locale by leaving campus to meet and interview successful

Starshine Roshell is a syndicated columnist, author and journalism professor at Santa Barbara City College. Her stories have appeared in Westways, Santa Barbara and Miller-McCune magazines.

26 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 Nicole Vietor [Founder and president, Text-A-Listing, 24]

It’s a fact: The entrepreneur doesn’t fall to his disability, Nicole accompanied him. She they text the apartment manager. far from the tree. Many Greif Center graduates sat in on lectures, fascinated. In her first four months of operation, she grew up watching their own parents launch She enrolled as an undergraduate and soon was serving 20 large apartment complexes. Of companies. faced a small challenge of her own. “Trying course, there were some hurdles. But Nicole Vietor ’08 didn’t just watch her to rent an apartment, there are so many ‘For “It would be nice if my cash flow was what I dad run a business; she saw him attend and Rent’ signs,” she says. “You call them and predicted it would be,” she says, laughing. “And graduate from Greif while she was in high leave messages. By the time an owner calls I didn’t predict all the technological delays.” school. Now she runs her own successful busi- back, you’re like, ‘Which apartment are you?’ “ When stuck, she thinks about her primary ness and credits Dad’s unwavering support – Nicole solved the problem with a busi- investor: her dad, who’s walking now, though and indomitable spirit – for getting her there. ness venture: a text-messaging system that doctors said he never would. “He’s taught me A single father, Richard Vietor MBA ’03 puts apartment managers in instant touch to overcome adversity,” she says. (shown above) was enrolled at USC when, with potential renters. Text-A-Listing assigns Winner of USC’s 2008 Marcia Israel Most midway through his studies, he broke his neck a 6-digit “smart code” to each rental unit. Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award, in a diving accident. Paralyzed from the neck Prospective renters see the number on a Nicole often returns to campus to share her down, he returned to school in a wheelchair. rental sign and send a text, getting an imme- experiences with current Greif students. It As part of the program, he traveled to Mexico diate return message any time of day with reminds her how far she’s come. and Cuba to study international business. Due detailed apartment information. If interested, www.Textalisting.com “Feasibility is the missing link between ‘I have an idea’ and ‘I have a business plan,’ ” professor Patrick Henry says. “It allows students to work through a highly structured evaluation of the venture potential of each idea, to make refinements and fixes to enhance the viability.”

entrepreneurs. Students also are teamed up with established companies to help solve real business problems. “The exercises are designed to force you to get out,” Miller says. “You think this category is your customer? Go talk to some of them. Talking to 25 potential customers gives you a wealth of information.” More than 1,000 students are typically enrolled in the program, which welcomes both business majors and students Davidfrom other disciplinesJohnson who declare a minor in entrepreneurship.[CEO, “We haveFireman’s had students Brew, from 25] virtually every school at USC, from engineering to music to film,” says professor Patrick Henry, who coordinates the undergraduate program. many students dream of launching their own businesses, but some hope to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the corporate world, finding new ways to solve industrial problems. The center offers courses in management, growth and investing, but what sets it apart from other programs are two classes in particular. One is “Feasibility.” “It’s the missing link between ‘I have an idea’ and ‘I have a business plan,’ ” Henry says. “It allows students to work through a highly structured evaluation of the venture potential of each idea, to make refinements and fixes to enhance the viability.” The second is the “Business Plan” class. Whereas other schools treat the plan as a document, Greif students learn to view it as a “to-do list”; the focus isn’t on writing the plan, but on executing it. “What we’re trying to accomplish is envisioning the business,” Miller says. “People often fail to set priorities. Rather than spending time, energy and resources getting ready to get started, they need to say what is the most important thing for me to do, like get sales, and then do what is necessary to make that happen as soon as possible.” Among the many Greif Center students who have taken these lessons to heart are the four young entrepreneurs pro- filed here: a technophile who’s making it easier to wake up in the morning, a woman who used text-messaging to solve an apartment-hunting hitch, the proud owner of downtown L.A.’s newest culinary hot spot and a man who turned a beer bottle label into a booming beverage business. l

If you have questions or comments on this article, please send them to [email protected].

28 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 It’s nearly noon and the line has already grew up in Santa Barbara. At age 5, he picked begun forming down the block. Businessmen, oranges from his grandparents’ ranch and police officers and hip young couples queue sold them on street corners and at farmers up in front of what looks like a warehouse on markets. “I’d make a couple hundred bucks in a nondescript Los Angeles street, waiting for a weekend,” he says. In high school, he rented the wide wooden door to slide open. out margarita machines to parties. But it was What draws them all here? The promise of a his water polo skills that earned him a spot at simple, savory lunch. USC, where he was also on the swim team. “All it is,” says restaurant co-owner Tyler Wilson spent four years at USC and took Wilson, “is sausages, Belgian-style fries and two years of classes at the Greif Center and the best beers in the world.” USC Marshall, but his GPA was shy of the cut- He is co-owner of downtown L.A.’s culinary off to be admitted as a business major. He left hot spot Wurstküche (pronounced, roughly, school to start his journey as an entrepreneur. verst-kookah). Open since November 2008, Wilson and his cousin Joseph Pitruzzelli the industrial-looking eatery serves classic came up with the idea of opening a sausage sausages like bratwurst, exotic ones like rattle- restaurant together. “Sausage stands tend to snake-and-rabbit and everything in between. be divey. It’s a street food,” Wilson says. “But It sells more than 800 sausages per day, we wondered, what if we were to brand it a and 70 kegs of premium Belgian and German little more upscale?” beer per week. Other offerings include more Their vision: high-quality food and stellar than a dozen specialty sodas flavored with service in a fun atmosphere. elderflower, cucumber and dandelion. The guys sampled 500 sausages, choosing The idea for the restaurant came to Wilson the tastiest links from suppliers all over the at USC, but he may have been destined to be country. One of their most popular is the duck- his own boss. His father, uncles, grandparents and-bacon sausage with jalapeño peppers. and great-grandparents were all in business But for some, the restaurant’s name can be for themselves. hard to swallow. Pitruzzelli bought a German “I never knew the culture of leaving for work dictionary from the USC Bookstore and played at 8 and being home at 5,” says Wilson, who with words until they settled on Wurstküche, which means “sausage kitchen.” “We didn’t know how to pronounce it,” Wilson says, chuckling. “We thought, ‘People will think we’re crazy, but they’ll have fun trying to say it. It’ll create a buzz.’ ” And judging by the crowds vying for space at the restaurant’s long butcher paper-covered tables, it did. The restaurateur and new father says he and Pitruzzelli already are looking for a location to open a second Wurstküche, perhaps on L.A.’s Westside. But not to worry: You won’t find the name popping up on every street corner. “We want to keep it unique,” Wilson says, “and keep it cool.” www.wurstkucherestaurant.com

Tyler Wilson [Co-owner, Wurstküche restaurant, 23]

David Johnson [CEO, Fireman’s Brew, 25]

It was an idea sparked by a Glendale wild- Johnson knew from an early age that he taurants, Bristol Farms stores, Cost Plus World fire. On a break from battling the blaze, two wanted to run his own business. At Greif, he Market and Gelson’s and Whole Foods markets. firefighters talked about how nice a cold beer learned how. “Almost on a weekly basis, we The microbrew comes in three varieties: a would taste right then. They fantasized about had business owners coming into class. You Blonde lager, “Brewnette” dark and Redhead an ale brewed especially for firefighters and get inside the heads of people who have been Ale. Five percent of the company’s profits goes came up with a slogan: “Extinguish your thirst there and done it.” to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. ... Ignite the party.” After graduation, Johnson was approached Finding investment capital to expand has But fighting flames is one skill set, and by one of the two Los Angeles County fire- been hard in the current economy. There’s good launching a business is another. So they turned fighters who had dreamed up the brand, Rob news on other fronts, though. The micro-brewing to David Johnson, a 2006 Greif Center gradu- Nowaczyk, shown here at right. He and his industry is growing fast, and the Trojan network ate, who helped turn their good idea into a colleague were home-brewing the product. has introduced Johnson to several restaurant great product. Johnson set to work. He trademarked the owners who want to sell Fireman’s Brew. “They showed me a brown bottle with a name, had a logo designed, ran a market analy- But the best thing about selling beer for a label they’d printed off their computer and cut sis and learned how to turn small batches into living? out with scissors,” Johnson recalls, “and they a quality product that can be made in quantity. “It’s fun to walk into a bar and see your said, ‘This is Fireman’s Brew. Have at it.’ “ It worked. Six hundred cases of Fireman’s beer on tap there,” says Johnson. Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Brew are produced every month. It’s sold at res- www.FiremansBrew.com Transit Tales [ BY CARL MARZIALI ] Take a ride with USC Transportation, one of the best-kept secrets in mass transit. Larger than fleets at many other universities, it rivals some cities’ public transit systems. It might even make you pity those lone drivers far below your window seat.

illustratIONS by Tim Bower

Everyone has a story about driving in L.A., but the tale of the passenger goes largely untold. Especially the tale of the bus passenger, that creature on the lower rungs of Angeleno respectables. The starved genre of public transit narrative follows a formulaic opening: “I tried taking the bus to work once and ....” ››(Eye-roll and grimace follow.) That formula may never be overturned. But with Metro Rail growing and high- speed trains on the horizon, and with drought-afflicted Californians newly conscious of the possible side effects of carbon combustion, mass transit is climbing the status ladder. USC leads the wave of change with a big investment in what may be the nation’s best and greenest little university transit system. You may have taken USC Transportation buses only on game days. You may drive to campus every day. You may even detest the sight of the big USC commuter buses plying the 101 and 110 freeways between Union Station, the University Park campus (UPC) and the Health Sciences campus (HSC), their sides and windows wrapped with the pithy slogans of KUSC’s marketing campaign: “Less Shock, More Bach,” or “Less

32 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 33 Holler, More Mahler.” it would be a similar or shorter time to Caskey: “I have, unashamedly, come to But consider how long your commute drive, but it’s a lot less wear-and-tear on regularly having a full-on, head-nodding would take if, instead of looking down me and my car to take the train,” says power nap on the afternoon tram to at you from behind traveling billboards, Mark Thompson, a USC chemistry pro- Union Station,” says Caskey, calling it those thousands of passengers were in fessor and 14-year public transit rider. the favorite part of her periodic tram and thousands of vehicles all around you. He takes Metrolink from Fullerton Metrolink commute to Burbank. Showing Not that they are doing you a favor. and connects to the USC tram at Union that tram riding is not an ideological state- They like it this way. Station three to five times a week. ment, she also drives, especially when Ride the “trams” long enough, as I Connected wirelessly most of the way, assisting late-night film crews. have (five years and counting), and it’s Thompson is “either checking e-mail, Then there is extreme commuter clear that the number of regulars and editing a manuscript or, rarely, sleeping.” Leonid Didkovsky, a research scientist trams only grows. Sleep is not exactly a rare event for at USC College’s Space Sciences Center “The times of day that I commute, USC campus filming coordinator Erica and a believer that in transportation, as in physics, everything is relative. How else to tolerate a three-hour, one-way commute from Apple Valley that combines [ RIDING IN L.A. ] a drive to Rancho Cucamonga with a Metrolink ride to Union Station, topped off with a hop on the tram to campus? Green & Serene “Driving to USC is quite unusual for me, maybe two times a year,” states the Compared to lone drivers, tram regulars have earned the right to feel good about unflappable scientist. the carbon they’re saving. But there are other reasons to feel good about riding a Most tram riders have another big rea- ›› tram. For one, the driver’s addiction to control is surprisingly easy to break. It’s hard son to keep riding: the company. enough to fight one’s daily battles at work; why not let someone else fight traffic? Fight traffic long enough, and someone eventually will blow a horn at you. The ensuing “For me it’s a really good way of con- mix of emotions is never pleasant. USC Transportation trams sometimes get honked at, no necting with other people in the univer- matter how skillful their drivers. But when you’re floating above traffic in a 30,000-lb. bunker, sity,” says Pasadena’s Burt Jones, profes- a cranky driver’s horn sounds powerless, like the wail of a bully who’s dropped his ice cream. sor of research in the Sea Grant Program Lone drivers juggle all kinds of tasks: talking or texting on the phone, putting on makeup, in USC College. “I’ve met people in scarfing down breakfast, cutting people off – sometimes all at once. Most of those activities the university that otherwise I may have are prohibited or discouraged aboard the trams. That leaves conversation, reading, check- never met. ing e-mail and listening to music – all far less stressful. According to one veteran tram driver, “To me it makes the university much 80 percent of lone commuters are also absorbed in a task involving one’s pinky and certain more personal.” clogged passages. Such is the glamorous commute of the lone driver: consuming egregious amounts of crude while drilling for deposits of a different kind. It is a strange irony that even as USC has become more selective, even as it has become harder to get into the university, it has become so much easier to get to the university. Three years ago, a morning commuter could arrive at the transit plaza at Union Station – a major connecting point to Metrolink and Metro lines – and choose from 10 nonstop departures to the University Park campus before 9 a.m. Now it’s 16. Trams to the Health Sciences campus, between HSC and UPC, and around each campus also run more frequently than ever. For the record, USC remains committed to accommodating all commuters, regardless of how they get to campus. Proof? The university has added 2,300 parking spaces just in the last two years, for a total of 12,000 on UPC; another 825 were added on HSC, bringing that campus’s total to 4,100. The university also provides 21 employee vanpools servicing such far-flung locations as Laguna Hills, Palmdale and Moreno Valley.

34 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 But it would be hard to find another [ RIDING IN L.A. ] mass transit system that has responded as quickly and efficiently to exploding demand. USC Transportation now oper- The Swoop, Arm and Drift ates 182 daily weekday runs to or from Union Station and between the two main campuses. The fare? Zero. In addition, the 24-hour campus tram service covers six routes in and around UPC. A similar system on HSC shuttles patients and staff around the clinics and between campus and a Metro busway station. Regular shuttles serve satellite campuses downtown and in Marina del Rey. Last November, USC Transportation teamed with L.A. Live, downtown’s new entertainment hub, to provide free weekend shuttle service to and from USC. Departing every 30 minutes starting Friday, Saturday and Sunday after- noons, the university-operated shuttle makes the 2.5-mile run up Figueroa Street into the wee hours, with stops at the Staples Center and Nokia Theatre. USC also hosts the nation’s largest university-based fleet of hourly rental cars. For students who prefer not to walk at night, 26 Campus Cruiser vans (includ- Everything I know about driving in L.A., I learned from USC Transportation drivers. ing five fuel-saving hybrids) provide fast, Take the notorious but legal swoop: the practice of merging into a crowded lane at free and efficient point-to-point rides. ›› the last possible point, just before the dotted line turns solid. I learned the art of Compare that to a non-scientific sur- proper swooping from Tamara Stanton, a seven-year USC Transportation veteran and former vey of other universities. DASH driver. Traveling north up the feeder lanes of the 110 between Ninth and Third streets UCLA? Campus shuttles only. Caltech? (incidentally, a better bet during rush hour than the main lanes), Stanton consistently travels A single shuttle route between campus up the rightmost exit lanes, then merges left just before the end of the dotted line. and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, plus Time saved: a good minute or two. At Union Station, that can make all the difference. a promise of “one guaranteed ride home Now for some frank talk about the swoop. Few maneuvers incite more passion in rush hour every three months.” drivers, particularly those who merge early and sit stewing while swoopers glide past. The University of Washington: a brand Annoying, yes. But who forced you to merge early? new, $1 million Lamborghini research lab, Some drivers call it bad form to swoop. But could it be that behind that self-righteous anger lurks the fear of failure, the risk of shame and embarrassment at coming to a full stop next to but no mass transit except on game days. a wall of cars, the terror of flubbing the swoop? Berkeley, Chicago, Penn State? Rationalize it any way you wish. Stanton swoops. Smoothly. Imperiously. To the solid. Campus shuttles only. And when in the course of commuting events it becomes necessary for USC Transportation There are no free off-campus rides in trams to change lanes on a crowded freeway, drivers employ their pet strategies. Some slide Aggieland (Texas A&M), just “economi- open the window and wave an arm, giving their tram the look of a whale attempting flight. cal” shuttles. “Lucy,” Penn’s transit Everyone agrees that the typical driver on the freeway is absent to the point of coma. But if system, also charges. the flashing turn signals and flapping arms don’t do the trick, tram drivers get a driver’s atten- Need an after-dark courtesy shuttle at tion with the Drift: the gradual but unstoppable encroachment of their KUSC-painted side into Duke University? Be prepared to shell the next lane. out for “Charlene’s Safe Ride,” a private It takes one time on the receiving end of the Drift to learn that the experience of Mahler taxi service. crashing down on your head is best saved for the concert hall. Only Stanford has a comparable system, with nearly as many buses (23 to USC’s 24) and service to a Palo Alto train station (instead of the main downtown station served by USC). of buses in its ARTS system. Santa Clarita gas prices were high and getting higher, Few cities of around 40,000 (a rough Transit serves 175,000 residents with only politicians were starting to take global and generous estimate of USC’s week- twice the number of buses that USC has. warming seriously, and the USC tram day population) could rival the Trojan fleet was still burning diesel. transportation system. Pasadena, popula- When USC Transportation director Mazza’s first move was to change over tion around 150,000, has the same number Tony Mazza came to USC in fall 2006, to a biodiesel mix containing 20 percent

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 35 [ RIDING IN L.A. ] “To be honest, I wasn’t even that dialed in to propane being an alternative for us,” Mazza recalls. But at just one- Freeway or City Streets? third the cost of diesel, the fuel sold itself. By early 2008, Mazza and his team Heading out of Union Station on his way to the University Park campus, morning had decided to make the switch, and had tram manager Ronn Guier sizes up the 101 freeway in a couple of seconds. If it’s installed a large propane refueling tank ›› moving slower than he would like, Guier heads up Arcadia to the Broadway on-ramp right in the tram yard, just south of the – but not before picking out a vehicle on the freeway to track. And nearly every time the same vehicle is in his rear view mirror when he finally enters the freeway. “It may not save Parking Center. One of the new Union you any time going surface streets, but you’re moving,” Guier explains, making it clear that Station buses runs on propane, along the choice has as much to do with passenger management as with time. What driver enjoys with two smaller campus shuttles. the company of 60 antsy back-seat drivers as the tram sits in a traffic jam? Thanks, ironically, to the GM bank- James “Buddy” Barta, instantly recognizable for his Santa Claus beard, prefers to merge ruptcy, more are on the way. straight onto the 101 when he pulls out of Union Station on the 8:35 a.m. tram to UPC. But he Early in 2009, Mazza learned that has learned to stay out of the clogged rightmost lane. German Bolanos, a nine-year veteran of Chevrolet would close the only plant the route, relies on the drivers ahead of him for a traffic report on the 110 north. making large buses capable of propane “If co-workers call and say that the freeway is backed up, then we take the street.” He conversion. (Ford makes propane-convert- aims for a maximum 20-minute trip to Union Station on the 4:55 p.m. tram from campus. ible buses, but only in smaller sizes.) Tamara Stanton – who says of her route, “I love Union Station; that’s my favorite run” – For its Union Station run, USC opts for the 110 north nearly every time, even during afternoon rush hour. Transportation needs buses that seat “I just like staying on the freeway because it’s faster than the streets,” she states with at least 40. And, Mazza learned, “there calm certainty. If the debate could be settled, this wouldn’t be L.A. were only eight of these left at the deal- “We’ve never said, ‘This is the route you have to take,’” notes Guier. er.” Though the buses cost more than their diesel counterparts, Mazza arranged financing to buy all eight. It was the right thing to do, he believes. “If we didn’t get them, they would have been lost,” Mazza says. “So while it’s a little bit more expensive, I think it’s worthwhile overall.” After the retirement of eight old buses, half of USC Transportation’s fleet will run on alternative fuel: 11 propane buses and one compressed natural gas bus. Well over half of all passengers will ride on propane power, since the new buses are all for the busy Union Station route. Matthew Oden, USC’s sustainability program manager, applauds Mazza’s relentless move toward cleaner fuels. “Every time Tony makes a vehicle purchase, he thinks about the sustainability components; he’s on top of it,” Oden says.

Not everything about the trams is wonderful, of course. The older buses are rolling lessons in mathematics, such as the inverse recycled farm oil. Once that switch was natural gas station close to campus, but no relationship between the noise made complete in March 2007, Mazza started land was available. by an air conditioner and the amount of looking at even cleaner options. That left an underrated option: pro- cold air it actually puts out; the knowl- Gas-electric hybrid buses were prohibi- pane, better known as barbecue gas. edge of folding geometry required of tive at around $600,000 apiece. The clean- It has 10 to 15 percent lower carbon tall “standees”; and the tailbone hazard est fossil fuel – compressed natural gas dioxide emissions per mile than gasoline graph, in which the risk to one’s lower – seemed a great alternative, except that or diesel, produces almost none of the back increases with distance from the the closest refueling station was several fine particulate matter linked to asthma front of the bus (the blame falling more miles from campus, on Alameda in the and other respiratory illnesses, and emits on poorly maintained roads than on the downtown core. A company run by a USC far less carbon monoxide and acid rain- trams’ overtaxed shocks). alum would have been willing to build a causing nitrous oxides. Happily, the new airport-style buses

36 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 have no such issues. USC’s tram system dates back to the company and the City of Los Angeles, The music issues, however, are a con- mid 1970s, when it was under the univer- USC students can choose from 28 hourly stant. A few years back, in a classic case sity’s physical plant department. The rental cars parked on campus or in the of a few people spoiling it for everyone, transportation department took over the immediate neighborhood. It’s the larg- some drivers on the late-night Parking trams around 1990, recalls tram driver est campus-based fleet of Zipcars in the Center route overdid the volume on James Barta, a 22-year veteran of the sys- nation, according to Mazza, who helped certain hard-core stations. As a result, tem. The Union Station runs began in the negotiate the deal (along with another tram drivers are now asked to choose mid 1990s. deal allowing students to pay for Yellow from just four recommended options: In those early days, a busload was “10 or Cabs with discretionary cards). K-EARTH 101, “Smooth Jazz” The 12 people,” Barta remembers. Today, the Zipcar claims that each of its cars takes Wave 94.7, KJAZZ 88.1 and, of course, system serves almost 30,000 passengers in the place of 15 to 20 individually owned Classical KUSC. a typical month, including around 11,500 vehicles. USC’s Zipcars (which rent for as The first two hog most of the tram air- one-way trips to or from Union Station. little as $7 an hour, including gas) are in time, and they have their fans. The free Campus Cruiser taxi service, nearly constant use during daylight hours. But after the 101st hearing of the “Beat a student-run organization, handles At a City Hall news conference the Pump” game on K-EARTH, you too between 500 and 1,000 calls a night announcing the agreement last Septem may desire to beat the pump, literally. with 26 vehicles, 10 student supervisors, ber, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the On The Wave, you’re guaranteed to 120 student drivers and one manager time had come to retire that old myth hear the cowbells of the instrumental soft- who reports to USC Transportation. In about it being impossible “to get around jazz standard “Grazing in the Grass” at a 40-minute span on a warm Thursday L.A. without a car.” least once a week. If you found it boring night in October, work-study driver Though some might call the mayor’s to start with, wait until the 50th iteration. Robert Telles, a fifth-year senior at declaration premature, for the many And if Billy Paul “and Mrs. Jones have USC Annenberg, answered three calls Angelenos who live, study or work at a thing going on,” and if they’ve “gotta in a Saturn Vue hybrid SUV: Nicolette USC, the myth has already morphed be extra careful,” then why do we have to Ramirez and Yanelle Gavina, aerospace into urban legend. l hear about it almost every day? and creative writing majors, respectively, Help is on the way, and his name needed a ride from North University Disclaimer: No automobiles were harmed in is Derrick Filer. A former disc jockey Park to a friend’s house west of Vermont. the making of this feature. with the late R&B station KACE, Filer Undeclared freshman Daniel Lohrs turns the radio dial to KJAZZ on his first needed a lift to campus from his apart- Carl Marziali, director of research commu- “pull” and keeps it there for the duration. ment on West 37th Street. And Katie nications at USC, researched all commuting (His intercampus shuttle leaves UPC at Sharify, who lives in Annenberg House options before settling on a combination of 2:30 p.m., 3:45 p.m. and roughly every but keeps a car at the Parking Center, bike, Metro Gold Line and USC trams. He hour until 9 p.m.; it leaves HSC at 3 p.m., requested a ride from the garage. has been a happy USC Transportation cus- 4:20 p.m. and so on until around 8:30 p.m.) “Cruiser is a brilliant idea,” says Gavina, tomer for the past five years. “Radio was my first love,” he says, who happens to work for the service. listing jazzmen Wes Montgomery and So is Zipcar. Through an agreement If you have questions or comments on this Lee Morgan among his idols, and bass- with the Massachusetts-based car-sharing article, please send them to [email protected]. ists Marcus Miller and Stanley Clarke, pianist Bob James and guitarist Lee Ritenour among his current favorites. Trams in the Headlights Like all the drivers, Filer had plenty of experience driving buses before coming to USC Transportation. After KACE ›› Cost of a new propane-convertible bus $150,000 went belly up, he drove a school bus for ›› Weight of a 40-seat passenger bus 26,000 lbs. a private school in Santa Monica. That Combined city and highway mileage 6 to 8 miles per gallon job made him extra sensitive to safety, ›› which is why he makes a special plea to ›› Total miles driven per day by the fleet 1,068 USC students. ›› Cost of a single bus tire $200 “These kids really need to practice caution, especially on 34th Street,” he ›› Oil changes per year for a fleet of 24 buses 104 says, referring mainly to the cyclists and ›› Brake jobs per year for the fleet 225 skateboarders who weave in and out of ›› Percentage reduction in carbon monoxide emissions from diesel to propane buses Over 75% traffic. “They’re putting themselves in a dangerous situation.” ›› Percentage reduction in nitrous oxide emissions from diesel to propane buses Over 90% As for tram safety, Filer, Stanton and ›› Percentage reduction in fine particulate matter emissions from diesel to propane buses Nearly 100% other drivers hold to the same principle: ›› Air conditioner reliability on old buses Spotty patience before speed. “You gotta be a cool customer,” Filer ›› Air conditioner reliability on new buses “Aaah” says. ›› Public transportation passes subsidized by the university for faculty, staff and students 22,336 ›› Average number of persons in vehicle for USC commuters 1.7

Need a carpool partner? Check out http://zimride.usc.edu The

At Music Man Murray vintage vinyl store, Josh Kun inhales music history. Photographs by Mark Berndt. There are many original thinkers at USC, but nobody quite like Josh Kun. Witty and insightful, he’s the go-to scholar on popular music and the politics of cultural connections. Consummate Listener b y e l i z a b e t h s e g a l

Opening the front door of Music Man Murray, a legendary South Los Angeles shop stuffed with hard-to-find vinyl LPs, 45- and 78-rpm records, USC professor Josh Kun takes a deep breath of musty album covers, and smiles. “It’s heaven,” he announces. Kun, a scholar who takes popular music seriously, has spent a small lifetime here, enough to have a warm, kidding relationship with 87-year-old owner Murray Gershenz. True to form, the prolific Kun wrote the definitive profile on Gershenz, which ran a few years ago in Los Angeles magazine. He also thinks enough of Gershenz’s musical tastes that he frets about the future of the Music Man Murray collection, filled as it is with rare treasures. If only a foundation or institution would buy it and keep it intact, he says. Kun – an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication O& Journalism with a joint appointment in the USC College Department of American Studies and Ethnicity – knows a thing or two about how important vintage recordings are to academic research. He has spent years tracking down

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 39 old LPs with Jewish themes, combing through garage sales and the thousands of pieces of music he claims are housed in his eBay, and making pilgrimages to B’nai B’rith chapters and thrift garage (“Much to my wife’s chagrin,” he says, referring to stores in Boca Raton. These recordings, the majority of which Mexican-born musician Ceci Bastida.) He hesitates. “It’s gotta have not been digitized and are vulnerable to being lost forever, be a collection by Irving Fields called Bongos & Bagels from 1959. turned out to be motherlodes of cultural discoveries. Who knew I had already heard Mickey Katz, but when I heard Fields, a that these records helped keep Yiddish alive, how songs of the switch went on, and made me start to rethink Jewish culture and diaspora were adopted by the civil rights movement, and that start the research that would end up in our Jewish Vinyl book. It’s there was a fellowship of early Jewish female adults-only comics a record of Yiddish folk songs, done according to various Latin who owned their own comedy clubs? tempos – meringues, mambos, cha cha chas. At the time, I’d What began as a friendly contest with fellow music and pop been writing mostly about Latin music, and to hear that there culture aficionado Roger Bennett to see who could collect more was this Jewish guy rethinking Jewish tradition with contempo- kitschy albums deepened into real scholarship, and resulted in rary Latin dance styles stunned me.” a book the two authored in 2008, And You Shall Know Us by the Kun continues: “When I started digging, I found out that Fields Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have was a guy who performed in the Yiddish theatre in the 1920s and Loved and Lost. ’30s. He ended up on a cruise ship that went to Cuba and Puerto Aside from being a popular professor, Kun, 38, is considered Rico, and fell in love with Caribbean music. He came back to New a cutting-edge and intellectually fearless scholar, one whose York City to play this music, ended up being signed to the RCA work examines the music, sound and politics of cultures past Victor label, the Latin purple label, as ‘Campos el Pianista,’ which and in transit. is, literally, ‘Fields, the Piano Player.’ What was so critical to me Says University of Wisconsin School of Music professor Ron about this was that it wasn’t about just cashing in on a cultural Radano, with whom Kun co-edits the Refiguring American Music moment. It was all about cross-cultural relationships that weren’t book series for Duke University Press: “Josh has an uncanny tal- just happening in New York City but in Los Angeles, too – the ent for translating ideas – an ability to explain the deep complex- pachuco stuff on the east side – and it all later brought about Herb ity of music’s cultural power in ways that are at once accessible Alpert and the so-called ‘Tijuana Sound’ of the 1960s!” Music is an incredible passport. how to recover from a breakup, how not to recover from a breakup, you learn about politics,

and profound. But what makes it all work so well is that he’s responsible, thoughtful and funny.” A USC colleague, associate professor of communication and American studies and ethnicity Sarah Benet-Weiser, concurs. “More than any other scholar I know, Josh is truly, and passion- ately, interdisciplinary, and he is an amazingly gifted public intellectual. A year or so ago, he gave a lecture on the U.S.-Mexico “ border and anti-globalization for Zocalo [a public affairs forum in Los Angeles], and I was brought to tears by not only what he said, but also his clear conviction about his topic. He truly inspired me, and made me think in different ways.” Not surprisingly for this master of interdisciplinary thought, Kun also has a third university assignment – directing the Popular Music Project (www.usc.edu/pmp) at the USC Norman Lear Center.

un has a warm and charming manner, and a bit of a leg twitch that makes one wonder what songs he is channeling with his foot while trying to describe the music that has been his life. KAsk him a simple question – what is your favorite piece of music? – and you get a clue as to why he is so inspiring. When asked the question, Kun must mentally scan through

Elizabeth Segal lives in Los Angeles, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com and Seattle’s The Stranger Weekly. Her last piece for USC Trojan Family Magazine was on USC’s International Public Policy and Management Program.

40 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 Josh Kun The Consummate Listener

The anecdote is classic Kun: an off-the-cuff bundling of a the crowd,” says museum director Elsa Longhauser. “We powerful lyrical style and an impossibly wide range of interests invited Nimoy because he actually came up in the Yiddish the- into a thought-provoking narrative about arts and politics. atre, and knew all those songs that Kun wrote about. Josh played

Kun continues. “As a Jew, I knew that being brought up the music, Leonard sang along, then talked with Josh about Jewish meant certain kinds of things, and it didn’t mean mambo, the music. It was like ‘Name That Tune!’ He and Leonard had a nor funk, nor blues, nor hanging out with Latinos. Hearing this lovely, charming conversation. Josh really navigates the realms of music just ripped open this huge hole for me about our history, literature, music, popular arts and cultures with eloquence, grace, and I understood then that there were multiple histories of humor and authority.” Jewish-American culture that have been told in pop culture, but An exhibition that Kun and Bennett curated, Jews on Vinyl,

never in books. It’s a history that’s been waiting to be retold.” based on their book, has been at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco this past year and goes to the Skirball un is overflowing with histories waiting to be Cultural Center in Los Angeles from May 11 through Sept. 5. retold, using music as a travel guide. And he is working There is also Kun’s work with his record label. He got hard to get them all down. His 2006 book, so excited about the new/old history in recordings that in Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, won the American 2005, he formed a record label and digital archive with three KBook Award and received reviews fit for valentines. “This book is friends called the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation “ a guide to how scholarship will look in the future – the first fully (www.idelsohnsociety.com), a nonprofit that puts out about two realized product of a new generation of scholars thrown forth by reissues per year. The society has just received a grant from tumultuous social ferment and eager to talk about the world that the Righteous Persons Foundation to interview and document they see emerging around them,” wrote critic George Lipsitz. 15 Jewish-American musicians in their 80s and 90s. The musi- Jewish Vinyl has been a big hit beyond academia, particularly cians include cellist Fred Katz, who accompanied Harpo Marx among those with a love of the Yiddish arts. Kun presented the on piano in Marx Brothers films; folk singer Theodore Bikel; book last winter at the Santa Monica Museum of Art with actor, Korean-American singer and comedian Johnny Yune, who landed painter and philanthropist Leonard Nimoy and “really wowed a job in a kosher nightclub in New York City due to his fluent You learn about how to love, how not to love, you learn about sexuality, about crime and race. I mean, you learn about everything.

Murray Gershenz and Josh Kun are a mutual admiration society. Gershenz appreciates Kun’s eclectic tastes; Kun marvels at Gershenz’s filing system. Yiddish; Sol Zim, the flamboyant cantor who created cantorial And, of course, there is teaching. Kun teaches a seminar titled rock operas, and more. Says Kun sadly: “We lost two musicians “Music as Communication: Listening,” and it is a unique reflec- last year, so it’s fortuitous that we got this grant.” tion of his interests. Next up as part of the Idelsohn Society, Kun will compile a One recent class started off with rapper Jay-Z’s song “Empire musical anthology tentatively titled Go Down Moses: The Secret State of Mind,” his paen to New York City, blasting the room. Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, for which he has received It instantly shook awake any students who walked in feeling a $10,000 USC Casden Institute Faculty Research Grant. Says less than fully alive. Kun asked a pointedly un-academic query, Kun somberly: “Volumes have been written about this relation- “What does this music feel like?” The small class grappled with ship before, but usually it’s been tilted towards the Jewish inter- the words. “Soaring?” said one. “Inspiring!” said another. est in black culture; we’re going to do it the other way around, But that was just scratching the surface. The assignment that and include leading African-American jazz/blues/pop artists sing- was due in class had been to report on a soundscape around the ing material associated with Jews, like Cab Calloway singing in city of Los Angeles, and describe how it felt. Kun prodded his Yiddish, Lena Horne singing a civil rights song set to the tune students to think hard about the repercussions and the politics of ‘Hava Nagila,’ Johnny Mathis singing the Kol Nidre. We’re of what they’d heard. “Is it possible to hear the city as a whole?” trying to take seriously the complicated relationship between he asked provocatively, and then played the Kronos Quartet’s the two groups that has not always been a lovely one, has been version of “Cuatro Milpas” (“The Four Cornfields”), a classic marked by exploitation and anger and misunderstanding and Mexican song that incorporates Mexico City street organ grind- hostility, and yet has involved tremendous collaboration in music ers. “What can you hear here? And what can’t you?” and the arts and cross-racial identification in terms of civil rights A spirited discussion segued into issues of “masking,” wherein and freedom movements.” louder sounds drown out others. The professor queried: “How is Also on Kun’s schedule for 2010 are two books that he will it possible to capture the history of a certain moment, place and co-edit and a collection of his music journalism to be published people when you can only hear and record some of the sounds by Duke University Press. being made, while others are blocked out?” Given all this, Kun is a bit sheepish when he confesses to not The students blinked, their brains suddenly on overload. Working class rural music is the U.S.A. and in the world, yet it’s invisible. Artists and musicians are giving us a language

being able to play a note on any instrument, other than a bit of The professor eagerly led the now-rapt class into a discussion “Yellow Submarine” on the piano. But as a child, he learned a about a recreation of an Olde English song from 1611, through a very important skill – how to make a mean mix tape. “I didn’t brainstorm about the aural makeup and architecture of English want instruments. I didn’t want anything else if it was a gift or a villages, through a brainstorm about the sonic rules and mores birthday. It was ‘Music! Music! Music!’ I just wanted records, I of the English court (such as the protocols of speech before the just wanted cassettes. I didn’t want to go to concerts. A lot of it king or queen, the sound in the king’s rooms versus the sound in was in the ownership. It was like, ‘I can go home and I can listen the turrets), and then finished with stimulating food for thought “ to it a million times, and I can dub it, and chop it up. It’s mine!’ about the church bells of 19th-century France and how they were “It wasn’t about, ‘Oh, I want all this stuff so I can be king of powerful enough to invoke angels as well as revoke demons. the world.’ It was about, say, having a closet full of infinite masks, And then a note rang out. It was the bell, breaking up the class. like, how many different ways of being can I explore? Music is an Or, as the professor would posit, it was the bell that would also incredible passport that way. You learn about how to love, how serve to remind the students of the politics behind their place in not to love, how to recover from a breakup, how not to recover the educational rung, of their class and their race, of their age in from a breakup, you learn about politics, you learn about sexual- the spectrum of humankind, of their geographic location in the ity, about crime and race. I mean, you learn about everything.” city of Los Angeles at a school such as USC. Kun started weaving together sound and politics early in his n campus, Kun is active in Visions & Voices life, but first and foremost, it was about the music. “That was events, and in creating his own, from an evening with something I always knew, from very early on, that I wanted to Mexican pop icon Julieta Venegas, who sold out be around music,” he says. “I decided then to devote my life to Bovard Auditorium in record time, to a recent screen- being a fan. It was an arbitrary 10-year-old decision.” Oing of the documentary Tha Carter, about rapper Lil Wayne, He says: “My father was really into folk music. He was espe- which was followed by a discussion with film producer Quincy cially into the Weavers and Pete Seeger, which was my first real Jones III. As part of his Popular Music Project, he led a series of immersion into the power of music, the way folk used music as a “listening lunches” at USC Annenberg, which featured scholars social lens, as a social tool, as something that was not just fun and talking about their favorite songs and artists as well as lectures pleasurable, but also about community and about building com- from visiting scholars such as George Washington University’s munity, politics and international openness. The Weavers also Gayle Wald, who spoke about her recent biography of pioneer- sang in Hebrew, ‘Tzena, Tzena, Tzena,’ they sang in Spanish, ing gospel musician Sister Rosetta Tharpe. ‘Guantanamera.’ I was never taught to question the translations

42 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 Josh Kun The Consummate Listener

across national boundaries, or translations across languages. That’s television programs. what music does – it moves and it’s political if you want it to be.” Kun adds that, of late, his work in the classroom and with Kun is proud of his unusual musical education. “Growing up, the Popular Music Project has meant he must limit himself to

there was a used-record store near my house where I would ride writing two or three articles per year, which he does for national my bike. The guy who owned the shop there had promo copies publications. from the studios and the radio stations. He also had a listening station, and he’d say, ‘You haven’t heard that?’ Or I’d say, ‘I like un’s ties to Latin culture are especially strong, Tracy Chapman,’ and he’d say, ‘Well, then, you really have to lis- and he’s putting the finishing touches on a book ten to this!’ And he’d direct me to such and such a blues singer, titled The Ballad of Tijuana, which he describes as “a

or to Joan Armatrading. He gave me this incredibly educational musical history of border city Tijuana, Mexico, as a experience. And I never knew even his name. I was always just Kway of understanding California’s identity,” and a research proj- the kid he was kind to.” ect with the USC Norman Lear Center that will look at Mexican With his natural acoustic acumen, Kun very briefly contem- migrant music in Los Angeles. plated working in the recording industry. But he realized he “Working-class rural music is the most commercially popular couldn’t make the leap. He reminisces: “Growing up in Los Latin music in the U.S.A. and in the world, yet it’s invisible; no Angeles, and being around the music industry and Hollywood- one writes about it,” says Kun. “As we move toward 2040, when “ type stuff, I knew deep down that that wasn’t music, per se.” the majority of the United States’ population will be Latino and He continues: “I had a neighbor in the industry who had a huge Asian, we still only talk about this country in terms of African- record collection, and he let me come over during the day and American and European-American histories. Artists and musi- look at his records. I remember in junior high, I asked him for an cians are leading the way, giving us a language to think about the internship, and he said, ‘You love music too much to ever work new cultural frontier. I’m interested in keeping track of that.” in this business!’ I knew he was right, and on the day I graduated At an October lecture at the Los Angeles Institute for the from high school, during the moment when the valedictorian says Humanities, which is based at USC, Kun took the podium before who’s most likely to do this or that, they said I was most likely to an audience of cultural movers and shakers to delve deeper into most commercially popular Latin music in the to think about the new cultural frontier. I’m interested in keeping track of that.

be head of Capitol Records. And I thought, ‘They just don’t under- the issues of Mexican music as a discourse about globalization. stand me.’ ” He jokes good-naturedly, “I would never do that.” “It’s much more than what too many people might refer to as ‘gar- After attending Duke as an undergrad, he was accepted to UC dener’ music,” he told them. “There’s mariachi, banda, ranchera Berkeley’s ethnic studies program, where he earned his Ph.D. and more….” He referred to a young DJ on the scene named Juan “I would incorporate music into my papers. So I would learn Carlos Razo, who plays a wildly popular character named Don such and such theory and apply it to Jewish singer and humorist Cheto on the FM radio station 105.5. Cheto is an elderly country Mickey Katz (about whom Kun has written in his Jewish Vinyl bumpkin whom Kun adroitly linked to other elderly bumblers book as well as in a new introduction to Katz’s biography, Papa created by first-generation American comics from decades past. Play for Me), or use theories to talk about a rock band in Mexico “Migrant artists and fans are impacting the way that record City. Quite frankly, I feel very, very grateful to have had advisors labels and the music industry in general are thinking about their and employers over the years who let me do what I do, who were marketing practices,” he said. “Records are now coming out always encouraging me to put these things together, even if it strictly on mobile phones because migrant Mexicans are more didn’t quite fit with the curriculum.” prone to look to their phones than online for music.” During graduate school, Kun started working steadily as a Kun told the audience that drug ballads have become very journalist. For eight years, he wrote a biweekly music column, popular this year, although they’re banned from the radio in “Frequencies,” which was published in the San Francisco Bay Mexico. “Basically, Los Angeles is where they are remixing rural Guardian and the Boston Phoenix. Mexico right now. Mexican artists are signaling to what the artist Tommy Tompkins, the former arts editor at the Bay Guardian, Gary Garay calls ‘alla,’ an ‘over there’ that we cannot yet see.” insists that some days, he couldn’t believe his luck at being Kun’s Said Kun: “It also can be taken to mean hope for a better life, the editor. “I was getting paid to have conversations with this kid who ‘possible impossibility.’ ” was so full of ideas, knowledge and enthusiasm. As an editor, you The young professor drifted off, leaving his audience with new get jaded, but he was as singular as any writer I got to know and perspectives and thoughts teased out from precious sounds. As edit in my 20 years of doing so. I learned a lot from Josh.” Kun links organ grinders with the voices of the unheard and dis- Kun published copiously in the LA Weekly, the Village Voice, enfranchised, and finds common strains among far-flung cultures, SPIN and Rolling Stone magazines, and Mexico’s La Jornada he is rewriting our history from notes suspended in thin air. l and Proceso, as well as writing liner notes to CDs by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Maldita Vecindad, and Sammy Davis Jr., If you have questions or comments on this article, please send them to and appearing regularly as a cultural critic for national radio and [email protected].

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 43 Personalized medicine is the new standard at USC Norris Cancer Hospital by katie neith and sara reeve The Personal is Medical

racEE ManzanArEs had just turned 35 years old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2008. When her doctors at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital told her that the T cancer had already spread to several lymph nodes, she was prepared for the worst. But her doctors weren’t. “From the moment I came here to USC, my doctors put me through a treatment plan that was tailored to fit me,” says Manzanares, a hair stylist who lost her waist- length hair during her treatment. “I knew that they weren’t going to let me die at 35 – it wasn’t an option.” Based on a variety of factors, including the presence of genetic markers that pre- disposed her to a recurrence of cancer, Manzanares and her doctors embarked on an aggressive treatment plan of chemotherapy designed to give her the best chance of survival. That treatment was followed by a bilateral mastectomy and several reconstructive surgeries. “It was very important to me to reclaim my body,” says Manzanares. “I was 35, and I wanted to know I could get back into a bikini top or wear a sundress on vacation. And my doctors worked with me every step of the way to give me back my life.” The patient has long been at the center of care at USC Norris – not just in receiving a standardized treatment, but in participating in treatment plans and implementation. It is one of only a few facilities in Southern California built exclusively for cancer research and patient care. photo by Don Milici photo

44 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 rosy future Breast cancer survivor Tracee Manzanares visits with her surgeon, Dennis Holmes, during a breast cancer awareness event at USC Norris.

What is personalized medicine? take specific characteristics of their patients cer and molecular testing methods have In layman’s terms, personalized medicine into account, such as gender, age, weight allowed physicians to understand how a relates to the practice of providing individ- and environment. patient’s cancer likely will develop and how ualized treatment and medication options Personalized medicine has gained con- it will respond to treatment. to patients based on each patient’s genetic siderable attention and traction in the arena For Manzanares, personalized medicine makeup, medical history and lifestyle fac- of cancer treatment. It has long been a stan- meant that her doctors looked at how her tors. It builds on traditional approaches to dard practice to classify tumor stages and cancer affected her as an individual, rather disease management that emphasize the subtypes based on anatomic and pathologic than seeing her as a statistic. “Breast cancer application of standardized care based on findings, and to base the type of treatment meant something different to me, as a young the results achieved in large studies. Per- received on those findings. Advancements woman in my thirties, than it would to another sonalized medicine allows physicians to in the understanding of the genetics of can- woman in her sixties,” she says. “The doctors

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 45 46 USCTrojanFa mily magazine sonalized medicine by attracting several phy per in advances significant made has USC USC Norris the fureofpersonalizedmedi cine at and allofhersisters?” mother’s mother your mother’ssisters, your ily – not just with your mother or sisters, but cancer have occurred anywhere in your family,” says fam- your about ask to questions are there risk, your about doctor your with talking are thatcan affect treatment plans. information “When you with doctors and patients arm R for breast cancer patients and their families, anisms ofdrugaction. with ciated responses to chemotherapy, novel genes asso tified variations in genes thatcer research predictand treatment. patients’ can colorectal in advances groundbreaking that offer hopeforpatients. trials clinical pursuing and treatments ing tailor by medicine personalized of practice etta the of director R intestinal associate director of the at the Keck as in thefuture.” thatIcould live with, both immediately and treatment make decisions helped me here sel eivs ht hs nweg can knowledge this that believes ussell ussell, associate professor of medicine and A L Internationally renowned physicians such H strong advocate forgenetic counseling n ad i rsac ta hv made have research team his and enz C. einz- Lee Breast Russell. “How many cases of breast J O osef School of Medicine of clg Porm and Program,ncology ear n nvl mech novel and repair DNA L USC enz,professor ofmedicine Center, have pursued the arold E. and E. Harold USC They have iden Norris spring 2010 and USC and C Gastro Henri hristy - - - - avid B. David national president in 2004-05. the as served issues. access care health and care End and Incidence Cancer the of chairman clinical cancer care. S Sener. with patients nosed diag newly of care facilitate to and cancer screen general and high-risk populations for tidisciplinaryprograms that aredesigned to breast cancer clinical care, and develop mul research program that will be integrated with greater LosAngelescommunity. both on the main medical campus and in theat program care clinical and screening gical ber and serves as chief of the 85, 90percentandabove.” halfinchsmaller,or andthesurvival rateis one- is found cancer average the programs, screening aggressive “In says. he survive,” to are you likely more cancer, the the ler smal “The survival. cancer breast to comes S Keck the at surgery clinical of professor patient care. medicine a key priority in their research and sicianleadershavemadepersonalizedwho mittee was marked by progress in quality of of quality in progress by marked was mittee cancer breast the augment to hopescine, ho, nw ta sz mtes hn it when matters size that knowschool, ener knows a thing or two about improving s bign nw xets to expertise new bringing Also Recruited from “Iwant tostrengthen clinicala and basic Sener,joined who R enownedbreast surgeon ncology at the Keck the at Oncology gus, director of the of director Agus, part oftheteamthatbroughtbreastcancerdrugHerceptinintoclinicalcare. at USCNorrisComprehensiveCancerCenterandHospital; Debasish integration ofscreenings, researchandclinicalcareforbreastcancerpatients Westside ProstateCancerCenter; breastsurgeonStephenSenerplansfurther cancer American American Northwestern H USC physicians,” says says physicians,” USC is service as volunteer w arriors orris in Norris Cancer Cancer chool of Medi of School D S Results tephen ivision of of ivision USC From left: DavidB. University, Society’s Society’s Septem e also also He is is USC enter Center S Com , USC, ener, S ur ------for hog te s o poemc. Patients proteomics. of use the through treatingit by signaling toward go pathways, and part potentially body by cancer treating past get we’ll decade next the “Over Agus. theirgenetic coding otheror markers,” says analyze can’t presently which we ones don’t, respond half to and what respond based on chemotherapy, them give and cer half and to aspecificanti-cancertherapy. to predict which patients will likely respond and cellularchangesspecific cancer,arethat to molecular on focuses which therapy, pre-clinical studies and molecularly targeted technologyseeksintegrateto clinical trials, Center atedars-SinaiMedicalenter. the of tor direc research was and Proteomics Applied the of director therapy.” individualize to learn to need Wedoses. same the or drugs same the to responds isknowing howtouse them. though, problem, “The says. he good,” very they’re “Actually problem. the aren’t able way of treating cancer. ology, genetics and nanotechnology by genetic material), molecular expressed bi- for a new proteomics (which is the analysis of proteins horizon a more holistic model that harnesses Keckthe era. new a believesthat clinical cancer care is entering USC gus talks with a patient at the USC Agus talkswithapatientattheUSC “If we have 100 women with breast can breast with women 100 have we “If Agus and his team’s research in proteomic joining to Prior avail currently drugs the that says Agus A Westside Prostate pplied Molecular Medicine and of the ouis Warschaw Prostate Warschaw Louis S chool of Medicine, sees on theMedicine, onofseeschool gus, professor of medicine at at medicine of professor Agus, pielberg Family Spielberg USC C , ancer A T ripathy was ripathy was u sre as served gus N C oteveryone enter, who enter for for Center ancer Cancer

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agus photo by Mark Harmel, Sener photo by Geoff Johnson, tripathy photo by van urfalian deserve better than we are doing today.” For Debasish “Debu” Tripathy, professor of medicine, holder of the Priscilla and Art Ulene Chair in Women’s Cancer and head of the section on women’s cancers in the Department of Medicine at the Keck School, personalized care is a mission to which he has dedicated much of his career. Recruited in August from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dal- las, Tripathy is a physician-scientist whose work has changed the course of breast cancer treatment for many women. He was part of the original team that brought the now commonly used breast cancer drug Hercep- tin into clinical care, and continues to study tumor tracker Inderbir Gill is chair of the Catherine and growth factor receptors, important targets in Joseph Aresty Department of Urology and director of the breast and other cancers. USC Institute of Urology. Tripathy also co-leads the Women’s Can- cer Program at USC Norris. By utilizing the In addition to working toward better thera- cancer. Based on what type one has, we can excellent resources available at USC, he pies and tailored treatment plans, Tripathy is make a more precise determination about hopes to develop a nationally recognized interested in the patient perspective of the cancer invasiveness, and even predict the women’s cancer service that features a per- cancer experience and dissemination of infor- possibility of recurrence.” sonalized and patient-centered approach to mation. “I have a commitment to public out- Understanding the subtle molecular dif- care. Tripathy plans to increase the number reach and social responsibility that I hope is ferences between tumor subtypes can drasti- of treatment and clinical trial options for reflected in everything I do here,” he says. cally affect treatment recommendations and patients, as well as to develop clinical trials For Inderbir Gill, chair of the Catherine options. One area of cancer treatment that and research programs that match the needs and Joseph Aresty Department of Urology, is changing thanks to new research is treat- of patients and mesh with areas of scientific director of the USC Institute of Urology and ment of prostate cancer. The traditional sur- excellence at USC. associate dean for clinical innovation at the gical treatment of this cancer has been the “The technology explosion from genetics Keck School of Medicine, the wealth of new total removal of the prostate gland – most to cellular biology to population sciences has information about the nature of cancer has recently via robotic prostatectomy – which allowed us to understand the driving forces opened the door for advanced surgical and can lead to erectile and continence issues. behind cancer and the unique nature each medical treatment options. Gill, who joined Gill and his team of researchers are work- person’s tumor exhibits,” says Tripathy. “We USC in February 2009 after serving as chair- ing to devise a method for performing a also learn so much from interacting with our man of urology at the Cleveland Clinic, is “male lumpectomy,” a removal of the tumor patients and understanding their prefer- looking for new and less invasive methods that saves the rest of the prostate. “In the ences and values. By incorporating patient to effectively treat cancer. carefully selected patient, if we can save the feedback and clinical trial data into our “We used to think that if you had kidney prostate and just remove the cancer, the research, we can begin to start making link- cancer, you just had kidney cancer – that chances of having these undesirable side ages that may lead to new, highly individual- was it,” says Gill. “But now we know there effects will decrease dramatically, and that ized therapies.” are four or five different subtypes of kidney has a lot of appeal to patients,” he says. That appeal is evident in Gill’s ability to attract patients from all over the world – people who are looking for treatments that Resources at Patients’ Fingertips maximize survival while limiting impact on Personalized medicine is not only about doctors the center has live phone help with specialized lifestyle. “We make the treatment fit the working together. It is also about being an informed counselors, a patient navigation information system patient, and not the patient fit the treat- health care consumer. At USC Norris, the combined and trained volunteers to assist with access to ment,” Gill says. Patient Education and Outreach Center and Jennifer cancer-related resources. Tracee Manzanares believes that her sur- Diamond Cancer Resource Library offer a state- The library is named for Jennifer Diamond of Los vival is a testament to the commitment of of-the-art cancer resource facility where patients Angeles, who suffered from a rare form of appendix her doctors at USC Norris. “They treated and their families can be well versed in treatment cancer. During her treatment, she and her family me like a person, not a number,” she says. options, side effects and quality-of-life issues. found it extremely hard to access information about “They gave me the will to fight, and to The facility is devoted to patients, their families her disease. After Jennifer passed away at age 30, make choices that I could and do live with and community members seeking information her parents – Alice and Harvey Diamond – vowed today.” l about cancer. The facility features computers, refer- to help others by providing resources to cancer ence books, printers, DVDs and Internet access. In patients and their families. l For more information or an appointment, visit addition to manual and computerized information, www.DoctorsOfUSC.com. photo by philip channing photo

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 47 More of Trojans backtocampus. USC Alumni Association welcomesthreegenerations Reunion Weekend Triple Feature pages circa1959. of reproductions sized poster- with decorated was which Gown, & Town at luncheon elegant an attended 1959 ofClass themembers ofmately150 approxi House, Alumni Widney at buffet 25- a savored attendees young-alumni and year the While activities. social and tional educa cultural, of slate a enjoy to morning andLondon arrived oncampus late Friday alumni reunion. young all-new an for 1999-2009 of classes the and reunion; 25-year its for 1984 of Class the reunion;50-year its for 1959campus:Classof the alumnitoback Trojan of generations three of welcomed ties Family celebration year’s this ciation, 23-24. Sponsored by the USC Alumni Asso October 2009, Weekend Reunion during ones and renew support for their alma mater to USC to evoke fond memories, create new Trojans Zealand New as away far as from than 860 alumni news from Family Ties and friends returned front front Trojan Daily the usc alumni - - - sity’s dramaticchangesoverfivedecades. univer the charted who development, for president vice Surls, Courtney by sentation pre Now,”a and Then “USC with cluded con luncheon Alumni The Widney Fund. Legacy the House enhance as well as honor of the university’s in seventh Monument president, Commemorative Topping Norman the fund fully would program ing giv reunion generous their that classmates his informed Rosenzweig Barney chair acy leg class current and king yell former ance, appear celebrated Joan’s Dean Following Solum.campus,”accordingsteppedtoon who Schaefer, M. joined the university Joan in 1955 – women “the day we of dean USC former guest: special a introduced kicked off the reunion Solum festivities. Lockwood Alli They also and Fitz-Randolph Scott co-chairs Committee Reunion 50- Year Association, Alumni USC the of CEO An afternoon of walking tours of Greek Greek of tours walking of afternoon An After a warm welcome by Scott M. Mory, association ------ai MGah tu ece te rein per 50 drew which program, 25-year stated the emceed Stout and McGrath Eddy Marie E. Park co-chairs Committee Reunion ’84 party.of cocktail Class alumni 25-yearthereunionyoungthe dinnerand ematic arts complex for back-to-back for the 50-year cocktail party events:and to the cin the festivities shifted to the University Club morrow andintheFuture.” Today,“USC on report Toto up teamed – aid financial and admission of dean rington, planning academic and budget, and L. Katharine Har for president vice Garrett, beth Eliza – administrators USC senior two son, David- at Also trade. global of “greenness” the to music popular from rangingjects rent and emeriti USC faculty discussed sub Cur Center. Education Continuing vidson Da- at respectively, Education, Continuing USC Emeriti Center and the USC Office of the by sponsored presentations and lectures of series a preceded complex arts cinematic the and Library Memorial Doheny Row, case and an exterior lamppost for the soon- display a fund to efforts supporting but for also attending, for only not classmates his pre 2005 its decessor. than attendees more cent After a football pep rally at Heritage Hall, Class legacy leader Robert Vollmer thanked courtyard. arts cinematic the in event USC all-new the to alums recent 250 nearly welcomed ’05 Jr. L. Mann Harold and ’04 Garcia fanie Ste co-chairs alumni young ning, eve- that Later Center. Campus TutorN. Ronald completed to-be Seymour Canter’55, Cornelia Baer’59, trait arereunionorganizers(fromleft) Auerbach EdD’08. Jessica Kaplan’06and, in front, Patrick ’05, MarieStout’84, GigiJohnson’84, Eddy ’53, Park Eddy’84, HaroldMann Fitz-Randolph ’59, A Pictured inthiscross-generationalpor victory Trojan 42-36 nail-biting theAlumnito House, before the next Plaza, Argue in party tailgate a at spirit Trojan their onstrated dem attendees Weekend union be Somer ’59, Mary Coates ’59, Scott On Saturday, more than 600 Re Alli Solum’59, Janet ------

photo by Devin Begley

over Oregon State. “Reunion Weekend 2009, with its ex- Hassan, director of the newly created USC With Reunion Weekend attendance in- panded class outreach, represented a signifi- School of Social Work Center for Research creasing 83 percent over the previous year, cant step in our efforts to engage alumni from and Innovation on Veterans and Military and class legacy giving surpassing the different generations in meaningful univer- Families, who, as a retired Air Force officer, $100,000 mark for the second time in as sity experiences,” states senior director of offered a personal perspective on issues vet- many years, USC’s expanded reunion pro- alumni relations Patrick Auerbach EdD ’08. erans face re-acclimating to civilian society; gram fulfilled two key alumni association “We hope to continually expand such re- and Ian Whittinghill ’08, student founder of goals: providing alumni of all ages with union opportunities to enhance engagement, the USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, meaningful opportunities to reconnect with strengthen the Trojan Family and advance who described the “ups and downs” stu- USC and inspiring philanthropic support for the mission of the university.” dents experience in launching rockets that current university initiatives. – Timothy O. Knight they create. In October, more than 200 Trojans, many of them in the Bay Area for the USC-Cal Weekender, had a chance to “Meet the deans deliver Deans” at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco’s Union Square. Three USC Alumni in the Academic Loop deans – James G. Ellis of the USC Marshall School of Business; Howard Gillman of USC The Alumni Association promotes USC’s academic College; and Yannis C. Yortsos of the USC success by taking scholarly riches on the road. Viterbi School of Engineering – appeared with Geneva Overholser, director of the School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, to discuss topics that included globalization, undergraduate retention, sustainability and social responsibility. The event was co-sponsored by the alumni association and the USC schools represented.

Later in October, the alumni association and its Orange County alumni clubs brought hundreds of alumni and friends to the Is- land Hotel in Newport Beach to spend an evening with USC Executive Vice Presi- dent and Provost C. L. Max Nikias. Ni- kias, who had previously headlined similar events in New York and San Diego, spoke about USC’s 2009 acquisition of USC Uni- versity and USC Norris Cancer hospitals, the USC Institute of Creative Technologies in Marina del Rey and the crucial role Or- From left, James G. Ellis, Howard Gillman, Geneva Overholser and Yannis C. Yortsos at the “Meet the Deans” ange County Trojans play in the vitality and event in the Westin St. Francis, San Francisco. future of the university. In attendance were several USC trustees and USC Alumni As- In addition to its core mission – engag- attle, Portland and New York, as well as sociation Board of Governors members, as ing alumni for life, building a culture of phi- throughout Southern California. Other USC well as Dean Karen Symms Gallagher of the lanthropy among the Trojan Family and be- administrators and faculty met with Trojans USC Rossier School of Education. ing a representative voice for all USC alumni in Houston, San Diego, San Francisco, Sili- Speaking of Dean Gallagher, she appeared – the USC Alumni Association now has an con Valley, London and Washington, D.C. in November in Washington, D.C., at an additional objective: linking alumni to the This trend continues with a number of alumni association co-sponsored event titled university’s flourishing academic scene. recent alumni events demonstrating the as- “A Conversation about Education.” Joining “We are committed to promoting the sociation’s determination to keep alumni in her on stage was Thelma Meléndez de Santa university’s academic success by bringing the academic loop. Last September, as part Ana PhD ’95, U.S. assistant secretary for el- USC leaders and faculty to meet alumni of its 8th annual USC Alumni Leadership ementary and secondary education in the where they live,” says Scott M. Mory, CEO Conference, the alumni association pre- Obama administration. of the USC Alumni Association. sented its second annual “Best of USC” “Expect to see more deans, faculty and The alumni association has been doing panel to hundreds of alumni leaders and vol- other distinguished Trojans traveling to this by beefing up regional programming unteers. Among the panelists were USC meet alumni in all parts of the country and and strengthening its campus partnerships. Davis School of Gerontology professor the world,” promises Mory. “Promoting In the 2008-09 academic year, every sitting Caleb Finch, who talked about a possible USC’s academic success is an integral part USC dean participated in at least one decline in U.S. life expectancy if certain of what we do.” alumni event in cities such as Chicago, Se- health issues are not addressed; Anthony – Ross M. Levine photo by Josh B ingham photo

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 49 SHOWING THEIR COLORS The Alumni SCene Green, pink, cardinal and gold

1 2 photo by Devin B egley photo by Drew G raham photo 3 vila A

4 3 photo by Dan photo by Devin B egley photo

1. Green Team president Leslie Nelson Cressy ’82 (far left) reer development adviser with USC Mar- Members and friends of the USC Asian joined the students in a display of l’esprit shall Student Services, offers career tips to Pacific Alumni Association (APAA) hit the Troyen. Continuons le Combat! a recent USC grad. links for a good cause on October 9 when APAA held its 6th annual Scholarship Golf 3. In the Pink 4. Windy City Warm-Up Classic at the Industry Hills Golf Club east Approximately 300 USC alumni and friends Co-hosted by the USC Alumni Association of Los Angeles. Players enjoyed an exciting attended a “Pink Slip Networking Party” last and the USC Alumni Club of the Midwest- round of golf and competed in various chal- September at the downtown Los Angeles Chicago, the USC-Notre Dame Weekender lenges at one of Southern California’s pre- Remedy Lounge. While career consultant kicked off October 16 in the Windy City, mier courses. Pictured left to right are Steve Jennifer Rosky presented two 45-minute where the Song Girls and the USC Trojan Choy, tournament chair Glenn Osaka ’91, workshops on job-search strategies in to- Marching Band dazzled a crowd of 1,100 at Albert Gusman and Alan Chong. day’s competitive market, 14 career coun- a Friday night pep rally in the Sheraton selors provided free résumé feedback and Chicago Hotel & Towers. The rally capped 2. La Vie en Cardinal professional advice to participants in one- a day of activities that included an architec- USC exchange students got a taste of la on-one sessions. The event was the second tural river tour and a private visit to the vie française last September when the USC of three networking parties co-sponsored by Lincoln Park Zoo. The celebration contin- Alumni Club of Paris welcomed them to the the USC Alumni Association and the USC ued the next day in South Bend, Ind., City of Lights with a picnic in the Champs Marshall Keenan MBA Career Resource when the Trojans defeated the Fighting de Mars near a certain familiar icon. Club Center. Seated at right, Julie Samere, a ca- Irish 34-27. l

50 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 working wanderers but instead add another layer of expertise to deepen travelers’ understanding of the places An Affinity for Travel they visit. Faculty lecturers are chosen based on colleague referrals and their academic Dedicated volunteers and USC faculty experts make connections to the countries and regions in- the alumni association’s Trojan Travel program unique. cluded in the itinerary. Faculty program participants have included educators from USC Annenberg (communication and journalism), architecture, cinematic arts, USC College, USC Rossier (education), USC Roski (fine arts), USC Thornton (music) and social work. This faculty participation elevates Trojan Travel to a component of the university’s educational mission. Trojan Travel does not directly organize and manage the trips it offers; it works with various providers such as Alumni Holidays, Thomas P. Gohagan & Company, and Go Next. Some of the most popular excursions are the Crystal and Oceania cruises and the top-tier private jet trips. Many Trojan travelers are dedicated USC supporters who, even in their recreational pursuits, want to maintain a strong link to the Trojan Family. Since 2000, overall travel participation has been down due to the fear of terrorism in the earlier part of the decade and, more recently, the repercussions of the economic crisis. Nevertheless, according to Kirken doll, Trojan Travel, whose net proceeds Trojan travelers pose before the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx outside Cairo. Center front, holding support the programs of the USC Alumni the banner, is USC professor Laurie Brand, director of the USC School of International Relations, a frequent faculty host for USC Trojan Travel. Association, “can look forward to lots of retiring Trojan Baby Boomers looking to sat- in 1978, a cruise on Germany’s Rhine River Travel trip a year. On these trips they play isfy their wanderlust during their golden with 138 Trojans marked the beginning of the role of USC ambassadors, offering their years. Also, as the Young Alumni Program USC Trojan Travel. Since then, nearly 3,000 charges a “high-touch,” personalized USC develops, younger and younger Trojans and USC alumni, parents, friends, faculty and travel experience. their friends will discover the joys of travel- staff have traveled the world – many of them Volunteer Patti Josi ’58 has been with the ing Trojan style!” multiple times – with the USC Alumni As- program since its inception 31 years ago – Ross M. Levine sociation’s affinity travel organization, which within the then General Alumni Association. is dedicated to promoting lifelong learning Another volunteer who can claim nearly “Manning” the Trojan Travel reservation lines are, and intellectual enrichment through travel, equal seniority is Shirley Johnstone ’52. Four from left, volunteers Margie Badham ’51, Mary while strengthening the bond between Tro- of the other volunteers are pictured at right. Coates, ’59, MA ’61, Marilyn O’Driscoll ’61 and jans and USC. Today, the program offers ap- These women are committed supporters of Gloria Phillips ’54. At right is USC Trojan Travel associate director Teri Kirkendoll ’70, MA ’79. proximately 40 trips a year all over the globe, USC, with affiliations ranging from and has a growing young alumni component, USC Associates and Cardinal and launched in 2006, that has taken Trojans in Gold, to Town & Gown and other their 20s, 30s and 40s to Italy, Costa Rica, alumnae support groups. In addi- Peru, Greece and Africa. tion to these seven volunteers, cur- Although USC is one of many universi- rent USC students also assist with ties with a travel program, two factors set various tasks and projects in the Trojan Travel apart. One is the program’s University Village travel office. commitment to utilizing volunteers. Led by The other distinguishing aspect USC Trojan Travel associate director Teri of Trojan Travel is its commitment Kirkendoll ’70, MA ’79, there are seven staff to faculty involvement. Faculty volunteers, all USC alumnae, who work 47 hosts represent USC and enhance to 50 hours a month, or approximately two the travel experience by spotlight- days a week, conducting the program’s busi- ing a destination’s culture and his- ness and running its day-to-day operations. tory. Faculty members do not Passionate about travel, these alumnae, in function as daily tour guides (al- exchange for their time, host one Trojan ready included in every program), photos by d evin begley photos

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 51 Class Notes

who’s doing what & where

’50 Thomas C. Bruice PhD ’54, profes- of Directorship magazine. He was recently sor in the Department of Chemistry and appointed to a two-year term on the Public Biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, was Company Accounting Oversight Board’s awarded the 2008 Linus Pauling Medal, standing advisory group and has been the given annually by the Puget Sound, Ore., Ernst & Young Executive Professor of and Portland, Ore., sections of the Ameri- Accounting at the University of Georgia can Chemical Society to recognize out- since 1997. • Bill A. Block MBA ’65 of standing accomplishments in chemistry. Pacific Palisades, Calif., published Trojans 1972: An Immortal Team of Mortal Men, a ’56 Roy Aaron LLB recently joined the book about the members of the 1972 USC Pasadena, Calif.-based investment banking football team. He has spent more than 40 and consulting firmsJ anas Associates and years on Wall Street as an investment ana- Janas Consulting as vice chairman. He lyst and in 1997 founded his own company, continues to mediate and arbitrate lawsuits W.A.B. Capital, which researches microcap with Alternative Dispute Resolution Ser- stocks. vices in Century City, Calif. ’62 Edward P. Roski, Jr., chairman of the ’57 Dora De Larios was the subject of a USC Board of Trustees and chairman and recent exhibition at the Craft and Folk CEO of Majestic Realty Co., also owns the Art Museum in Los Angeles, Fifty Years of Industry Hills Golf Club and Pacific Palms the Art of Dora De Larios. More than 100 of Resort in Industry Hills, Calif. The club her sculptures, totems, masks, plaques and and resort recently were upgraded, and the other pieces of art were on display. • Carl golf club received the 2010 Golf Club of the R. Terzian was named Honorary Alumnus Year award from the National Golf Course of the Year by Woodbury University in Owners Association. • Adrian Ruiz MM ’64 Burbank, Calif. He has served as a dean and recently recorded and released a two-disc professor of government and speech at the set of piano music by composer Ferdinand school, and has been a trustee since 1979. Hiller. Ruiz lives in Lancaster, Calif.

’58 Norman C. Bitter DDS of Fresno, ’64 Carol J. Baker, executive director of Calif., published his latest book, Daily Devo- Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Aware- tions. He has conducted dental research for ness and Research, was recently appointed many years and has published 14 articles on to serve as chair of the advisory committee dentistry in international publications. on immunization practices of the Centers ›› name that team USC sports teams’ for Disease Control and Prevention. early nicknames such as the “Fighting Method- ’59 Carl E. Rieder DDS received a 2009 ists” and the “Wesleyans” were relegated to the Outstanding Service Award from the Amer- ’71 James Campbell PhD was honored scrap heap in 1912 when Los Angeles Times ican College of Dentists for his exceptional posthumously for his contributions to service to dentistry, including significant national reconnaissance by the National Re- sports editor Owen R. Bird coined the name that contributions to the fields of prosthodontics, connaissance Office, a joint Department of stuck. He was writing about that year’s track restorative dentistry and implant dentistry. Defense-Intelligence Community organiza- team, shown above, and its meet with the Oxy He established and developed the Newport tion that develops, launches and operates [Occidental College] Tigers. Bird later recalled he Harbor Academy of Dentistry in Newport U.S. signals, imagery and communications appreciated the USC team’s “fighting spirit” and Beach, Calif., which is now in its 47th year. intelligence satellites. He was a pioneer ability to battle“overwhelming odds of bigger in the field, whose research and analysis and better equipped teams with their colors glo- ’61 Dennis R. Beresford was named one resulted in innovative reconnaissance of the 100 Most Influential People in the capabilities, and he provided key techni- riously nailed to the mast.” He wrote, “It seemed Corporate Boardroom for the third con- cal improvements that have extended the to me the name ‘Trojan’ fitted their case.” l secutive year in the November 2009 issue operational lifespan of spacecraft.

We welcome news items from all USC alumni. Please include your name, street address, e-mail address, degree and year of graduation with each submission. Mail to: USC Trojan Family Magazine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-7790 or e-mail us at: [email protected]. Please note that, because of our long production schedule and the heavy volume of submissions, it might be several months before your notice appears.

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 53 ’73 Christopher Cox recently joined the live in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and have two book, Poems of a Dead Metaphysician, under global law firm of BinghamM cCutchen as a children, Emily ’10 and Daniel ’08. his pen name, J. William Long. partner in its corporate mergers & acquisi- tions and securities groups and as a princi- ’75 Bob Hogue of Honolulu recently pub- ’83 Edward Cibener is a special education pal of Bingham Consulting Group. He has lished Sands of Lanikai, a work of historic teacher and co-coordinator of the commu- been chairman of the U.S. Securities and fiction set in Hawaii in 1941. nity-based instruction program at the Beacon Exchange Commission, chairman of the School in San Jose, Calif., a school for teens Homeland Security Committee in the U.S. ’76 Robert Schneider DDS, a professor and young adults with disabilities who live House of Representatives, the fifth-ranking at the University of Iowa College of Den- in Santa Clara County, Calif. • Lawrence L. elected leader in the House and a 17-year tistry, was named an honorary certified Risley of Pasadena, Calif., recently earned a member of Congress from California. dental technician, an honor given by the Professional Clear Social Studies teaching • Clyde Cronkhite MPA, DPA ’91 published National Association of Dental Labora- credential, issued by the California Commis- the book Criminal Justice Administration: tories. He also was presented with the sion on Teacher Credentialing. Strategies for the 21st Century. He is a profes- first annual David Bridgham Leadership sor at Western Illinois University. • Judi Award for continuous leadership and ’84 Denise Rivera Menchaca was re- Hollis MS, PhD ’82 was honored with a star support of dentistry, dental technology elected to the governing board of trustees on the Palm Springs (Calif.) Walk of Stars and dental technical education. for the San Gabriel (Calif.) Unified School in January for her many years of dedica- District. She previously served as vice tion to furthering treatments for addic- ’77 Laurel Bleak is president of the Los president. tive eating styles and food obsessions. A Angeles Dental Hygienists’ Society. licensed family therapist, she is the author ’85 Beverly Bradley PhD received the of three books, Fat Is a Family Affair, Fat ’78 Anthony J. Chiaramida MD has been 2009 Distinguished Service Award from the & Furious and Hot & Heavy, and is working teaching fourth-year medical students at American School Health Association. She on her fourth book, From Bagels to Buddha. Robert Wood Johnson Medical School for worked for many years as a district admin- • Bob Oettinger is vice president of the the last 25 years. He recently published istrator of school health programs in the International Baseball Association, which the second edition of the textbook and San Francisco Unified School District and is working to build a baseball academy in workbook 12 Lead EKG Confidence: A Step- is a retired assistant clinical professor in the Nicaragua that will train and prepare play- by-Step Guide. School of Medicine at UC San Diego. ers from throughout Central America for • Tim Leone MA is the co-author of Gabby: careers in baseball. He and his wife, Eve, ’80 James W. Long recently published a Confessions of a Hockey Lifer, the autobiog- raphy of Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau. Leone is a sportswriter living in Hershey, Penn.

’89 Michael Saxton of Kansas City, Mo., is the CEO and managing partner of Busi- ness Transition Specialists, a merger and acquisition firm, and the founding partner and executive vice president for Intel- liThink, a strategic consulting firm. The businesses are in their fifth and sixth years, respectively.

’90 Ashley Merryman co-authored Nurture- Shock: New Thinking about Children, an explo- ration into adolescent psychology and child development. She lives in Los Angeles, where for 10 years she has directed a small all-volunteer tutoring program for inner-city children.

’91 Troy Allen Dyer of Los Angeles and Lake Geneva, Wis., has recently produced his first feature film, Feed the Fish. He is a financial and business adviser with the company First Financial Resources.

’92 Karen Devor Sherman MSW was or- dained by the Hebrew Union College-Jew- ish Institute of Religion. Prior to entering rabbinical school, she was special assistant to the chief executive officer and later the director of children’s services at PROTO- TYPES, a Los Angeles-based substance abuse treatment center for women.

54 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 Class of ’99 ’93 Trudy Arriaga EdD was named Super- alumni profile intendent of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators for Region XII, which includes Ventura, Santa Barbara Jazz Hands and San Luis Obispo counties. She has served as Ventura Unified superintendent You can’t see them in the dark of Mount Vernon, New York’s since 2000. • Elizabeth Morrow DMA was recently promoted to full professor of cello Bassline Café, but jazz pianist Donald Vega ’99 has angels on his at the University of Texas at Arlington. shoulder. This cat may swing into a solo with the balletic grace of She also was honored with membership in the university’s Academy of Distin- Oscar Peterson, and lead his trio like he was born backstage at a guished Teachers and was a recipient of the nightclub, but he’s traveled a difficult road to get here tonight.A fter University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. an immaculate version of his composition “The Will to Nurture” from his debut CD, Tomorrows, we repair to a back room to talk ’95 Matthew Moul of Toluca Lake, Calif., won a 2009 Emmy Award for his work about Vega’s hardscrabble yesterdays. And how much he feels he on the television show Project Runway in owes to the angels he found at USC. the Best Editing for a Reality Program “I think I’m lucky to have made it to the United States at all, much less USC,” says the dapper, category. He has previously received two Daytime Emmy nominations for his work 35-year-old Vega. He was born in Managua, Nicaragua, where he studied classical piano with his uncle on Dr. Phil. and grandfather, both well-known musicians. However, as a teenager, his safety was imperiled. In the

’97 Marielle Neri was recently named to 1980s, the Nicaraguan military would pick up boys who were 14 and older to fight in the country’s civil the board of directors of Leap … Imagination war. To avoid that fate, Vega’s mother moved to the United States, then helped him flee and join her. in Learning, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that provides hands-on residency After locating in Los Angeles, learning English and changing his focus to jazz piano at the Colburn programs to elementary and middle schools School of the Performing Arts, Vega was accepted into the USC Thornton School of Music, where he throughout the Bay Area. She is principal earned a bachelor’s degree in jazz studies. He credits various angels with his getting in and staying in. and founder of 5 Spice Design, a graphic design studio specializing in work for the He said he was indebted to USC’s Mexican American Alumni Association (http:usc.edu/maaa), par- architecture, engineering and construction ticularly Raul Vargas, the now-retired founding director, for arranging scholarships for him. “It couldn’t professions. • Justin Paperny is the author of the recently published book Lessons from have happened otherwise,” Vega says. Prison, which chronicles his life, career, At his audition, Vega recalls that USC Thornton professor John Thomas started listening, then business decisions that led to his incarcera- tion and his experiences in prison. Since stopped him momentarily to find a tape recorder and recorded the audition so the jazz piano profes- his release, he has spoken at numerous sors could hear it. “His help and foresight were an integral part of me getting into USC,” Vega says. universities, including USC. He continues Once he was in, USC Thornton professors Aaron Serfaty, Tom Mason, Shelley Berg and John Clayton to maintain the blog he created to document his experience as a federal prisoner, www. were unending sources of emotional support and inspiration, the musician says. JustinPaperny.com. • Anne Renna MAcc Then, there was the matter of having a birth defect fixed. Which, Vega says, solved more than a gave a presentation on business fraud to the 2009 Joint National Conference of the Amer- cosmetic problem. “I was born with a cleft palate,” he says. “I was actually having trouble hearing music, ican Society of Women Accountants and the because the problem affected my ears. As a result of getting a Spotlight Award [a recognition from American Woman’s Society of CPAs in Las Vegas. She lives in Santa Monica, Calif. the Los Angeles Music Center that highlights Southern California’s top student talent], a philanthropist donated money for my operation. That’s a debt I can’t repay.” Sheldon K. Smith EdD recently ac- ’98 It wasn’t only faculty members who insured his time at USC would be productive. Vega connected cepted the position of assistant superintendent for business services in the Lompoc with students who were spiritual, studied the Bible and followed good moral principles. This strong set (Calif.) Unified School District. For the of values has helped him in his new life in the New York jazz scene, where there are a lot of ways to get past 10 years, he was the director of student information and technology in the Paso lost if you don’t have a good read on things, he notes. Robles (Calif.) Unified School District. Vega straightens his tie, to get ready for the next set of songs from Tomorrows. Not long after this gig, he would tour Europe and work on his second album, to be released this summer. ’99 Matt Willer of Long Beach, Calif., is founder and principal of ZAPP Gum, a When Vega thinks about all the luck he’s had and everyone who has helped him, he feels blessed. company that manufactures a line of chew- Every time he’s needed a break, something has always worked out, he observes. Vega says he hopes in ing gum with no sugar or artificial sweet- eners that works to prevent cavities. The the future to be able to help other youngsters in need of similar breaks. brand recently launched a new Web site, Call it a cosmic debt he wants to repay. www.ZappGum.com. – Peter Gerstenzang ’00 Debbie Gioia PhD was promoted to b y L our de s D e l gad o P hoto

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 55 associate professor with tenure at the Uni- estate investment company. research into the book Uncovering Promising versity of Maryland School of Social Work, Practices in School/University Partnerships. where she has been teaching since 2006. ’04 Florence Chung MSW of Los Angeles • Sam Wasson MFA of Los Angeles is a senior specialist in government and recently published A Splurch in the Kisser: ’01 Alejandra Campoverdi serves as as- community partnerships at Target Corpora- The Movies of Blake Edwards, a study of the sistant to the White House deputy chief tion. • Jeron Maklanron recently self-pub- filmmaker who directed classics such as of staff for policy in Washington, D.C. She lished his first novel, The Corrupting of the Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the original Pink recently received the Community Hero Redeemer. He lives in Austell, Ga. • Aaron Panther movies. Wasson is currently working Award from the Virginia Avenue Project, a Monty, a marketing manager at EMI Music on a book about Breakfast at Tiffany’s. free after-school program in Santa Monica, Publishing, was recently featured in Calif., that focuses on the performing arts. Billboard’s “30 Under 30,” an article that ’07 Esteban Juarez MSW is a clinical social She has been involved with the program recognizes rising young executives in the worker at Hoag Memorial Hospital Pres since it began in 1992. • Rebecca Pater- music industry. He lives in West Holly- byterian in Newport Beach, Calif. • Olivier son recently received her master of arts in wood, Calif. • Joseph Rivera EdD was Ochanine became the music director and graphic communications management and re-elected as a governing board member principal conductor of the Philippine Phil- technology from New York University. of the El Rancho Unified School District harmonic Orchestra in Manila. in Pico Rivera, Calif. ’02 Emily C. Casso recently graduated from ’08 Amy Kaufman recently joined the Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. ’05 Suzanne Natbony was recently hired Los Angeles Times entertainment team as a • Molly Engelhardt PhD published Dancing as Pacific region director forN ew World staff writer. Previously she was an assistant out of Line: Ballrooms, Ballets, and Mobility in Home PacificLL C, a green home design editor at the The Daily Beast and worked as Victorian Fiction and Culture, an examination and building company in Los Angeles. a reporter in the Los Angeles bureau of The of dancing in the Victorian period. She is Wall Street Journal. She also has written for an assistant professor of English at ’06 Jennifer McCard works for a nonprofit Los Angeles magazine and the Santa Monica Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. environmental organization in Kigali, Daily Press. Rwanda, where she lives with husband Alex ’03 James Kasim MBA was named presi- Peterson ’06. He provides tech support for ’09 Lorelei Bonet MSW is an oncology dent and chief operating officer of Bentley- the U.S. Embassy. • John Purcell EdD of social worker at Providence St. Joseph Forbes, a Los Angeles-based national real Los Angeles recently turned his doctoral Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. • Karen

58 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 Class of ’00 Ghulam EdD was selected as the new vice alumni profile principal of Desert Hot Springs (Calif.) High School. • Yawen Li PhD is an assistant professor at San Diego State Univer- The Aviator sity’s School of Social Work.

When Lieutenant Amy Redditt Tomlinson ’00 explains what she Marriages does as an aviator in the U.S. Navy, she references a popular film. “Have you ever seen Top Gun?” she asks. “You know Maverick, Karen A. Reeser ’82 and James B. Walters ’84 • Jacob Ullman ’95 and Xandi Craig Tom Cruise, is the pilot in the front, and Goose is in the back? I’m • Marcus Wooler ’95 and Katay Kocsis ’04 Goose. I’m a WSO – pronounced ‘wizzo,’ which stands for Weapon • Rebecca Paterson ’01 and Douglas Hart • Mudit Jindal ’02 and Sheena Patel ’05, MS Systems Officer – in the F/A-18 Hornet.” ’09, PharmD ’09 • Jennifer Still ’04, DDS As a WSO, Tomlinson is literally the backseat driver in charge of ’08 and Jason Morris DDS ’08 • Jennifer navigation. She helps determine where to target weapons systems McCard ’06 and Alex Peterson ’06. and sorts out the correct targets using advanced digital displays located in the back of the jet. “It can Births feel like a video game and makes for a great office,” she says. Though the job is fraught with danger, Tomlinson says she has never felt afraid or unsafe, even while Arthur “Bud” Lush PharmD ’74 and Laurie completing two combat deployments during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Based on an aircraft carrier in Lush, a granddaughter, Elise Theresa Fong • Aili (Tapio) Gardea ’85, MBA ’87 and Rene the Persian Gulf, she flew six-hour missions assistingA merica’s ground forces. “The flights are long, but Gardea, a son, Benjamin Jude. He joins they’re challenging and rewarding,” says the decorated naval flight officer. “It’s what we train and prepare sister Anita and brothers Emilio, Matthew for. They’re rewarding because we’re able to provide assistance to troops on the ground if they need it.” and Tadeo • Gloria (Delarosa) Cotten ’92, PharmD ’98 and David Lynch Cotten, a Her current two-year assignment through fall 2010 may be less dangerous, but it’s no less demand- son, Cory Lynch • Matthew Tonkovich ’92 ing. As Blue Angel No. 8, Tomlinson serves as events coordinator for the elite Navy Flight Demonstration and Babe (Foster) Tonkovich ’04, a daughter, Petra Jeanette. She joins brothers Ryder Squadron, based in Pensacola, Fla. The Blue Angels, whose mission it is to represent and recruit for the Dean and August James. She is the great- Navy, entertain crowds at air shows with six F/A-18 Hornet jets and one C-130 transport aircraft, exe great-granddaughter of Ruth (Dallman) Launer ’16, the great-granddaughter of Earl cuting difficult acrobatic maneuvers and demonstrating precision flying at speeds of 120 to 700 mph. Harris ’39 and Eunice (Launer) Harris ’39, the One of 16 officers and 120 total BlueA ngels, Tomlinson is the first female aviator selected to the great-grandniece of Ruthmarie (Launer) team since the squadron began doing air shows in 1946. She is responsible for planning and coordinat- Gruber ’41, the granddaughter of Janet (Harris) Tonkovich ’65, the grandniece of ing shows in 35 cities between March and November. That includes everything from booking hotels Kathleen (Harris) Windsor ’66, the niece of and rental cars for the group to setting up community visits. Tomlinson visits each site, meeting with air Diane (Tonkovich) Miller ’92, Gregory Tonkovich ’94, MS ’01 and Jaclyn (Talarico) show planners, investigating site safety and ensuring FAA approval for taking over the airspace. Tonkovich MA ’01, and the cousin of Divita The position is a perfect match for her ebullient personality and taps into the skills she acquired as Elliott ’93 • Bijal Parikh ’93 and Thomas Pyle ’93, a son, Santino. He joins sister Atia a journalism and public relations major in the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journal- • Cristin Powitzky Murphy ’94 and Derek ism. Although her father was a Navy pilot, Tomlinson discovered the NROTC independently during her Murphy, a daughter, Tessa Grace. She freshman year at USC. Until then, she had never imagined she’d follow in his footsteps – even though joins brothers Ryan, 5, and Troy, 2 • Mario Fernandez ’95 and Corinne Fernandez, a there is a photo of Tomlinson that seems prescient now. It was taken when she was 7 years old, during son, Mario Giordano • Eileen Cheng MPA a visit to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. She is dressed up in her father’s helmet and flight gear (she ’98 and Pierson Cheng MBA ’99, a daughter, Hannah Madison • Christy Zegub ’98, a son, is absolutely swimming in the pants made for a 6-foot-2 adult), and she’s wearing a chunky pink plastic Xavier Yitzhak • Jennifer Y. Lee ’99 and charm necklace, big round glasses and a huge grin. Herman C. Lee, a son, Lucas Samuel • Danielle Moore ’00 and Jeremy Moore ’00, Her parents visited her at eight air shows last year, and her husband since 2007, Lieutenant Com- MBA ’08, a daughter, Ireland Kinkaid mander Warren Tomlinson, an F/A-18 pilot with whom she flew in combat missions in Iraq, traveled to 16. • Matthew G. Stevens ’01 and Shelby Stevens, a daughter, Emerson Lynn. She is Tomlinson speaks enthusiastically about every aspect of her career, but when asked about the most the granddaughter of Robert G. Stevens ’68, rewarding part, she does not hesitate. “Hands down, it’s being around kids – seeing their faces light up ls MS ’70 • Helen Vik Wahlin ’02 and Wes ge and be inspired by airplanes and by the military uniform,” she says. “For me to be able to inspire kids to An Wahlin, a son, Cooper Wesley • Michael D. e lu Logan ’03 and Britt Aadnoy ’04, a son, do whatever it is their dreams are, it’s unbelievable. And I only get to do it as a Blue Angel for two years, y B v Martin Aadnoy Logan. He is the great- so I try to make every day count.” great-grandson of Lyndol Lester Young ’17, y U.S. Na

s – Julie Riggott

e and the grandson of Lyndol Major Logan ’72, JD ’75 and John Thomas Logan JD ’75. ourt C hoto P

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 59 Deaths ship at Glendale Community College. He Awards for television, along with 50 specials is survived by nephew Phillip Gustafson, for assorted networks, a miniseries and Louis A. Hebert ’35, of Northbrook, Ill.; July nieces-in-law Prudence Hay and Mary several made-for-TV movies. In 1989, he 20, at the age of 96. He graduated magna Lou Gustafson, and great-nieces Susan produced The Will Rogers Follies on Broad- cum laude and received the Alpha Kappa Gustafson and Robin Gustafson. way, which won six Tony Awards. His other Psi medal in his junior year at USC. After Broadway productions, The Scarlet Pimpernel graduating, he became a trader on the M. Churchill Haenke ’38, of Sedona, Ariz.; and The Civil War, were nominated for Tony Chicago Board of Trade. During World War May 2. He served in the U.S. Air Force Awards. In 2002, he published his autobiog- II, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. during World War II and the Korean War. raphy, Another Day in Showbiz: One Producer’s Navy and worked for the Department of He spent 27 years with Northrop Aviation, Journey. He produced many charity events, the Navy for several years following the working in the United States, Spain, Ger- and in 2005, he created the Pierre Cossette war. He later re-entered the business world many and Switzerland. He is survived by Endowed Fund for Student Support, a and became vice president of sales for the his wife of 67 years, Helen, son Churchill, need-based award available to all under- Englander Mattress Company, where he daughter Pamela, five grandchildren and graduate cinematic arts students at USC. remained until retirement. He was pre- four great-grandchildren. ceded in death by his wife of 49 years, Mary Don Burke ’52, of Reno, Nev.; Aug. 11, of Rita, and sisters Ruth, Helen and Louise. William P. Camm ’46, of Indianapolis; July cardiac arrest, at the age of 83. He came to He is survived by his daughters, Mar- 1, at the age of 85. He served in the U.S. USC after playing football at Oakland (Ca- tha, Catherine and Elizabeth, grandsons Navy during World War II. He was a lif.) High School and Salinas (Calif.) Junior ChrisJon and Devin, granddaughters-in-law senior partner at Arthur Andersen LLP, a College. He lettered as a fullback at USC in Laura and Kerri Ann, great-grandchildren Chicago-based accounting firm, and prior 1948. He was drafted by the San Francisco Olivia, Angelena, Lola, Aidan, Roger, Will to his retirement in 1978, he was manag- 49ers in 1950 and played linebacker there and Alexis, sister Florence, and nieces and ing partner of the firm’sL os Angeles office for five seasons. After his career in football, nephews. and southwestern United States region. He he worked in the tourism industry as the is survived by his wife of 63 years, Jeanne national sales manager for the Reno-Sparks Robert Pike Whitten ’35, of Glendale, Calif.; Crider Camm, sons William, John and Rob- Convention and Visitors Authority, sales Nov. 12, of natural causes, at the age of 98. ert, daughters-in-law Ellen and Laurie, and manager of the Greater Reno and Sparks While at USC, he was active in the National three grandchildren. Chamber of Commerce and national Collegiate Players, a theatre group, and sales manager at Idaho’s Sun Valley. He is Skull and Dagger. After graduating, he Richard “Bud” Mittler ’47, of Oceanside, Ca- survived by his wife, Carole, sons Steve and took a teaching position at Beverly Hills lif.; Aug. 17, 2008, at the age of 93. A World Jim, five stepsons, two stepdaughters, 11 (Calif.) High School, where he taught War II veteran, he attended USC after serv- grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. speech and drama for three years before ing in the war. He was a member of Sigma accepting a position at Los Angeles City Alpha Epsilon fraternity and was business Micky “Hasmig” Terazagian Hinthorn ’53, College in 1938. He was a speech professor manager of the Daily Trojan. He is survived of Half Moon Bay, Calif.; April 2. She was at LACC for five decades.I n the late 1930s by his wife of 66 years, Ruthie, children a member of the Half Century Trojans and and early 1940s, he produced more than Ginger, Bonnie and Rick, grandchildren, a lifelong supporter of USC’s occupational 300 educational-style live radio broadcasts. and great-grandchildren. therapy program. At USC, she was editor He later became a pioneer in educational of the USC OT Trojan Therapist, and after television, producing programs such as Pierre Cossette ’49, of Los Angeles; Sept. graduating she was editor of the Northern the Young America Speaks series. In the 11, at the age of 85. After high school, he California Occupational Therapy Associa- 1960s, he served as president of the faculty enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in tion’s newsletter from 1954 to 1956 and the association at LACC and chairman of the active duty for three years during World American Journal of Occupational Therapy academic senate. He took a break from his War II. Following his service, he attended from 1968 to 1970. She was a staff therapist teaching career during World War II, and Pasadena (Calif.) City College and USC. At in the occupational therapy department at he served as a civilian instructor in the U.S. USC, he was editor of the Daily Trojan and Los Angeles County + USC Hospital, the Army Air Corps. He attended Officer Can- started his own periodical, Campus Maga- first director of occupational therapy at the didate School and earned a commission as zine. He began his career at MCA booking Palo Alto (Calif.) Medical Clinic and the a second lieutenant. He served as military acts for concert halls and eventually became founder of the Children’s Health Council coordinator for the filming of the 20th Cen- head of the variety department. He left in occupational therapy department. She tury Fox film Winged Victory. He received the early 1960s to form a personal manage- helped with fund raising for the American several medals, including the American ment company. He later created Dunhill Association of University Women. She is Campaign Medal, the Army Commenda- Records, a record label and publishing survived by her husband of 51 years, Wayne. tion Medal and the Asiatic Pacific Service company, where he launched the careers Medal. Upon his return to LACC, he joined of the Mamas and the Papas, Steppenwolf John “Jack” Nicoll ’54, of Lake Forest, Calif.; the Air Force Reserve, serving with the and others. After selling Dunhill to ABC, he July 23, of lung cancer, at the age of 81. He 9353rd Air Reserve Squadron in Pasadena, moved into television production, produc- served in the U.S. Navy during World War Calif., as executive and training officer. ing The Andy Williams Show, The Glen Camp- II. After graduating from USC, he went He retired in 1971 as a lieutenant colonel. bell Music Show and Down to Earth. In 1971, to work for Kaiser Cement. He was later During his retirement years, he continued he initiated the live telecast of the Grammy transferred to the San Francisco Bay Area as to support public education, establishing Awards and helmed the show until 2005. director of technical services. He is survived the Esther Crandell Memorial Scholarship Cossette Productions produced the first by his wife of 54 years, Veralie Brookins Ni- Fund for visual arts and technical theatre annual Latin Grammys in 2000, and he re- coll ’55, sons Greg, Eric and Bob, daughters- at Glendale High School and the Robert ceived the Latin Grammy Trustees Award. in-law Sally, Cindy and Yvette, and grand- Pike Whitten Performing Arts Scholar- He produced the Black Entertainment children Ben, Katie, Jenna and Cody.

60 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 James C. Marsters DDS ’56, of Oakland, Herbert A. de Vries PhD ’60, of Laguna its distinguished research award after him. Calif.; July 28, after a short illness, at the Beach, Calif.; Oct. 1, at the age of 91. A He was also a member of the organization’s age of 85. After graduating from both the professor emeritus of kinesiology at USC National Research Council. He received Wright Oral School for the Deaf in New College, he was one of the foremost exer- many awards for his work from various pro- York City in 1943 and Union College in cise and muscle physiologists of his time. fessional organizations. He was an Ameri- Schenectady, N.Y., in 1947, he worked In 1943, he began 33 months of active duty can Academy of Physical Education fellow, at a necktie factory. He then decided to as an officer with the U.S.A rmy Air Corps. former vice president of the American pursue dentistry and studied to be an or- He earned his master’s at the University College of Sports Medicine, an American thodontist at USC. In 1954, he opened his of Texas at Austin, then earned his Ph.D. College fellow and a Gerontology Society orthodontic practice in Pasadena, Calif., at USC in 1960 and became a professor in of America fellow. He retired in 1983 and retiring in 1990. In the 1960s, he co-de- 1965. He was a USC College professor for then worked as a USC consultant until veloped a teletypewriter that opened up 18 years, a preceptor at the Ethel Percy 1988. He is survived by his wife, Ana, and phone use to the deaf. He helped create Andrus Gerontology Center and a labora- son Herbert Johnson. a modem that linked a teletypewriter to tory chief at the center’s Physiology of traditional phone lines and converted au- Exercise Laboratory. His research focused Cecil Eugene “Dutch” Hollon ’60, of Santa dio tones into typed messages. In 1964, he on the effects of exercise on the elderly, Ana, Calif.; June 12, from complications made the first long-distance teletypewriter and he authored or co-authored many from cancer, at the age of 78. He served in call on a traditional telephone line. He books on the physiology of exercise, most the U.S. Marines from 1951 to 1959. After pushed to spread the use of the device, re- notably Physiology of Exercise for Physical graduating from USC, he was an engineer- furbishing donated teletype machines and Education and Athletics and Fitness after 50. ing geologist for the County of Orange, advocating the new technology. He was The American Association for Physical Calif., and later for the city of Newport preceded in death by his wife, Alice. He is Activity, Education and Recreation named Beach, Calif. In the 1970s and early 1980s, survived by his children, James Marsters Jr., Jean Marsters and Guy Marsters, and two grandchildren. [ in memoriam ] Linda Dean Maudlin Sylvan Wachs ’57, of Turlock, Calif.; March 27, at the age of 73. He was a high school Linda Dean Maudlin ’61, USC Alumni Association president from 1997 to 1998 and USC trustee from teacher and later went into private industry as vice president of a swimming supply 1996 to 2000, died on Nov. 26. She was 70. company. He is survived by his wife, Myrna. After graduating from the USC Marshall School of Business, she became a founding partner of the

Jack Reginald Smith ’58, MS ’60, PhD ’64, investment group Portfolio Partners and served as secretary/treasurer of Descolin of Waldo, Fla.; June 11. After working in Inc., a commercial real estate development and management firm. both the space and military industries, he joined the electrical engineering depart- Maudlin became active in the USC Alumni Association in the 1960s and ment at the University of Florida as an helped found Trojan Affiliates, serving as its president from 1968 to 1969. She was assistant professor in 1964. There, he president of the Town & Gown Junior Auxiliary of Los Angeles from 1974 to 1975. developed quantitative techniques for sleep analysis. He spent the early 1970s in She joined the Trojan League of the San Fernando Valley (now part of the Trojan Cassis, France, collaborating with research- League Associates of the Valleys) in 1976, serving as president from 1981 to 1983. ers at the University of Marseille and spent two other academic sabbaticals helping At USC Marshall, Maudlin joined the New Commerce Associates support group as develop sleep instrumentation. He wrote a founding member in 1988. She was a provost’s-level member of the USC Associates, a life member of the textbook Modern Communications Circuits, now in its second edition. In 1986, Women of Troy and a patron of the Friends of the USC Libraries. he started the company Microtronics, Inc., Maudlin joined the Women’s Athletic Board in 1982 and was president from 1990 to 1992. She sat which developed sleep-analyzing comput- on the Athletic Council Advisory Board from 1990 to 1994. ers. He sold the company to Oxford Medical in 1990 and then returned to the On the Health Sciences campus, Maudlin was a founding member of the USC Norris Auxiliary (1987) University of Florida until he retired as and the USC University Hospital Guild (1993). She served on surgeon Vaughn Starnes’ Transplantation professor emeritus in 1994. He served as a consultant to Motorola in Plantation, Fla. Unit Fund-Raising Committee and the USC Norris Advisory Board. After retiring from the university, he She received the USC Alumni Association’s Alumni Service Award in 1978 and the Fred B. Olds developed another sleep-analyzing system, the Polysmith, at his company Neurotron- Support Group Award in 1988. She was honored with the Helen of Troy Award in 1992, the USC Alumni ics. He is survived by his wife of 23 years, Association named her honorary chair of Homecoming 2000, and Skull and Dagger, which she joined in Eileen McCarthy Smith, son Kirk Russell, 1986, presented her the Arnold Eddy Volunteer Service Award in 2003. daughters Karla, Dari and Staci Shanahan, stepdaughter Katie, stepson Brendan Maudlin is survived by her husband, Tom ’59, sons and daughters-in-law Dean ’85 and Julia and McCarthy, daughter-in-law Paula, sons-in- Scott ’86 and Cindi, grandsons Hudson and Holden, sister Sue Yaberg, brother-in-law Tom, nephews law Sergio Quintana and James Shanahan, stepson-in-law Constantine, stepdaughter- Tyson ’07, MS ’08 and Tanner ’09, and stepmother Mary Ferro. l in-law Mary Ellen, 11 grandchildren, and three stepgrandchildren.

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 61 he worked for Mission Viejo Company, a developer and contractor. He supported a budget planning and administration for the real estate development company, leaving number of entrepreneurial activities and chancellor’s office of the California State to become a partner at the geotechnical was an outdoors activist. He is survived by University System. After four years there, engineering firm KennethG . Osborne his wife of 46 years, Marilyn, son Sean, and he enrolled at USC and earned his Ph.D., and Associates in Irvine, Calif. In 1991, he daughter Colleen. then returned to Cal Poly as director of re- started his own geotechnical firm,M orhol search and development. He then became Inc., and worked there until his retirement George G. Clucas PhD ’69, of San Luis the first acting dean of its School of Busi- in 2005. He is survived by his wife of 56 Obispo, Calif.; July 11, at the age of 88. ness and Social Sciences. He later joined years, Kay, daughters Candy Clark, Stacy He attended Albion College in 1938 on the faculty of the political science depart- Hollon, Maria Theresa Peralta and Maria a football scholarship, where he achieved ment, retiring in 1982. He is survived by Alexandra Peralta, sons John, Scott, Roy all-league recognition. At the outbreak his wife of 63 years, Jan, sons Bob and Rich, and Julio Peralta, 14 grandchildren, and of World War II, he joined the U.S. Navy daughter Barbara, daughters-in-law Cheri seven great-grandchildren. and attended Officer Candidate School at and Nancy, son-in-law Jim, grandson Todd Columbia University. At the end of the war, Clucas, granddaughters Lori Vienna and Ronald J. Crowley ’61, PhD ’67, of Fullerton, he entered the University of Michigan at Julie Datter, and three great-grandchildren. Calif.; Nov. 7, from injuries sustained in a Ann Arbor, where he earned his bachelor’s bicycling accident, at the age of 72. He was and master’s degrees. In 1948, he moved to James Stanley Rochester MA ’70, of Oxford, a physics professor at Cal State Fullerton Sacramento, Calif., to work at the Office of Ala.; July 6, at the age of 69. He retired from and did research in theoretical physics at the California Legislative Analyst. In 1956, the U.S. Air Force as a lieutenant colonel both the California Institute of Technology he accepted a position at Cal Poly San Luis with 21 years of service. He also was a Viet- and the University of Utah. After he retired Obispo as dean of finance and develop- nam veteran. He is survived by his wife, from teaching, he became a real estate ment. He left in 1962 to become chief of Delores M. Rochester, daughters Elizabeth LeRoux, Julie Rochester, Tammy Kerigan and Kristen Carl, sons Timothy Smith and Thomas Smith, sons-in-law Mark LeRoux [ in memoriam ] Herbert Farmer and Brad Carl, daughter-in-law Lori, and grandchildren Dana, Joshua, Erin, Shana- Anne, Tre and Presley. Herbert Farmer ’42, MA ’54, archivist, professor emeritus and USC School of Cinematic Arts alumnus,

died Nov. 22. He was 89. Steve Wojcechowskyj ’77 of New York City; “Herb was an absolutely essential part of the School of Cinematic Arts, and it’s difficult to imagine April 27, of heart failure brought on by complications of pneumonia, at the age of him not being here,” said dean Elizabeth M. Daley. “His devotion to the university, 54. After graduating from USC, he received the school and the generations of students he instructed and inspired is match- his MBA from New York University and quickly rose to become a vice president less. I am proud to have had him as a colleague and a friend.” of Bank of America and then a senior vice After making a cross-country trip from Buffalo, N.Y., Farmer began classes president for Union Bank of Switzerland. Diagnosed with Nail-Patella syndrome at USC in 1938. He found time to produce the Trojan Newsreel, shoot football as a child, he spent much of his adult life coaching films and surgical motion pictures for the university, and play sousa- serving as an orator to benefit the field of phone in the USC Trojan Marching Band. nephrology, becoming a nationally recognized patient advocate and patients’-rights A few months shy of his graduation in 1942, Farmer took over teaching a lobbyist. He contributed his time and motion picture history class from a professor who had been called to active duty in World War II. resources to the National Kidney Founda- tion and helped sponsor research fellows Farmer, who also served in the war, returned to USC for his master’s degree in 1954 and began teach- at many universities to attend national ing classes in film technology and distribution. He had been involved with the university ever since. conferences. He is survived by his mother, Lillian, brother Lee, sister Julia Swanson, At the time of his death, Farmer was still dedicated to overseeing his extensive archive of historical and nieces and nephews. films and equipment ranging from zoetropes to the soundboard from The Jazz Singer, which he had given as a gift to the university. These materials are part of a rotating collection that is regularly on display. Jen-Kai Liu ’91, of Shanghai, China; June 1, of heart failure after being in a coma for 44 Farmer’s son, Jim, often accompanied his father on his trips to the university. “As we would go days as the result of a viral infection, at the through the new building, the words would always be the same: ‘incredible’, ‘beautiful,’ ‘wow,’ ‘unbe- age of 42. He was a member of the USC men’s volleyball team. He came to USC lievable,’ ‘fantastic,’ ‘I wish I could go back to school’,” his son recalled. from Taiwan, where he was a member of At a 2008 celebration of his 70 years of service at the university, the alum spoke warmly about his the country’s national team in 1986 and 1987 and its junior national team the previ- time as a Trojan. “It’s been a wonderful life working with students here at the school,” he told the audi- ous two years. He also served in the Tai- ence. “I’m grateful for the time that I’ve been able to put into it. And I’d do it again if I had to or could.” wanese army in 1985 and 1986. A three-year Farmer is survived by his son James, and granddaughters Casey and Lindsey, a senior production letterman at USC, he also was a member of the university’s 1990 NCAA championship major at the School of Cinematic Arts. l squad. After graduating, he worked in the real estate industry. He returned to Taiwan in 1995 and worked with his brother in

62 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 children’s education. In 2002, he and his Jane and Justin Dart Wing at the museum’s nent scholar in German and European intel- wife moved to Beijing to start their own facility in La Mirada, Calif. She is survived lectual history and literature. Born in Breslau, after-school program, Mad Science Family. by three children, three grandchildren, two now Wroclaw, Poland, he studied theology at They moved to Shanghai in 2005 to expand great-grandchildren and two brothers. the University of Tübingen before earning the business, which now has six locations in his Ph.D. in 1966 at the Free University of Shanghai and Beijing. He is survived by his Lillian Fluor of Newport Beach, Calif.; Sept. Berlin. In 1967, he came to the United States wife, Karen, son Walter, daughter Melinda, 2, at the age of 87. She was the wife of to teach languages and literature at New York parents Hsiang-Chen and Crystal Ma, sister former USC trustee J. Robert Fluor, head University, where he stayed for seven years Ching, and brother Eddie. of the Fluor Corp., an engineering, procure- before teaching for a short time at Stanford ment, construction, maintenance and project University. He came to USC as an assistant Steven Timmons MBA ’94, of Denver, management firm. She graduated from professor in 1975 and was promoted to as- Colo.; Sept. 21, after a two-year battle Marywood High School in Anaheim, Calif., sociate professor four years later, eventually with cancer, at the age of 43. He worked and attended Mount St. Mary’s College in becoming a full professor. He later served as as a market development consultant for Los Angeles. A longtime supporter of USC, chair of the Department of German. He was Southern California Gas Company and she was a member of the Recognition Court the author of the book The Intellectual Contexts then as a senior statistician for Standard & of Town & Gown and in 1986 was honored of Kafka’s Fictions: Philosophy, Law and Religion Poor’s Compustat Services, Inc. In 1994, he by Town & Gown for her support. She was and wrote many papers studying Holocaust joined the investment banking firm Causey, a dean’s-level member of the USC Associ- literature and memory. He is survived by Demgen and Moore, Inc., in Denver as a ates. Her husband’s company built USC’s his brothers Günter, Erich and Cordt, sisters CPA. He was named a manager in 1997 and Von KleinSmid Center for International and Imme Schuler and Gesine Jäger, and nieces a principal in 2004. He is survived by his Public Affairs and, together with the Fluor and nephews. father, John, brother John, sister Jennifer, Foundation, has been responsible for more brother-in-law Jack and nephew Fletcher. than $2.8 million in gifts to USC. The Fluor William Robert Smith of Palos Verdes, family also supported the construction of Calif.; July 8, at the age of 91. He taught Berle Adams of Los Angeles; Aug. 25, after a Heritage Hall, and in 1984, the 11-story hall at USC for 26 years and helped establish long illness, at the age of 92. A past president previously known as Residence West was the reputation of USC Marshall School of of Cancer Research Associates, he was an rededicated as Fluor Tower in appreciation Business’ Leventhal School of Accounting. advocate of cancer research at USC for more of the Fluors’ contributions to USC. She is He spearheaded the accounting school’s than 25 years. He, along with the Lucy and survived by her sons, John Robert Fluor II code of ethics, which is used today, and was Berle Adams Foundation, funded the Lucy ’67 and Peter James Fluor ’70, MBA ’72, two director of the Smith CPA Review Program and Berle Adams Endowed Chair in Cancer daughters-in-law, eight grandchildren, two at USC from 1982 to 1992. He retired from Research at the Keck School of Medicine of great-granddaughters, sister-in-law Elizabeth USC in 1997. Prior to his teaching career, USC in 2002. He had a 60-year career in the Fluor Taylor, and nieces and nephews. he earned his bachelor’s degree from music and television industries. In the 1940s, Northeastern University and his MBA from he co-founded Mercury Records, helping Anne Friedberg of Los Angeles; Oct. 9, from Stanford University. He served as a naviga- to launch the careers of singers Frankie colorectal cancer, at the age of 57. A theorist tor in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 1969 Laine and Vic Damone. He moved on to of modern media culture, she was a profes- as a lieutenant colonel. He was married to MCA, where he represented stars including sor of critical studies at the USC School of Edith d’Entremont Smith for 68 years. He Jack Benny, Rosemary Clooney and Alfred Cinematic Arts, with joint appointments in is survived by sons William, Kevin and Hitchcock. In later years, he specialized in English and art history. Having joined the Gary ’77, and daughter Victoria ’79. the distribution of television programming, school in 2003, she was appointed chair of the and was the sole international distributor of critical studies program in 2006. She was a Steven J. Torok of Budapest, Hungary; July the Emmy Awards for more than 20 years. principal architect of the new interdivisional 23, at the age of 70. He studied nuclear He was preceded in death by his wife, Lucy, Ph.D. program for iMAP (media arts and physics at USC in the early 1960s. A who died in 1990. practice) and was on the steering committee participant in the Hungarian Uprising of of the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate 1956, he arrived in the United States as a Jane O’Brien Dart of Pebble Beach, Calif.; Program. She was the author of several refugee in 1957. He worked on the Stanford April 8, at the age of 90. The wife of former books, most notably Window Shopping: Cinema Linear Accelerator and taught physics at USC trustee Justin W. Dart, she was an and the Postmodern and The Virtual Window: Stanford University. While at the Columbia accomplished actress under the stage name From Alberti to Microsoft. She was named a Business School, he worked as a program- of Jane Bryan who had roles in nearly 20 2008 Academy Film Scholar by the Academy mer for IBM. He later worked for Shell movies during the late 1930s, including of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was International in London, Tokyo, Malaysia Marked Woman, We Are Not Alone, Brother president-elect of the Society for Cinema and and Brunei, and concluded his career at the Rat and Brother Rat and a Baby. She and her Media Studies. Friedberg lectured widely United Nation’s regional headquarters in husband were dedicated supporters of USC. throughout the United States and abroad, Bangkok as an energy economist. He served From 1969 to 1975, they funded the Justin and her work was translated into many as a civilian employee of the U.S. military Dart Award for Academic Innovation at the languages. She also established the doctoral in Northern Italy teaching in a graduate university to encourage faculty to develop program in visual studies at UC Irvine. She business administration program, and he innovations in teaching and curricula. Today, is survived by her husband, USC School of taught at Sophia University in Tokyo. After the Dart name is commemorated in the Cinematic Arts professor Howard A. Rod- retirement, he wrote a novel and started an Justin Dart Professorship in Operations man, and son Tristan Rodman. international negotiations consultancy. He Management at the USC Marshall School of is survived by his wife, Sanguansri, children Business. She donated her family’s collection Arnold Heidsieck of Venice, Calif.; Sept. 23, Estee, Juli and John, grandchildren Oliver, of artworks to the Monterey (Calif.) Mu- at the age of 72. He was a longtime professor Ben, Matthew and Emily, sister Ilona, and seum of Art, which are now housed in the of philosophy at USC College and a preemi- first wife, Sachiko.l

USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010 63 Last Word

6. In 1829, an American missionary planted Coffee Talk Brazilian cuttings on the west coast of a mountainous island, laying the foundation Some sip it from a demitasse, others toss it back by the mugful. of one of the most expensive and sought- However it’s quaffed, there are few places in the world where people after coffees in the world. Only 800 farms don’t enjoy a cup o’ Joe – which helps explain why producers grow working fewer than 2,500 acres, and producing no more than 2 million pounds of more than 16 billion pounds of coffee beans a year. You may prefer coffee a year, may properly sell their beans it macchiato, affogato or black. You may carry about you a deck of under this appellation. Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Tully’s and Peet’s cards. But how much do 7. Coffee beans (actually the seeds of the you really know about the blessed berry? coffee fruit) normally grow in pairs – two halves within a single fruit. Occasionally, 1. According to popular legend, coffee was however, a berry contains a solitary, oval- discovered in Ethiopia by , shaped bean. This is commonly called a a goatherd who observed his flock “danc- . ing” after they had nibbled on the bright red berries of a certain bush. The lad chewed 8. When Europeans began growing coffee in on the fruit himself and experienced the this Dutch colony, they little dreamed how world’s first java jolt. well the plant would take to an equatorial climate. Today, this nation of islands is 2. Why do you love it? Because it wakes the fourth largest producer of coffee in the you up. More precisely, this bug-killing world; two of its provinces are practically ingredient – an alkaloid plant toxin similar synonymous with coffee. to nicotine and cocaine – blocks neurore- ceptors for the sleep chemical adenosine. 9. Coffea benghalensis, Coffea canephora and Coffea congensis are among the many vari- 3. This ingredient gives coffee its slightly eties of the coffee tree. But 75 percent of sour flavor. It’s also one of the starter chem- the world’s coffee belongs to this common icals in the formulation of Tamiflu. species.

4. Coffee is good for you. Did you know 10. Though Ethiopia is known to be the that two espressos provide half your recom- birthplace of the coffee bean, its etymology mended daily allowance of this essential is less certain. Some believe the term to be an vitamin? And a related alkaloid actually Anglicization of the name of this forest wards off tooth decay? region of the country’s southwest, combined ›› contest rules Jittery Last Worders with the Amharic word for the popular brew. unite! We are looking for the coffee-related 5. In 2007, the European Union granted item or items referenced in each clue. Up to “protected designation of origin” to coffee 11. A cockroach and a flying monkey are five $30 gift certificates from Borders Books grown in nine regions of this Latin American just two concoctions that can be made with and Music will be awarded to the smoothest country. Noted for its soft terroir, this bean this coffee-based confection, which takes coffee connoisseurs to respond. If more than accounts for 12 percent of the world’s cof- its name from the Acolhua people of Vera- fee market (by value). cruz. l five perfect entries are received, five winners will be drawn by lot.

Send your answers no later than March 15 to The Last Word c/o USC Trojan Family Magazine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-7790. Submissions by fax (213-821-1100) and e-mail are welcome. illustration by tim bower

64 USC Trojan Family magazine spring 2010