FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF USC DANA AND DAVID DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES

fall 2016 / winter 2017 Magazine

The Politics Issue OFHEARTBEAT A NATION USC Dornsife scholars examine the modern political landscape to get a read on the country’s pulse. CONTRIBUTOR

DAVID SALO ’91 Head Coach for USC Men’s and Women’s Swimming

According to David Salo, alumnus and 11-year USC head swim coach, the secret to great coaching is thinking like a scholar. Salo earned a Ph.D. in exercise physiology from USC Dornsife in 1991 and is the author of two books on his evidence- based approach to training swimmers. “Usually coaches say, ‘Do more and you’ll get faster,’ ” Salo said. “But based on my research, I disagree.” Salo’s record speaks for itself: He has led a number of swimmers to major championships. His protégé list includes Rio Olympic medalists Katinka Hosszu and Amanda Weir. (For a list of USC Dornsife students and alumni who won medals in Rio, see page 68.) Salo’s unique methodology is based on the premise of swimming for less time at a higher intensity — a strategy that has proven successful even for distance racers. However, Salo is adamant that he will never employ a coaching strategy without data to back it up. “It’s the lesson of a Ph.D.,” he said. “You have to justify what you tell your athletes to do. You have to be ana- lytical and never spout out ideas you can’t defend.”

PHOTO by Peter Zhaoyu Zhou

Portrait courtesy of David Salo

2 fall 2016 / winter 2017 Educating Enlightened Electors 2 From the Dean This November, American voters will participate in one of the most important Contents 4 presidential elections of our time. At its core, the word “election” is defined New Lifeleader installed;Line IAS cele- interim ASsistant dean for communication as “the right, power or privilege of making a choice.” As a scientist and an educator, brates 11 years; Olympians made Mira Zimet I am drawn to this lesser-known meaning of the word, which divorces it from better through bioengineering; Executive director of publications / art director conventional politics and links it to the idea that the power to make informed L.A.’s role in sci-fi explored. Dan Knapp decisions is our most valuable privilege. editor-in-chief 5 social dornsife Darrin S. Joy Alumnus finds a higher purpose WRITERS AND EDITORS underground. Susan Bell Michelle Boston 6 from the heart of usc Laura Paisley Researcher links genes to feelings; DESIGNERS USC Dornsife welcomes its 22nd Letty Avila dean; Writing course links students Matthew Pla Savino with community. videographer and photographer Mike Glier 7 Curriculum Communications assistant Deann Webb 8 Archive contributORs 10 Emily Cavalcanti, Joanna Clay, Lynell George, Emily Gersema, Profile Andrew Good, Lizzie Hedrick 13 USC Dornsife administration Lexicon Amber Miller, Dean • Charles McKenna, Vice Dean for Natural Sciences • 14 Peter C. Mancall, Vice Dean for the Humanities & Social Sciences • Steven In The Field Lamy, Vice Dean for Academic Programs • Donal Manahan, Vice Dean for Students • George Sanchez, Vice Dean for Diversity & Strategic Initiatives • the politics issue 22 Stephen Mackey, Chief Operating Officer & Senior Associate Dean • Eddie Our World Sartin, Senior Associate Dean for Advancement • Kathleen Speer, Senior 24 62 Associate Dean Legacy USC Dornsife Board of Councilors Make ’Em Laugh 63 dornsife family Jana Waring Greer, Chair • Robert Alvarado • William Barkett • Leslie When it comes to politics, a dose of comedy can offer some relief from all of the posturing, polarization and Alumnus still busts a move; Berger • Robert D. Beyer • Susan Casden • Richard S. Flores • Shane news oversaturation. But can humor also influence our political ideologies? By Michelle Boston Religious leader comes out as Foley • Lisa Goldman • Pierre Habis • Yossie Hollander • Janice Bryant social activist; Dornsife athletes Howroyd • Martin Irani • Dan James • Stephen G. Johnson • Suzanne 32 excel at Rio Olympics. Nora Johnson • Peter YS Kim • Yoon Kim • Samuel King • Arthur Lev • At USC Dornsife, students interact with renowned experts from every possible field Robert Osher • Gerald Papazian • Lawrence Piro • Kelly Porter • Michael of study. The classes students take afford them opportunities to discover which problems Reilly • Harry Robinson • Stephanie Booth Shafran • Carole Shammas • and challenges they feel strongly about and which approaches resonate most with their 63 ScientificPolitical advisers have counseled Science presidents at least as far back as Franklin D. Roosevelt. Still, many politicians Faculty News Glenn A. Sonnenberg • Kumarakulasingam “Suri” Suriyakumar interests and talents. Students passionate about arresting climate change might pursue and much of the public seem slow to trust them — a situation that needs a remedy, and soon. By Darrin S. Joy usc dornsife magazine atmospheric science, nonprofit management or the history of environmental policy and 64 Faculty Canon Published twice a year by the USC Dornsife Office of Communication movements, while those hoping to combat disease might study biological sciences, eco- 36 at the University of Southern California. © 2016 USC Dornsife College. nomics or literature (such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain) and criticism (such as 66 Alumni and The diverse opinions expressed in USC Dornsife Magazine do not neces- Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor). The liberal arts give students the capacity to serve as sarily represent the views of the editors, USC Dornsife administration global citizens, expanding their minds to think analytically, flexibly and with a driving Vietnamese Horror Story Student Canon or USC. USC Dornsife Magazine welcomes comments from its readers to America has always regarded the Vietnam War as its own personal horror story. USC Dornsife scholars examine sense of curiosity [email protected] or USC Dornsife Magazine, 1150 S. Olive St. the legacy of what even the Vietnamese still refer to as “The American War.” By Susan Bell 67 T2400, Los Angeles, CA 90015 At Columbia University, one of the most gratifying courses I taught was “Science, Alumni News Politics and Critical Thinking.” This seminar challenged students to pull headline stories 44 from the news and subject them to rigorous questioning using analytical tools practiced 71 Remembering illus

daily in the liberal arts and sciences. The key was not just to learn to draw one’s own illus conclusions, but to seek the truth, whether it agreed with one’s opinions or not. As dean E Pluribus Unum 72 in my opinion

t Five alumni build on their USC Dornsife experiences to launch careers in politics and public service, representing t ra Divided We Fall of USC Dornsife, I am honored to lead this community of current and future thinkers, ra t both their alma mater and their fellow citizens. By Susan Bell, Michelle Boston, Lynell George and Laura Paisley t i i o o

with the hope that ultimately the elections our students make will generate a stronger, n by ric n by le n by more sustainable and more peaceful future. 56 on the cover Toward a more perfect union. tt h ar Amber Miller y avila Take a closer look at the rhythms d

m The Life of the Party of our nation’s political heart. Dean of USC Dornsife ia In a saga lasting more than 200 years, political parties in the United States have shifted, evolved and, more Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair importantly, persisted. By Laura Paisley Illustration by Richard Mia. Social DORNSIFE

YouTube Frontline Scholar: Justin Arana Augmented Reality Life Line NEWS AND EVENTS april 4.16.16

“Can’t believe I’m USC Dornsife Magazine

getting honored by my G alma mater! A long way ala offers a great digital experi- from all those Leavey photo ence using the Layar App.

Library all-nighters!” c tweets actress and activist

More than 600 guests gather o ur may at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to America Ferrera (B.A., interna-

5.22.16 t celebrate the 11th anniversary tional relations, ’13) hours before esy

of the USC Institute of being honored at the 83rd Annual o f

Armenian Studies. USC Alumni Awards. Alumna th

and social work leader SUZANNE e USC DWORAK-PECK (B.A., psych-

I

6.28.16 ns ology, ’65) is also recognized. Download the free t i t

John Wilson, professor of spatial u Layar App t e

sciences and sociology, speaks at jun o

the first-ever Esri science sympo- f

The Los Angeles Press A r e

sium aimed at connecting geogra- 6.26.16 arana Club recognizes USC Dornsife m phers and geographical information Magazine with two awards at the enian scientists with researchers in

58th Annual Southern California photo other fields. Journalism Awards, including the St u

7.1.16 d ies; Hu ies;

top prize in the in-house or corp- c o

USC and The Huntington orate magazine category. ur t m Library, Art Collections, esy find this symbol ani and Botanical Gardens july o

t throughout the f jus announce a renewed commit- illus ies ment to their joint advanced magazine, hold smart t research enterprises: the USC- g arana; in device over the page t

Huntington Early Modern ra and click “scan”

Studies Institute and the t i o

Huntington-USC Institute n by

o A Day in the Life of USC Dornsife on California and the West. nzales L august e Justin Arana ’05 was searching for purpose in his life when he traveled to Mozambique. There he encountered the country’s water crisis tt

y firsthand and founded the nonprofit organization Water Underground to address the multifaceted problem. Arana, a Frontline Scholar, A photo

8.8.16 vila; is among the exceptional USC Dornsife faculty, students and alumni who are advancing human health, preserving and improving our

8.26.16 a

The USC Biomechanics Research by LA S environment, and strengthening our communities. View the video at dornsife.usc.edu/justinarana. al as O ’ as al X T Lab, led by Jill McNitt-Gray, The USC Shoah Foundation m Discover ike glier; jacaran glier; ike

professor of biological sciences h Center for Advanced e

m interactive content

and biomedical engineering, brings e Genocide Research organizes B rien rien B

science and engineering support to uil

s a conference, co-sponsored e

U.S. athletes competing in the 2016 d Comp pt with the USC Latino Alumni Olympic Games in Rio. illus ing e Association, to mark the m

9.27.16 H any; “The goal for us is not to keep 20th anniversary of the signing CONNECT WITH USC DORNSIFE Be d

of the Guatemalan peace accords a pace, but to leapfrog ahead.” t Check us out on your favorite r photo Amber Miller is installed as ra which ended decades of civil war. om social media sites. We welcome t ec USC Dornsife’s 22nd dean. i o your posts and tweets for pos- n c om For more on Miller see page 10. by sible inclusion in the next issue ing i ing o m ur

ic of USC Dornsife Magazine. t h m OCTOB esy esy elle b elle 10.5.16 c ages dornsife.usc.edu/facebook o

f an Become a fan and get updates o o

USC Dornsife officially welcomes s E to ur in your news feed. d R

18 new faculty members. © T n; s n; t Learn more at dornsife.usc.edu/ esy h

o dornsife.usc.edu/twitter e o new-faculty-2016/. 10.28.16–10.29.16 girls ng L f Follow our tweets for the uck Organized by Assistant Professor USC latest USC Dornsife news. m

Ath in the Practice of English DAVID Par an nov

11.5.16 photo

ULIN and Professor of History le dornsife.usc.edu/youtube t ics De ics WILLIAM DEVERELL, the SCIENCE t Watch the latest videos from e

ners @USCDornsife

by by Instagram FICTION LOS ANGELES conference mb HOMECOMING 2016 finds Troy the USC Dornsife community. m h e p

explores the critical role L.A. has hoping to roast the University zi ira ar i r p ’Grams You Heart , dornsife.usc.edu/instagram

played in science fiction. of Oregon Ducks, following last tm I nc. | nc. m year’s heartbreaking 48-38 loss en The top photos you loved from the past year feature Alfonso Gonzales ’15, our oldest graduate at 96, a dazzling view from the Widney Alumni Follow our feed for snapshots e t t

in Eugene. House, and nine USC Song Girls who represent the Trojan Spirit. Add your ‘like’ to these images and more at Instagram.com/USCDornsife. of the #DornsifeLife.

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 5 4 Details Page 5 FROM THE HEART OF USC

Numbers Bisc 423

The USC Dornsife/ Los Angeles Times Poll

The USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Curriculum Times Poll is a series of statewide public opinion polls of registered EyewitnessUSC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual to History History and Education is developing technology to enable voters in California designed current and future students to have “virtual conversations” with Holocaust survivors long into the future. to survey voter attitudes on a range of political, policy, social and cultural issues. Conducted throughout the year, the widely cited poll helps to inform the public and encourage discourse on key political and policy issues. 64% of respondents support legislation that California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law that will gradually increase the state’s hourly minimum wage from $10 to $15 by 2022. 2/3 of voters support raising the federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 per hour.

percent of

voters who photo said the Afford-

able Care Act c

23 o improved ur t

health care for esy them and their o vs. families versus A dozen Holocaust survivors who previously recorded participate actively in their learning and develop important s f usc the percent their life stories for the Visual History Archive at USC communication and critical-thinking skills.

who said it Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History “With New Dimensions in Testimony, we have revo- ho

worsened it. a and Education have given testimony a second time for a lutionized the very concept and definition of oral history, h f

22 o From Epilepsy to Ecstasy aside the tragic human cost, semester-long version of the progresses, the clinical puzzles

pioneering project called New Dimensions in Testimony. giving the world another tool to guard against cultural un Alzheimer’s and other diseases Instructor: Michael Quick, USC the financial burden is stag- television medical drama become increasingly exotic. In a d stem from the brain’s inability This time, they sat in a light stage at the USC Institute amnesia, whose consequences can be cataclysmic,” said a t quick quick

i provost, senior vice president gering — $760 billion in the “House.” In the weekly series, neural mapping drill called “The for Creative Technologies, in the center of a half dome USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen o to send signals across synapses, n — T lined with a green-screen backdrop and equipped with Smith. “Moreover, our invention offers outside groups for academic affairs and prof- United States alone. physician Gregory House and Lesion Game,” Quick will tell a the gaps (blue) separating photo essor of biological sciences Fortunately, a virtual explo- his staff, confronted with a student: “You can’t feel any pain 51% a system of lights, microphones and more than 50 video a blueprint for similar applications of technology to h nerve cells (red) from one another. of voters support a state law e

I sion in neuroscience research mysteriously ill patient, would in your right arm, and you can’t c that has allowed transgender cameras. The system captured their testimony so it can be preserve the stories and physical likenesses of individuals ns USC Dornsife undergraduates o t

ur in recent years has helped act as medical detectives trying move your upper torso.” The students in public schools i delivered in a learning environment in which a survivor whom audiences can interact with forever.” t can tap into their inner medical u t t to access any bathroom and esy increase understanding of many to boil down unusual symptoms students order hypothetical answers questions as if he or she were present. An inaugural pilot was undertaken in 2015 at the Illinois e f sleuths to learn about the nervous participate on teams of their o o of these disorders. The course to reach a diagnosis. tests — check the patient’s r choosing. Whether in a classroom or a museum setting, the Holocaust Museum and Education Center with the first f system and how to identify th V “From Epilepsy to Ecstasy: In the USC Dornsife course, Babinski reflex, for example — isual His isual the disorders that can upset its technology features the filmed image of the survivor completed interactive testimony of Holocaust survivor e usc responding to questions conversationally with answers Pinchas Gutter of Toronto. Biological Basis of Neurologi- offered each spring, Michael until they successfully locate delicate balance.

o cal Disorders” aims to use this Quick leads his students to the affected neural pathway.

that are authentic and spontaneous. The survivor’s like- A second pilot also using the Gutter testimony is under- ffice to wealth of knowledge to give investigate symptoms from real While the course is engaging ness will have the ability to engage with participants who way at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. an ry

o students interested in neurosci- cases to form hypotheses and and fun, the goal is to teach can ask questions that trigger relevant, spoken responses. New Dimensions in Testimony will eventually be available f d th

53% of Californians said they favor Neurological illnesses and ence the basic principles of systematically rule out possible students to think critically, Ed

Interviewees will be able to answer thousands of questions at select museums and learning institutions around the e p the Affordable Care Act. uca

r mental disorders affect an esti- nervous system function. diagnoses. Quick said. “If we’re successful,

that cover a vast range of subjects. world to enhance USC Shoah Foundation’s mission of o v t o i mated 1 billion people through- Students are encouraged Each class offers a new chal- that’s a skill they’ll carry with o

New Dimensions in Testimony is especially useful to keeping voices of the Holocaust and other genocides alive s n dornsife.usc.edu/poll students. Asking questions of a survivor allows students to for education and action. t out the world. Setting to think of the course as a lenge, and as the semester them for a lifetime.” —D.S.J.

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 7 6 Details Page 5 FROM THE HEART OF USC

POLITICAL SCIENCE Recognition

“I didn’t know any Armenians before coming to California Archive and USC,” said Pedersen, who hopes to become a physician. Armenia via L.A. “I love the culture and people. The Armenians I know have Students explore the history of the Armenian diaspora so much passion.” in Los Angeles through a Maymester experience. In fact, after visiting Armenian social institutions through this course, Pedersen said he would like one day to practice medicine in Armenia. “Sometimes these passions make their way into your NAOMI LEVINE heart, and it’s hard to explain exactly how,” he said. “I think Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation it comes from the love so many Armenian people here have Levine, Gabilan Assistant shown to me. Now I want to go there and give back.” —L.H. Professor of Biological Sciences and Earth Sciences, was named to the 2016 class of Sloan Fellows in the ocean sciences division. The two-year fellowships are awarded yearly Blues Genes to early-career scientists and Genoeconomist Daniel Benjamin finds genetic variants scholars in recognition of linked to feelings of well-being and depression. distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to ar In one of the largest genomic studies to date on behavioral their fields. m

enia enia genetics, an international group of scientists has found Richard Antaramian has a goal: empower students with genetic variants that may influence our sense of well-being, photo knowledge to make them more effective citizens. He depression and neuroticism.

by by is making headway through a Maymester course, “The “We have known for a long time that these traits have

m Armenian Diaspora Community in Southern California — a genetic component, but until now, we had identified ike glier; levine levine glier; ike Los Angeles.” only a few specific genetic variants related to these traits,” Antaramian, Turpanjian Early Career Chair in Contem- said Daniel Benjamin, associate professor (research) of porary Armenian Studies and assistant professor of history, economics at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and teaches the course to help students understand the deep Social Research. M. HASHEM PESARAN

photo history of Armenians living in Southern California. The study also revealed that subjective well-being, neuro- Fellow, Eurasia Business “My hope is that through this course students who want ticism and depression are predominantly influenced by and Economics Society

c Pesaran, John Elliot

o to serve the community will get a nuanced understanding the same set of genes.

ur Distinguished Chair in

t of how to create better institutions to help Armenian “When examined individually, each genetic variant Economics, was recognized as esy esy Americans or any immigrant communities,” he said. explains very little about these traits,” Benjamin said. “But the inaugural Eurasia Business o f na Weekly full-day field trips allowed students to explore when taken together, these findings imply that the genetic and Economics Society Fellow for his academic achievements om Armenian churches, markets, schools, social services agen- influences on depression, neuroticism and subjective well- and invaluable contributions i levine; i levine; cies and other institutions in Los Angeles-area Armenian being result from the cumulative effects of at least thou- to time-series econometrics, hubs such as West Hollywood, Pasadena and Glendale. sands, if not millions, of different variants.” including modeling, testing

p Each excursion provided an authentic view of the diversity The scientists said this finding indicates that researchers and forecasting. esaran esaran within the expansive Armenian community. may want to study these traits jointly. Most Armenian Americans living in the vicinity of The researchers also cautioned that genetics is only one photo L.A. arrived during what is known as the second wave of factor that influences these psychological traits. The environ-

by by immigration, which began in the 1960s. The Lebanese Civil ment is at least as important. —E.G.

m War that started in 1975 and the Iranian Revolution of a tt 1979 greatly contributed to the influx of Middle Eastern

Norman Mailer Collection the 1960s. Outraged by a report that in the city that never sleeps to persuade the electorate m ein Armenians, many of whom settled in California.

New York City, 1969 It was 1969, and after witness- New Yorkers paid nearly because of their iconoclastic that they can govern.” d

l; l; “Unlike most other immigrant communities, those that

Stop us if you’ve heard this one. ing Ronald Reagan’s gubernato- $14 billion annually in income campaigning style and uncon- On June 17, 1969, New m JESSICA MARGLIN arglin arglin live in diaspora are more used to establishing communities in A member of the Manhattan rial victory in California, Pulitzer tax yet received only $3 billion ventional ideas. After all, their Yorkers cast their ballots for foreign countries — and their central institutions are vital to Rome Prize, American glitterati decides to enter Prize–winning author Norman in funds from the federal gov- campaign slogan was “Vote mayor. Mailer finished fourth Academy photo the people they serve,” Antaramian said. Marglin, Ruth Ziegler Early politics. He’s brash, opinionated Mailer decided to launch his bid ernment, Mailer campaigned the Rascals In.” in a field of five candidates Ani Abrahamyan, a senior studying industrial psychology, Career Chair in Jewish Studies and has a checkered history to be the 104th mayor of New with a call to secede from the “Mailer’s run shows how with just 41,000 votes. —D.K. Pe by moved to L.A. from Armenia when she was 14. and assistant professor of with women. He proffers some York City. state of New York and form the power of celebrity can photo religion, has been awarded

t “I learned so much in this class,” Abrahamyan said. radical campaign ideas, hoping The Naked and the Dead a 51st state. get a candidate noticed,” said er the Rome Prize in Modern A diverse sampling of campaign by “Previously, I’d had no idea about Armenian political parties to ride a wave of antiestablish- author entered the Democratic The press questioned the Christian Grose, associate Zh Italian Studies by the American d buttons sporting a variety of a

an kna an in the U.S., so it was very interesting to learn about o Academy in Rome. Recipients ment sentiment. Party primary as a “left con- sincerity of Mailer and running professor of political science. slogans showcases writer Norman yu Armenian politics here.” of the prize are invited to pursue Sound familiar? It might — servative” with a provocative mate Jimmy Breslin in seeking “However, to win, just like any Zho their individual work during a Mailer’s unorthodox approach pp Biological sciences major Jordan Pedersen was the only u if you lived in the Big Apple in platform of secession. the two most powerful offices candidate, a celebrity needs to politics. student in the class not of Armenian descent. residency at the academy.

8 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 9 FROM THE HEART OF USC

amber miller, 22ND Dean of USC Dornsife

Seeking New Ways Chicago and was soon invited Miller found that her ability people beyond the university? of Thinking to join the faculty of Columbia to analyze and build the How can we help?’ ” Profile Amber Miller’s research as University, where she started advanced technological equip- Now, as she takes the helm an experimental cosmologist her own research group in ment needed for her research at USC Dornsife, Miller sees has allowed her to look back 2002. Named dean of science experiments could also serve exciting opportunities for the in time billions of years to in 2011, she assembled a team her community: In 2009, College. She believes strongly the origins of the universe. of faculty to work on the first she became the chief science in USC Dornsife’s capacity Now, as the 22nd dean of strategic plan for the sciences advisor for the New York Police to become a model of USC Dornsife, her sights are at the university. Department’s Counterter- the heart of a 21st-century set on the future. Her academic research rorism Bureau. research institution — a model Miller brings both a depth focuses on understanding and breadth of research the origin of the universe, and leadership experience its fundamental nature and driven by what she jokingly evolution. As a physicist, describes as her “intellectual she led her team to design, “I’m … intrigued by how impatience.” It has led her to build and deploy balloon- traverse traditional academic borne telescopes to gather the answers to these disparate boundaries through cross- data on the conditions in the disciplinary collaborations universe when it was less than problems — ones far and to apply her training as one second old. Studying the an astrophysicist to real- traces of the Big Bang has beyond my discipline — world problems. taken Miller to 17,000 feet “Growing up, I was always above sea level in the Chilean interested in both the man- Andes, to the Antarctic ice can fit together.” made and natural worlds and and to the arid deserts of the how they work, but I was also Southwest. Serving for two years, she that requires a new way of intrigued by how people work, Miller has published more worked with the bureau to engaging with the world beyond how institutions and societies than 100 scientific papers, create and manage teams to the university to create posi- work,” she said. “That curiosity and her honors and awards analyze the best use of the tive change. led me to keep exploring. include a National Science city’s counterterrorism equip- She is focused on supporting I was always looking for the Foundation Career Award, ment. While advising the Police humanities, social sciences next subject that I didn’t an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship Department, Miller saw how a and natural sciences scholars know about, that I couldn’t and a Lenfest Distinguished university research scientist’s in their pursuit of education yet figure out.” Faculty Award. In addition, analytical thinking and training and the creation of new A California native from she was a NASA Graduate could support agencies and knowledge and ideas for the Malibu, Miller attended the Research Program Fellow and institutions trying to solve real- sake of inquiry at the highest University of California, is a fellow of the American world problems. intellectual level, while also Berkeley as an undergraduate, Physical Society. “That realization opened up developing opportunities with an invitation to play in As Miller developed her early a new perspective for me. As for these scholars and their the university’s symphony universe research, she also faculty and researchers, we students to apply their ideas orchestra. She wasn’t sure pursued her interest in societal have a tremendous amount to the many challenges facing what she wanted to study issues by becoming a member to offer our communities, and society. until she was introduced to in 2008 of the Council on we need to find opportunities “The opportunity to lead the concept of relativity in a Foreign Relations, among the to use our intellectual re- at USC Dornsife — the heart freshman seminar. “I realized country’s most respected inde- sources to partner with them. of the university — and think there was a whole different pendent think tanks devoted to “In an ever more complex deeply about further devel- way of looking at the world, international affairs. and globally interconnected oping excellence in the and that set me off in a new “I think, for a lot of academics, world, the capacity to think production of new knowledge, direction.” they’re most comfortable analytically is vital. We have while rethinking how we Miller declared a physics when they’re deep inside a a wealth of intellectual talent engage with the rest of the and astronomy major, complex problem,” she said. in our research universities, world and particularly graduating with a Bachelor “I really enjoy thinking that people whose disciplines Los Angeles, one of today’s photo Amber Miller is an experimental of Arts degree in 1995. She way as well, but I’m equally train them to deconstruct most dynamic cities, is very cosmologist who studies the j by then attended Princeton intrigued by how the answers problems. As a scientist, and exciting.”

oh University to pursue an M.A. to these disparate problems now as dean of USC Dornsife, earliest moments of the universe. Video: Watch Dean Miller’s As dean, she aims to empower n livzey and a Ph.D. in physics. She — ones far beyond my disci- I am constantly asking myself, installation address at USC Dornsife scholars to help earned a prestigious Hubble pline — can fit together.” ‘How can academics apply dornsife.usc.edu/installation- address solve society’s many challenges. Fellowship at the University of As a member of the council, their skills to engage with

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 11 10 Details Page 5 FROM THE HEART OF USC

Word american studies and ethnicity in the news Quotables WOKE “Ali made being \ wohk \ verb 1. A simple Lexiconpast tense of wake; adjective a Muslim cool. 1. actively aware of systemic Ali made being a Civic Lessons injustices and prejudices, Muslim dignified. USC students, through the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and the Joint Educational Project, teach teenagers especially those related Ali made being a about politics and the value of voting. By Lizzie Hedrick to civil and human rights. Muslim relevant. 2. aware of the facts, true Ali put the question Despite most being bilingual themselves, New Designs measures and key issues facing each candidate in local situation, etc. (sometimes Charter Schools students Michael, Cora, Joselyn, Senate and congressional races. used facetiously) 3. awake. of whether a person Origin: “Woke” derived can be a Muslim Emmanuel, Eduardo and Alejandro finished their group Senior Cashae Ellis co-taught the course at New Designs discussion on California’s Multilingual Education Act, Charter Schools. The sociology major has both an academic from the Germanic wak AND an American split on whether languages other than English should be and a personal investment in the program. to become the past tense to rest.” used for instruction in public schools. “I grew up here, so I know that students don’t get a lot of of “wake.” The first use of SHERMAN JACKSON, King The conversation centered on whether the act, a November education and awareness about civic engagement and local the term in its current socio- Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought 2016 ballot measure, could help students who grew up in politics, so I wanted to give back by teaching it to them.” political form — calling and Culture and professor of Spanish-speaking families by allowing them to receive Ultimately, the Civic Engagement Teaching Internship attention to racial inequal- religion and American studies ity — occurred in the 2008 and ethnicity, in a June 9 CNN homework that is in their native tongue — or hinder aims to increase voter turnout and civic participation in Erykah Badu song “Master report on legendary boxer them later because they might not have the language skills Los Angeles. Muhammad Ali’s memorial to keep up in high school advanced-placement classes or “Our hope is that if we educate our youth on practical Teacher.” It gained further service, at which Jackson spoke. college seminars taught in English. and essential information about voting and find personal prominence with the rise of “I think it could be a problem if kids are taught math and reasons for them to be politically involved, the buy-in the Black Lives Matter move- science in Spanish when they are in elementary school and from both USC students and local teenagers will be last- ment and other social justice then want to transition into higher level classes later on,” said ing,” said Catherine Shieh, the staff associate at the Un- causes in the United States. “Perhaps one of the The term has found particu- reasons why music Michael, 17. ruh Institute who oversees the program. All seniors studying government at New Designs Charter Bissonnette emphasized that this program can benefit larly widespread use in social is a cross-culturally Schools’ University Park campus are participating in an everyone, whether they are eligible to vote or not. media, often coupled with indispensable arti- eight-week program on civic engagement taught by USC “Even if you’re not able to vote — whether it’s because “stay” (i.e., “stay woke”) to fact is that it appeals undergraduates. The internship program, a partnership you’re too young or aren’t a citizen — you can become inspire continued activism and between the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and the civically engaged, advocate on behalf of a candi- vigilance regarding racial and directly through an social inequalities. auditory channel to Joint Educational Project (JEP), seeks to engage teen- date or cause and persuade others to participate in agers in local politics and show them that civic participa- elections,” she said. “We tell the kids, ‘If you can help Usage: Stay woke: Remember emotional and social tion can make a difference. turn out five people on Election Day, it’s as if you’ve voted that #BlackTwitter and processing centers of “We wanted to connect students to the issues in their five times.’ ” #BlackLivesMatter were talk- the human brain.” communities that matter ing about racial and social justice when they encouraged MATTHEW SACHS, psychology and show them how be- graduate researcher, in a June 17 coming civically engaged people to #staywoke. Popular Science article about his can move the needle on illus study of why certain people get chills when listening to music. important issues,” said t ra

Alexandra Bissonnette, t i o

deputy director of the n by

Unruh Institute. “Also, A n

“For a long time we since we know that the tho thought that perhaps best way to motivate ny F we had honest people someone is to have them re d

motivate someone else, a;

in the world and we d

our USC students also end P e lara had dishonest people up getting excited about engage civic in the world. But Juan De Lara is assistant the prospect of making hoto what we see now is change.” professor of American studies c m The Civic Engagement o and ethnicity at USC Dornsife. en that context actually ur t t His current research focuses

Teaching Internship is esy esy really matters.” photo offered for credit as a polit- on social justice and social ANYA SAMEK, associate pro- o f by fessor (research) of econom- ical science course. The J movements, racial capitalism, uan De De uan ics, in a June 28 NPR story program, which launched m urbanization, labor, California ike glier highlighting her research on in Fall 2015, comprises and the American West, Los L how context affects an adult’s eight one-hour sessions on ara Angeles, and the border between tendency to lie or cheat. topics such as 2016 ballot the U.S. and Mexico.

12 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 13 FROM THE HEART OF USC

sociology

his ability to work both independently and collaboratively. “The laboratory environment really encourages initiative,” InEconomic Segre gationThe Field “Neighborhood and school Of Fruit Flies he said. “I’ve become much more confident and comfortable Neighborhoods are becoming poverty are big drivers of low- in both my knowledge of the nervous system and my interac- less diverse and more segre- Income segregation between Childless households income kids’ poor educational tion with others, especially academics.” —S.B. gated by income — but only neighborhoods rose 20 percent represent two-thirds of outcomes,” Owens said, “so and Neuroscience among families with children, among families with children the country’s population. rising income segregation Undergraduates ride the SURF to an invaluable summer a new study has found. from 1990–2010. It changed little perpetuates inequality and may research experience. Ann Owens, assistant pro- among childless households. reduce poor kids’ mobility.” fessor of sociology and spatial Increased availability of data Life Stories sciences, examined census on schools, teacher quality and Writing course allows undergraduates to work with data from 100 major U.S. student achievement have given community organizations to tell their stories. metropolitan areas. She rise to a sense of competition found that, among families and rankings. Owens said this James is 74, a former inmate just released from state prison with children, neighborhood increased focus on perfor- after 33 years and facing the challenges of his newfound income segregation is driven mance and access to school freedom. Fortunately, he has the help of The Francisco by increased income inequality information may have made Homes, an organization that supports formerly incarcerated and a previously overlooked school an even greater priority individuals as they reintegrate into society. factor: school district options. for parents. James’ tale is told through the mini-documentary “The For high-income families Francisco Homes Intake,” a film created by a group of choosing where to live, school undergraduates in the course “Writing in the Community.” districts are a top concern, The class partners groups of students with community Owens said. Those in large groups such as schools, nonprofits and social justice organi- cities have multiple school zations, using the students’ storytelling skills to address districts from which to choose. 50KMetropolitan Statistical Areas have social issues. Income segregation between at least one urbanized area of Neuroscience major Daniel Hojoon Kim is determined to “We wanted to do something different, something neighborhoods rose 20 percent >40% ; 50,000 or more people. become either a neurologist or a neurosurgeon. This sum- that would engage the community as partners rather than from 1990–2010, and income >10% Set New Boundaries? mer, he took an important step toward that goal when he clients or subjects,” said Stephanie Bower, co-instructor segregation between neighbor- More than 40 percent of high-income kids’ Policymakers have been trying joined the laboratory of Dion Dickman, assistant professor of the course along with John Murray. Both are associate hoods was nearly twice as neighbors have high incomes. to address economic inequities of biological sciences. professors (teaching) of writing. high among households that Only about 10 percent of low-income kids’ through measures such as Dickman’s lab researches synapses — the points of com- Audrey Weber ’16, an international relations major, was have children compared to neighbors have high incomes. wage increases, but based on munication between two different cells, usually neurons, in part of the group that worked with James. those without. the trend Owens found, they the brain. “Working with The Francisco Homes was one of the most For childless families, schools may have another option. She “We study how synapses develop and function in general rewarding experiences of my college career,” she wrote in are not a priority for selecting a recommended that educational and in particular the remarkable plasticity of synapses, which her post-course reflection. “I now see those men not just as home, which, Owens said, likely leaders consider redrawing allows them to change in structure and function,” Dickman criminals, but as human beings.” explains the reason that the boundaries to reduce the num- said. Any defects likely contribute to various neurological The students’ efforts impressed the instructors. researchers did not see a rise in ber and fragmentation of school and neuropsychiatric diseases. “Not only are our community partners extraordinary, but the income gap or in neighbor- districts in major metropolitan Dickman’s lab is renowned for its work on a process called so are the students,” Murray said. “They work so hard to hood segregation. 203,872,488 areas. Leaders also should homeostatic synaptic plasticity, a process that keeps the brain make these collaborations succeed. It’s really the sort of As of 2010, the 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the U.S., as defined by the White House Office of Management “Income inequality has an consider designing interdistrict functioning at stable levels. The team studies the fruit fly experience that reinforces our beliefs about the value of and Budget, comprised nearly 204 million people. effect only half as large among choice plans and strengthening Drosophila melanogaster to look for genes that, when mutated, human connection.” —L.P. childless folks,” said Owens. mo current plans within districts to disrupt this process. The implication: Parents see n address inequities. opo “The genetics of a fly are very similar to that of a human,” extra money as a way to buy a Changing school attendance ly a license is Dickman said. “So studying Drosophila is a great way for home in a higher-performing policies could be “more feasible young scientists to do real laboratory research and learn how school district. than reducing income inequality, genetics actually works.” raising the minimum wage, Kim joined the lab because of his interest in discovering

A Troubling Sign Children$ d instituting metropolitan how the nervous system functions and stabilizes itself. + t Increased neighborhood income ra governance, or creating afford-

d Funding from the Summer Undergraduate Research Fund segregation may be a troubling e able housing stock to address

=More Segregation m

ark ark (SURF) made the experience possible. sign for low-income families. Income segregation between residential segregation,” Owens

photo “It’s this hands-on reinforcing that I love in the field of o

Studies have shown that inte- neighborhoods was nearly f wrote in her study.

p research,” Kim said. “You’re not just in class learning about arker br arker grated learning environments twice as high among house- le by Many researchers have an experiment; you’re actually doing it yourself, reviewing are beneficial for children of holds with children versus argued that housing policy can

tt the results, thinking critically about why or how they oth disadvantaged households and those without. y avila drive education policy, but occurred and how to resolve any issues or discrepancies.” do no harm to children in higher- ers Owens wrote: “School policy In addition to expanding his knowledge of neuroscience income families. can also be housing policy.” and genetics, Kim said the research experience has fostered

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 15 14 Details Page 5 FROM THE HEART OF USC

Numbers Spotlight

summer surf compared with the two other comparison groups, were USC Dornsife offers undergradu- more accurate in processing sound,” Habibi said. ates a number of ways to gain Building Brains Within two years of the study, the neuroscientists research experience so they can found the auditory systems of children in the music forge scholarly connections with program were maturing faster than those of the other faculty and test out potential Volcanic Disruption Through Music children. The fine-tuning of their auditory pathway could Earth scientists strengthen the case that a prehistoric disaster is a good model for investigating the potential career paths. The Summer Five-year USC Dornsife study finds that children’s effect of rising carbon dioxide levels. Undergraduate Research Fund accelerate their development of language and reading, as By Andrew Good — known more commonly by its brains develop faster with music training. well as other abilities — a potential effect that the scien- beachy acronym SURF — offers tists are continuing to study. students a way to support their summertime research with faculty. BCI co-directors Antonio Damasio, David Dornsife Whether working on campus Chair in Neuroscience, and Hanna Damasio, Dana Shea Rouda ’17

studying how the nervous system Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, and BCI neuroscientist Im functions or traveling throughout B. Rael Cahn co-authored the study. —E.G. age East Asian Languages

the Arctic to learn about climate o and Cultures Major f

change, students may use SURF Imp

stipends to subsidize their travel, r o

equipment, living expenses, fees ve

d “I’ve always been or other costs related to their Pr

research. Funds are also available Clean and Green ot motivated to innovate, for research during the academic Chemists develop a method to generate and store ean year through the Student and I love technology hydrogen efficiently — without further polluting. S Opportunities for Academic M cenery: and wrapping Research (SOAR) program. my hands around Chemists at the USC Loker Hydrocarbon Research Insti- o

tute have developed a way to produce hydrogen while also un entrepreneurial t

recycling harmful carbon dioxide. Unlike prior methods, V activities. But I also esuvius as as esuvius 1,541 Music instruction appears to accelerate brain development the catalyst they have developed releases hydrogen without love the creative outlet The total number of in young children, according to initial results from a five- involving more pollutants. students funded since of working on a project year study by USC Dornsife neuroscientists. The technique employs formic acid, which appeals to SURF’s launch during the R like Drops. It’s been e

The Brain and Creativity Institute (BCI), in partner- scientists. p 2007–08 academic year. resen ship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and “Formic acid is important as a hydrogen carrier because a complete learning

t process, each new the Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), examined the impact we can make it efficiently from carbon dioxide, which is e d a step is a completely of music instruction on children’s social, emotional and at the center of the global warming problem,” said Travis t

cognitive development. The study shows music instruc- Williams, associate professor of chemistry. th e new thing.” S

tion speeds up maturation of the brain’s auditory path- Scientists have struggled to store hydrogen in formic acid urrey 84%193 of the 230 SURF appli- way — areas of the brain responsible for processing sound, while minimizing toxicity and maximizing energy content. “Buy a zombie survival kit. cations received in 2016

Zoo Buy garden gnomes. Buy were funded. language development, speech perception and reading This method appears to fulfill those objectives, and it is safe shoes. Buy more shoes.” l

skills — and increases its efficiency. and sustainable, Williams said. o

gical gical So entreats the home page “The auditory system is stimulated by music,” said Assal The chemists developed a new catalyst to release the of Drops.la, the brainchild of

Habibi, the study’s lead author and a senior research associate hydrogen. It does not degenerate when exposed to air, G Just over 200 million years ago, long before dinosaurs, a cat- “By some estimates, it rose nearly as rapidly as we’re senior Shea Rouda. But there’s ar a critical second step to these at BCI. “This system is also engaged in general sound making it ideal for vehicles or other devices, and it is reusable. d aclysm killed off a significant chunk of the planet’s animal putting CO2 into the atmosphere today,” Corsetti said.

$2.5M Willia by ens entreaties: “… and donate the The total amount of funding processing that is fundamental to language development, “In fact, we think it might never die. We’ve demonstrated life. The leading theory suggests massive volcanic eruptions. “We wanted to see how the Earth system responded to a granted to students since 2012. spare change to charity.” reading skills and successful communication.” it through 2.2 million turnovers over several months,” Research by USC Dornsife scientists strengthens evidence rapid rise of CO2. The spoiler alert is that there was a mass Drops is a philanthropic For the study, the neuroscientists are monitoring brain Williams said. for that theory. It also has wider implications for how rapid extinction. What we’ve been able to do is use this mercury app that allows users to round

development and behavior in a group of children from The catalyst’s staying power would be a big money saver m climate change can affect life on Earth because along with as a fingerprint to tie the [extinction] event to the volcanos, up the amount of their everyday M purchases, accruing money underprivileged neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Several for anyone who wants to generate and store hydrogen as o lava flows, the volcanic eruptions released massive amounts and therefore the emissions.” rgan, 1840; 1840; rgan, to donate to partner charities. 120+ of the children, at 6 or 7 years old, began to receive music fuel, he said. —E.G. of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, creating havoc in the The Triassic-Jurassic extinction is particularly pertinent Drops is currently working The number of USC Dornsife instruction through the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles ecosystem. because it was selective, Corsetti said. It preferentially with several Los Angeles faculty members who work program at HOLA. The research charts the sharp escalation of the element affected coral reefs and animals most similar to the ones organizations. with SURF scholars each year. Ro Though interested in busi-

Using MRI to monitor changes through brain scans, u mercury in samples of rock preserved from the Triassic- common in today’s oceans. That makes the event perhaps

d ness, Rouda decided to study EEG to track electrical activity in the brain, behavioral a Jurassic extinction event — mercury that can be traced to the most relevant to study when trying to predict what photo Mandarin Chinese at USC testing and other such techniques, the scientists are com- the eruptions. Study co-author Frank Corsetti, professor might happen with rising CO2 levels, Corsetti said. Dornsife. Foreign language

paring the budding musicians with two other groups: c of earth sciences, said the rise in mercury seems to match David Bottjer, professor of earth sciences, biological study requires students to o children in a community soccer program and children not ur changes in the planet’s biosphere during the era. As the sciences and environmental studies; Joshua West, Wilford dedicate a lot of time to the

$2.7K t The average grant amount at all involved in any after-school programs. esy mercury rose, it corresponded to a wave of animal extinc- and Daris Zinsmeyer Early Career Chair in Marine Studies pursuit and take a hands-on for 2016. approach, he said. o

These initial findings provide evidence of the benefits f tions. Biodiversity began to return once the mercury level and associate professor of earth sciences and environmental “That attention, focus Sh

Learn more about the of music education at a time when many schools around ea receded, thousands of years later. studies; and William Berelson, professor of earth sciences and dedication I’ve learned

Summer Undergraduate the nation have either eliminated or reduced music and Ro The reason the volcanic activity is suspected of being and environmental studies, co-authored the study with is something I’ve been able

Research Fund at u to translate to my work with arts programs. d the culprit in the mass extinction has to do with carbon Corsetti. Several current and past USC Dornsife graduate a Drops,” Rouda said. dornsife.usc.edu/surf. “These results reflect that children with music training, dioxide. students were also authors.

16 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 17 FROM THE HEART OF USC

Viewpoint Spotlight expert opinions “Professor Muske-Dukes has great insight for the heart of the poem and ensuring it has enough space to breathe,” “There is a cultural Night at the Museum Johnson said. “She makes all my poems better.” —S.B. Doctoral students read poems they wrote in response generation gap among feminists that Cold Biologists find single Comfort gatekeeper guarding path to cold-induced pain.By Darrin S. Joy to art at Los Angeles’ acclaimed new museum. helps to explain why “When your body reacts In the after-hours quiet of the museum, Callie Siskel stood younger feminists are to an injury, it generates before a captivated crowd reading aloud her poem Vanishing Pill-free Pain Protocol less excited about the an immune response that Points. Behind her, artist Mark Grotjahn’s Untitled (Dancing Researcher Joan Broderick trains nurse practitioners to implement a chronic pain treatment plan. candidacy of Hillary is meant to begin the heal- Black Butterflies), the series of nine, angular black and white Clinton than might ing process,” McKemy said. drawings that inspired her verse, served as a backdrop. be expected.” SABRINA ENRIQUEZ ’19 “Immune system cells travel Following Siskel, Liz “LA” Johnson read her poem Portal, Mathematics Major to the site of injury, and they similarly accompanied by her inspiration — Rudolf Stingel’s ANGE-MARIE HANCOCK, associate professor of political release a number of sub- 2010 untitled landscape. science and gender studies, “I just always stances that cause inflam- Siskel and Johnson were among five USC Dornsife doc- in a July 29 The Hill op-ed on really, really liked mation. We call this mix- toral students participating in the student poetry reading at the feminist generation gap that math. When I was ture the ‘inflammatory The Broad in downtown Los Angeles. Organized by for- Hillary Clinton must overcome. in the fourth grade, soup,’ and some of the com- mer California poet laureate and Professor of English Carol my teacher told me pounds have been known to Muske-Dukes, the event capped off her graduate poetry make sensory neurons more course “A Tour of the Imagination.” Students selected art “Moments of chill I was good at it. sensitive to stimuli after works currently exhibited at the museum and wrote poems and relajo — that’s So, I just stuck injury.” This is why a wound inspired by their choices. what the men of with it after that. becomes sore to the touch. “The poems that emerged from the imaginations of stu- South L.A. are I thought ‘Wow, Most studies have con- dents in this ekphrastic course and were showcased at the finding in green this is so much fun.’” centrated on factors that ‘Night at the Museum’ after-hours reading elicited intense spaces. This speaks increase sensitivity to pres- enthusiasm,” Muske-Dukes said. Hyperbolic geometry. A math- to the power of ematical concept beyond most sure or heat, but no one has Siskel said she was attracted to the semester-long course peoples’ ability to imagine, it been able to find any specific by the opportunity to work with Muske-Dukes. “Also, what plant nature, to the lies at the heart of Sabrina factors that can sensitize drew me to the class was the exceptional opportunity to be in therapeutic aspects of Enriquez’s undergraduate humans and other animals The Broad, not as a visitor but as a poet,” she said. being outside, where research. Mentored by Professor to a cold stimulus, accord- “Grotjahn’s drawings evoked in me the sense of obsessive of Mathematics Francis Bonahon, you can ‘blow off the junior is working to verify ing to McKemy. Until now, longing and loss, themes that I — and many poets — write Chronic pain has emerged as one of the most onerous steam,’ inhale fresh the maximum and minimum that is. about,” she explained. health problems facing Americans. In many cases, it can values of a function that measures In laboratory studies Johnson, a Provost’s Fellow, said she, too, jumped at the lead to addiction to prescription pain killers. air, and touch soil the growth statistics of the McKemy’s group showed chance to write a poem in response to a work of art. Joan Broderick, senior behavioral scientist and assoc- with your hands …” number of simple closed curves α PIERRETTE HONDAGNEU- that can be placed on a once- that GFR 3 was respon- “One of my favorite pastimes is going to museums, and I iate director of the Center for Self-Report Science at SOTELO, professor of sociology, punctured torus. (Think of wrap- sible for mediating cold do get a lot of inspiration from art in my own work,” she said. USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social in a July 7 Zócalo Public Square ping thin pieces of rope around sensitization after injury — Both students expressed appreciation of Muske-Dukes’ Research, conducted research to help patients cope with op-ed on the benefits of the an inner tube with a single hole a first-of-its-kind discovery. teaching and mentorship. pain without medication. increasing number of gardens in it — but in hyperbolic space, “That was really kind of “We have a very pharmacologically oriented health- and green spaces in South where the shortest distance Los Angeles. between two points is not a a surprise to us,” McKemy care system in the U.S. because with medications there is straight line.) said. “For all of these other a clear path to marketing products,” she said. br

“There’s applied math and substances that have been o A clinical psychologist, Broderick proposed a different a pure math,” Enriquez said. d “For me, one of

The onset of inflammation following injury or stemming known to induce heat and mechanical sensitization, if you photo approach that centers on a 10-appointment series of coping “Hyperbolic geometry falls under pure math; it’s one of from disease can heighten pain response to pressure and get rid of the receptors, you just lose a little bit of sensitization enriquez strategies for patients. It includes progressive muscular the most exciting the purest forms.” heat — and to cold. Researchers at USC Dornsife have at most because there is such a diverse repertoire of factors illus bell; susan by relaxation training, guided imagery, activity pacing, possibilities is finding Despite her study’s complex found that increased sensitivity to cold-related pain stands that actually induce heat and force sensitivity. This is the only distraction techniques and other problem-solving strategies. life forms that might nature, Enriquez’s motivation out, however, because it appears to be controlled by just one thing for cold sensitivity that we’ve been able to find so far.” photo “We found significant reductions in pain intensity, survive in extreme for pursuing her project is protein receptor. The findings could one day lead to much-needed relief for improved physical functioning, reduced fatigue and rather simple. Co environments like “It’s something that I The finding opens the door to therapies that may one patients. ur reduced use of pain medications, and the effects lasted at t find beautiful,” she said. day alleviate suffering for millions of people with allodynia “One of the things that people don’t appreciate is how esy least 12 months,” Broderick said. Mars.” t “My minor is in human rights, ra , Robert D. — pain caused by cold sensitivity — that is induced by neu- allodynia related to these traumatic neuropathies — these o Broderick believes we are seeing an important shift in MOH EL-NAGGAR t f i and I do a lot of social justice o S Beyer (’81) Early Career Chair in

ropathy from chemotherapy, diabetes and other factors. issues such as chemotherapy or nerve injury or diabetes — is n by the way medical care is delivered in this country. abrina abrina work in general, which can David McKemy, associate professor of biological sciences, actually reported almost as prevalently as sensitivity to heat “Integrating our protocol is just the tip of the iceberg,” Natural Sciences and associate be emotionally stressful. h professor of physics, biologi- and his team found that a single protein, called glial cell-line and mechanical [pressure],” McKemy said. ball arvey Broderick said. “For it to be maximally effective, it will But math requires your com- E cal sciences and chemistry, in plete concentration. It’s very derived neurotrophic factor receptor α3 (GFRα3), controlled The research team included USC Dornsife graduate nriquez need to be in the context of an overall approach to disease a June 21 Quanta Magazine detached from the challenges the ability of nerve cells to transmit cold-related pain signals students Erika Lippoldt and Serra Ongun, and under- management that is more reliant on patient engagement feature on his research studying in the world.” after an injury. graduate Geoffrey Kusaka. and empowerment.” —L.H. electricity-eating microbes.

18 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 19 FROM THE HEART OF USC

Spotlight Word

Zamperini’s life was chronicled in Laura Hillenbrand’s A historian notes a national milestone 2010 book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, A Road Well Taken Resilience and Redemption (Random House) and in the 2014 A portion of a California freeway will soon bear the film adaptation directed by Angelina Jolie. He died at the age name of an American hero and USC Dornsife alum. of 97, one month before the film’s premiere, of pneumonia. Big Memphis Hair Hadley is currently working to raise $5,000 for two A writing instructor and alumnus’ first solo album takes him in new directions — both musically and follicly. highway signs that will bear the freeway section’s By Susan Bell new name. His goal is to get the signs installed by Jan. 26, 2017 — what would have been Zamperini’s 100th Looking at the photograph of Robert Rex Waller Jr. gazing Elvis after a high school football game. Getting my hair done birthday. —D.K. serenely out of a frame of intricately drawn cactuses on for the album artwork became a way for me to remember and his new album, Fancy Free, one’s eye is drawn inexorably to honor her and keep her present.” richard garcia ’20 his hair. Waller, who earned a master’s in professional writing at Chemistry Major While Waller’s country musician beard is graying USC Dornsife in 2003, is best known as the lead singer/ handsomely, in a traditionally manly manner reminiscent songwriter of his band I See Hawks In L.A. But after seven Established by the Organic Act in Shaking Things Up of, say, Kenny Rogers, his hair is … well, unusual. Perhaps Hawks albums and a decade of touring, he was ready for 1916, the U.S. National Park Service “I know I did my The Southern California Earthquake Center hosts interns best described as platinum blond, it has a certain bouf- something different. celebrated its centennial in August, from around the nation to do seismic research. marking 100 years of caring for part with academics, fant quality more evocative of another impeccably coiffed Inspiration for Fancy Free came partly from his students’ some of the country’s most beauti- community service country music star — Dolly Parton. The overall effect is energy, commitment and ability to take risks. ful and diverse natural spaces. and extracurricular Within the span of a week, two magnitude 7.1 earth- arrestingly cool. Waller uses his own creative process in his teaching by There are now 59 parks throughout the United States and activities, but my quakes rocked greater Los Angeles. The seismic incidents, But Waller’s striking hairdo is not a tribute to the exploring it though writing, then modeling that for his on the Puente Hills and Whittier fault lines, caused Nashville singer of “Jolene” fame, but to another Tennessee students. its territories. California boasts parents worked so nine — the most of any state or billions of dollars in damage and roughly 13,000 casualties. bombshell: his mother, Sarah Pickens Waller, who died in His class helps students discover and explore their own territory — including Sequoia and hard to give me this But luckily, it was just a simulation — engineered by March last year while Waller was recording the album. artistic values through the process of writing — sometimes Yosemite, the nation’s fourth and opportunity. It’s such summer interns at the Southern California Earthquake “My mom was this very fancy Southern woman from about their own work. fifth. These important resources Center (SCEC), housed in USC Dornsife. Memphis,” said Waller, associate professor (teaching) of “That’s something that, as artists, we don’t do very often,” offer a gateway to nature, oppor- an amazing thing to tunities for research and, as noted be here, and I’m so Students came from community colleges and four-year writing. “She had this wonderful bouffant hairdo, and one he said. “We write about other people’s work more commonly by USC Dornsife historian William universities near and far, with one coming all the way of the famous stories about her was that she had kissed than our own.” Deverell, a reminder of the nation’s glad they get to be from Puerto Rico. past and visionary spirit. part of it with me.” State lawmakers have approved a resolution to name a 2-mile For eight weeks, the interns used thousands of years’ stretch of Interstate 405, the San Diego Freeway, after World worth of real and hypothetical data to forecast earth- Richard Garcia’s earliest memo- “In the era of the Civil P

War II hero Louis Zamperini ’40. quakes, immersing themselves in the world of earthquake hoto ries of USC were attending War, California’s football games with his father. The section of the freeway that will be known as the Louis science — calculating data on the largest academic super-

o

Because of those experiences, Zamperini Memorial Highway runs through Torrance, computer in the world, determining probability and iden- f National Parks, and USC held a special place in Yo Calif., where the famed runner grew up. tifying the ramifications. se especially Yosemite,

Garcia’s heart. m

“I’m proud to have led the effort to rename the Torrance They made visuals, a documentary and a virtual reality i t played a critical role This fall, his family helped e

stretch of the 405 freeway after Louis Zamperini. As an app. They also walked fault lines — from Hollywood to V alley, alley, him settle into his new home garcia in the establishment of in the Arts and Humanities Olympic athlete and as a World War II hero, Zamperini has the Inland Empire — to see Southern California’s system nature as restorative,

Residential College at Parkside been an inspiration for generations of South Bay residents as firsthand. Yo photo on the University Park campus. well as the USC family for over 80 years,” said Republican And it wasn’t just practice. The students presented se even redemptive, m

The move marked a significant i t places and spaces.

Assemblyman David Hadley of Torrance. Hadley spear- their findings at the SCEC annual meeting in September, Co moment for Garcia: He is e N ur headed the nonpartisan bill, ACR 157, aimed at renaming according to SCEC Director Thomas Jordan, University a the first in his family to attend t There had never t i o esy esy college. the freeway section. Professor, William M. Keck Foundation Chair in Geological c 1930 circa Park, nal before been anything Garcia chose chemistry as Zamperini harnessed his teenage angst by running on Sciences and professor of earth sciences. o f his major because it “was the R like a national park the Torrance High School track team, earning an athletic “This is real research,” he said. J.C.— ic most engaging subject for me, h

ar movement — any- with all of the lab work and scholarship to USC. While working on his degree in physi- d calculations.” cal education, he competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics, G where — and this arcia; arcia; Garcia plans to use his time placing eighth in the 5,000-meter race. vision of convalescent at USC Dornsife to explore his

In 1941, Zamperini enlisted in the U.S. Army Air o w nature remains one ur career options. He hopes to Corps. On May 27, 1943, his B-24 bomber crashed into P aller t participate in research projects esy key facet of the great with faculty as well as an the Pacific Ocean. o hoto power, meaning, internship. He spent 47 days adrift before the Japanese captured him f th by by He said a liberal arts education and took him to a prison camp. Presumed dead by the United e and purpose of our will give him an opportunity to USC A national parks.”

States government, Zampirini endured extreme conditions nas gain a multifaceted perspective Digi

including torture for more than two years. t William Deverell, professor on the world. asia t “I truly want to understand After the war, Zamperini returned to the U.S. and al of history and director of the L S ibrary people and the world around became a born-again Christian. He developed a career as i Huntington-USC Institute on me in order to make an impact,” mo California and the West at an inspirational speaker, traveling the world detailing the ne USC Dornsife. he explained. many milestone moments he experienced.

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 21 20 Details Page 5 FROM THE HEART OF USC Our World

students Japan faculty The Arctic students Turkey students Micronesia alumni San Francisco FACULTY, STUDENTS, ALUMNI In his “Ecological Security and Dawn Gross ’89 knows how to Los Angeles Global Politics” Problems With- talk about death. The hospice Aided by six students and an out Passports course, Steven and palliative care physician alumna from his “Trial Advo- Lamy, vice dean for academic View from the Bosphorus Dive Into is the host of a radio show, cacy: Theory and Practice” programs and professor of A four-month stint at a renowned Turkish university gave senior “Dying to Talk,” which aims to course, Olu Orange of political international relations, led 20 Ida Abhari insight into the region’s important security role. revolutionize the way people science won a class-action undergraduates to Iceland, Conservation discuss what many feel is the lawsuit in March, forcing the Norway and Finland to study As a senior majoring in philosophy and international relations with a minor in Students take the plunge to learn about last great taboo. city of Los Angeles to pay up to impacts of climate change on Iranian studies, Ida Abhari’s experience studying for four months at Boğaziçi coral reef preservation. “People are averse to talking $30 million in education and job the politics, economics and University, Istanbul — a city that bridges Asia and Europe both physically and about death, but I’ve noticed training for thousands of people cultures of the Arctic region. culturally — gave her a valuable new perspective on the Middle East. Health and human sciences major Eva that once you give them permis- subjected to unconstitutional “As polar ice caps shrink, Abhari always knew she wanted to study abroad. Hilton recalled her first foray into the sion to do so, they really are gang injunctions. Marilyn Rodriguez was jet- the popular view of the Arctic “I knew I wanted to go somewhere where I would be challenged, preferably famed Palau diving spot Blue Corner, dying to talk,” she said. “It’s an Orange launched the federal lagged, but excited after a as a region of frozen solitude somewhere where they didn’t speak English and where I was going to feel a bit renowned for its diverse sea life and ideal extraordinary conversation to lawsuit in 2011, accusing the long flight. She lifted the and remote beauty is rapidly confused and lost,” she said. position along a reef wall. get to be a part of.” Los Angeles Police Department shade on her hotel window: evolving into a more complex However, the program ended up being rather more challenging than she’d “We descended and swam along the Gross, whose bachelor’s of enforcing curfews written “This view opened my eyes reality,” Lamy said. expected. wall, seeing an amazing school of black degree is in psychology and into many gang injunctions for to my reality: I AM IN JAPAN!” “The Arctic is the canary in “As most students’ first language isn’t English, I thought classes would be snappers and incredible marine life,” she neuroscience, has years of years after they were declared The human biology major the coal mine whose health easier. I was surprised to discover that many of the texts, theory and concepts said. “As we ascended to the top of the experience supporting patients unconstitutional in 2007 by shared her experiences may determine the planet’s we were studying at USC were the same. But because of the way Turkey is and reef, the current started to pull us as the with life-threatening illnesses. California appellate courts. traveling to Tokyo, Hiroshima, future. Offering a potential oil Turkish politics works, they have a totally different perspective on world politics.” dive instructors said it would. We finally She is currently a member of a He discovered the LAPD’s Kyoto and Yokohama on the and gas bonanza, it will likely Studying in Turkey in the current world climate, with so many problems that hooked on to some rocks and waited to see hospital-based palliative care actions while successfully USC Dornsife Japan Summer attract a new tourist industry require global solutions, was a fascinating experience, she found. what the ocean had in store for us.” team at UC San Francisco. defending Christian Rodriguez, Immersion Program (SIP) class alongside expanded commer- “Being in Istanbul really helped me understand why the Middle East generally — This summer, Hilton and her classmates Her first job is to listen. a straight-A community college blog. The program, led by cial shipping, becoming a zone and Turkey specifically — is so important to world peace and security,” she said. “Know- in the Problems Without Passports course Once symptoms are brought student wrongly accused of George Sanchez, vice dean of interstate confrontation ing about the region, the culture, the people, even the food — enables us to become part of “Integrated Ecosystem Management in Micro- under control, she helps pa- violating a gang injunction for diversity and strategic as these factors push Arctic the solution.” nesia” learned about the challenges facing coastal tients plan their goals of care curfew. initiatives and professor of powers to expanded territorial environments. Coral reefs, in particular, are of and identify what they want to Orange praised MiRi Song ’09 American studies and ethnic- claims.” extreme importance as they are home to nearly a do with the time left to them. and students Sarah Ayad, ity and history, and run in Lamy urged students to quarter of the world’s marine species and contribute more Gross said she’s profoundly Mitchell Diesko, Min Ji Gal, partnership with the Norman consider whether positions on than $170 billion annually to the global economy. The highest grateful for the opportunity to Lauren Ige, Angel Lopez and Topping Student Aid Fund, territorial, economic and envi- level of species biodiversity is in the Indo-West Pacific region, which practice her chosen specialty. Arpine Sardaryan, saying takes 14 first-generation ronmental issues will harden includes Micronesia. “It’s not depressing,” she he could not have won the college students to sites in into confrontation, or whether The course was led by David Ginsburg, associate professor said. “It is sad, and I think to groundbreaking case without Los Angeles and Japan to the Arctic can become the locus (teaching) of environmental studies, and Karla Heidelberg, untangle the two is important their help. illustrate the cities’ cultural, of a successful new regime of associate professor (teaching) of biological sciences and environmental for people to do. But what we social, political and economic “global governance.” studies, and director of the USC Environmental Studies Program. do — being with people and

exchanges. Students worked with diplo- ja supporting them in the things

p Before leaving for Micronesia, students became certified scientific Of the experience, Rodriguez matic, energy, environmental an P scuba divers. Once in Palau, they used their expertise on dives to that matter most in their lives wrote: “Just looking outside and other experts before draft- hoto collect and analyze data, and then presented their findings to their — is a gift.” of the window made me so ing policy recommendations. by classmates. appreciative of the privilege “Experiences like these pro- F

eli “Witnessing reefs that were bleached, dead and showed and blessing that I was mote active learning, helping p

e Hernan little sign of hope were trumped by other dives that had provided … with my fellow students see things from a life and color, with animals I could have never imagined,” SIP cohort scholars.” different perspective,” Lamy said environmental studies major Elliot Patrick. “It showed

said, adding, “The world is the d

ez me a lot about how much humans are impacting the planet best classroom.” and made me hungrier to make a difference.”

22 When it comes to politics, a dose of comedy can offer some relief from all of the posturing, polarization and

news oversaturation, especially during an election year. But can humor also influence our political ideologies? make ’em augh

By Michelle Boston

As President Barack Obama made his way to the podium, truth and, perhaps, influence people’s politics. Whether Anna Kendrick’s voice crooned through the speakers: “When it’s in a speech, performed in a stand-up routine, spoken I’m gone, when I’m gone … You’re gonna miss me when I’m on television, posted on social media or drawn in a car- gone …” It was the 2016 White House Correspondents’ toon, here’s a look at how laughing at our political system, Association Dinner, and the president was delivering our politicians, controversy and conflict just might be the his annual address to a hall full of White House press best medicine. corps members, politicians and well-heeled celebrities. The audience erupted in laughter and applause. “You can’t Speak Truth to Power say it, but you know it’s true,” the president deadpanned. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Lanita Jacobs, Obama continued, reflecting on the year in politics and like most Americans, was in need of a reprieve from the the recent election cycle. “Eight years ago I said it was time aftermath of national tragedy. So she sought out a place to change the tone of our politics. In hindsight, I clearly where laughter is not only encouraged but celebrated — should have been more specific,” he quipped. The president a comedy club. concluded his 30-minute speech — which included jabs at As an ethnographer with an interest in stand-up comedy, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Ted she was also curious how comedians — particularly African- Punch Lines and Politics Cruz, among others — with the words “Obama out” and a American comics — were dealing with such a charged Ethnographer Lanita Jacobs literal mic drop. moment in history. has made the comedy club As a president at the end of his second term with a “I imagined that these comedians might have a different her laboratory. She is currently strong approval rating, Obama’s speech was seen by many discourse than the one that was circulating in America in the writing a book examining how as a victory lap. But the tradition of roasting Washington mainstream pop culture,” explained Jacobs, associate profes- African-American comedians and the reporters who cover it gets at something larger sor of anthropology and American studies and ethnicity. have responded to 9/11, that perhaps only comedy has the power to do. Her first stop was the Comedy Union, a comedy club in Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq Through the lenses of anthropology, political science, South Los Angeles known for showcasing black comedians. War and other events. psychology, art history and more, USC Dornsife researchers It was early October 2001, less than a month after the have been examining humor’s ability to cut tension, get at Twin Towers fell.

24 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 25 That night, one of the comedians who took the stage was through 2008 — the beginning of Obama’s presidency. She Shrum, who was himself Ian Edwards. He posited that in light of the 9/11 attacks is currently synthesizing her findings into a book, which will a guest on both The Colbert and the resulting war on terrorism, black people had been also analyze comedians’ responses to the Iraq War as well Report and The Daily Show supplanted by Middle Easterners as a target of racism in as the controversies surrounding activist Rachel Dolezal, with Jon Stewart, also noted America. a white woman who purported to be African American, and that these shows are where “Black people, we have been delivered,” Edwards white actor Michael Richards, who unloaded a racist rant at most young people get their announced to the crowd. the West Hollywood, Calif., Laugh Factory in 2006. news. “They tend to trust Jacobs recalled that a woman in the audience responded What her research has shown is that humor cuts to the those hosts more than they emphatically: “Finally!” core of an issue and offers both comics and their audiences a trust a lot of conventional way to cope with tragedy. journalism,” he said. “I “Humor provides a salve in times of trouble,” Jacobs think that they find that the explained. “It provides a moment of redress when you need humor is getting more at “Humor provides a salve in times of to speak truth to power. It plays with notions of truth. And a truth, at a deeper truth, sometimes comedy, when it’s the most successful, is the abso- at an underlying truth.” A trouble. It provides a moment of redress lute truth. It’s the emperor not wearing any clothes.” 2015 Pew Research survey of news preferences by gener- when you need to speak truth to power.” Reveal Yourself ation backs up that claim: In addition to being a balm in challenging times, comedy is Millennials are more trust- used to highlight politicians’ authenticity and to shape the ing of infotainment news That narrative ran through not only Edwards’ set, but was public’s view of them. shows like The Daily Show reiterated in jokes by other African-American comics whose On March 30, 1981, an otherwise routine day in than are older generations. shows Jacobs later attended. “I was like, ‘Oh snap,’ ” Jacobs Washington, D.C., President Ronald Reagan was shot. The same report cites said. “I have got to figure this out.” Secret Service agents quickly pushed the president into his Facebook as the top source Jacobs made the subject the basis of a research project. limousine and raced him to the hospital. As he was placed for political news among For eight years she frequented shows by black comics. She also on the operating table, bleeding — his lung pierced by a bul- millennials. In fact, social interviewed comedians, clubgoers, promoters and club owners. let — Reagan looked up and famously said to his doctors, “I media has been where Her goal was to untangle what exactly was happening hope you’re all Republicans.” some of the most hilarious onstage when comics poked and prodded at racial con- Reagan went on to make a full recovery. His sense of — and cutting — political structions in the wake of 9/11 with their humor, and what humor, which clearly remained intact even with his life in barbs have occurred. audiences were saying with their laughter or their silence. jeopardy, won him points with the public. Jacobs published a paper on her research in the journal That’s no surprise to veteran political consultant Robert Know Your Meme Transforming Anthropology. In the article, she wrote: “For Shrum, whose career includes guiding presidential, senatorial As any social media user many minority audiences, 9/11 jokes ‘work’ as political com- and gubernatorial campaigns. Politicians can seem remote knows, you can merely post mentaries that resist pro-war rhetoric and implicate a larger and inaccessible. Humor allows people to relate to them, updates on your Twitter or shared history of racial marginalization. These jokes also explained Shrum, Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair Facebook account or you work because they invoke problems of race in America, par- in Practical Politics and professor of the practice of political can “crush.” Effectively using funny memes helps achieve “If we think of cultures as a shared way of thinking — ticularly comics’ ongoing struggles against violations of their science at USC Dornsife. “It’s a powerful validator of their the latter. a shared pattern of mental representations and beliefs — civil liberties.” humanity.” Take, for instance, when the official White House Twitter then memes are the basic units of those beliefs,” explained Comedians were saying that “the way America is being Using humor to connect with an audience — or an electorate account began holding “office hours” in 2011 so that its Dehghani, who leads the Computational Social Science constructed in the aftermath of 9/11 is not one I feel myself — is nothing new. But doing it with authenticity is what Twitter followers could learn about timely issues facing the Laboratory and is a researcher at USC Dornsife’s Brain and to be a part of,” she said. really makes an impact, said Shrum. “For folks who can do nation. During a discussion about the debt ceiling and Creativity Institute. Then, in the midst of Jacobs’ research into post-9/11 that, and do it naturally, it can be a big asset.” deficit reduction negotiations, at least one Twitter user Adapting memes to serve a purpose in our culture humor, Hurricane Katrina struck. Startling images of people He pointed to Reagan as well as President John F. Kennedy considered the exchange to be less than thrilling. ensures their staying power, particularly when they are — most of them black — stranded on rooftops without food and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy as politicians with a special David Wiggs, tweeting as @wiggsd, wrote: “This WH funny. But when it comes to influencing the people with and clean water appeared in media outlets internationally. knack for wit. Shrum, who served as speechwriter and press correspondence briefing isn’t nearly as exciting as yesterday’s.” whom we share memes on social media, their real power While agencies rushed to help the residents of New Orleans secretary to Edward Kennedy, recalled that the senator — The official White House Twitter account quickly responded: appears to be in supporting what we already feel is true. as the city disappeared under water, many noticed that the who was thought to be a shoo-in for president, but never “@wiggsd Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important but “That’s just general psychology,” Dehghani explained. federal government was slow to respond. ran successfully — once joked: “Frankly, I don’t mind not can be dry sometimes. Here’s something more fun.” The “We really like reinforcing our beliefs. Basically, it boosts “For five whole days in the so-called ‘First World,’ while being president. I just mind that someone else is.” Twitter account then did the unexpected — it linked to a our egos. It tells us that we’re right. It tells us that our point the nation and the globe are watching, you see babies and But it’s not just what politicians say that affects how they video of British popstar Rick Astley singing his 1987 hit of view about the world is correct, and also it tells us that the older black people with flags for blankets,” Jacobs recalled. are perceived, but what other people are saying about them. “Never Gonna Give You Up” on YouTube. opposing group is wrong, which is probably more important “The two most vulnerable categories and we can’t get them Politics is the bread and butter of comedy news shows like The practice is known as Rickrolling — a popular bait- than knowing that we are right.” water to drink? It was befuddling.” The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight and The Nightly Show. It’s and-switch internet meme where someone lures an unsus- One recent Twitter exchange that got a lot of coverage Don’t Force It She decided to continue her line of research and see what popular fodder for late-night talk show hosts’ monologues. pecting Twitter reader to the Astley video. for this year’s presidential candidates took place after Veteran political consultant comedians had to say in the wake of the natural disaster. And almost every weekend, Kate McKinnon and Darrell The tongue-in-cheek stunt from the White House Twitter Obama announced that he was endorsing Clinton for Robert Shrum says humor is “It was just painful,” Jacobs said. “In fact, it was the only Hammond don wigs to skewer presidential nominees Hillary account garnered more than 5,000 retweets and 1,429 likes, president. a powerful tool for politicians time that I saw some comics who weren’t known to be Clinton and Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live. as well as significant news coverage. Donald Trump fired off the tweet: “Obama just endorsed — but only if it comes naturally political wax political.” She also saw another common thread The repeated ways that comedians portray politicians can On social media, memes like Rickrolling are popular ways Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama — to them. emerge throughout their comedy: an assertion of black peo- have an effect — either positive or negative — on how we to make a political point (or, in this case, divert from a dull but nobody else does!” Clinton responded with “Delete your ple’s resilience. perceive them, Shrum said. policy discussion). account,” a popular Twitter meme that roughly translates Audiences responded. “There was a lot of ‘Right!’ and These programs “shape the images of candidates,” he said. Morteza Dehghani, assistant professor of psychology and to: Your tweet or opinion is so bad that you should be ‘OK!’” she said. “I’ve never seen a comedy club feel like such “They become water cooler conversation. It can be a very computer science, studies social media as a means to under- immediately disqualified from further participation on the a cathartic space.” powerful force. Humor cuts through in a way that simple stand people’s behavior and reasoning. He sees memes as platform. Jacobs continued her study of African-American comedians rhetoric doesn’t.” snippets of popular thought. Trump was quick with his own comeback to Clinton:

26 illustrations by roger chouinard for usc dornsife magazine Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 27 “How long did it take your staff of 823 people to think that To further subjugate the candidate, Nast represented up — and where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?” his running mate, Benjamin Gratz Brown, as a scrap of Clinton earned headlines from Time, Politico, The Wall paper with his name scrawled on it attached to Greeley’s Street Journal and others for her clever use of the meme, coattails. In the end, Nast’s artistic crusade helped Grant and the exchange delighted followers from both sides who defeat Greeley (and, in fact, Nast developed a friendship thought their candidate came out on top. with Grant). On the whole, the social posts were an effective commu- nication tool because of their humor, reinforcing loyalty from The Art of Revelation each camp’s supporters, and spreading the candidates’ mes- Greenhill sees a parallel between the function of Nast’s sages in a way that only the social platform can, Shrum said. political cartoons in Harper’s Weekly and current comedic “Social media amplifies all forms of political communica- news shows. tion,” he said. “In the old days — and the old days are not so “Because the magazine was weekly, Nast’s commentary long ago, 15 years ago — to get the kind of attention Clinton was incredibly timely,” Greenhill said. “In a way, it’s The Daily got for that tweet, you’d have to give a whole speech.” Show of that period in terms of its timeliness, and with a Or, in the case of a political cartoonist — going back more comedic commentator who is shining a light on what’s going than 100 years — it was his illustrations published in a weekly on in politics from his perspective.” magazine that made even more of a clear-cut impression on voters. The Mighty Pen of Thomas Nast “Just as caricatures unmask hypocrisy, Satirist Thomas Nast held an enormous amount of sway at the end of the 19th century. According to art historian we look to comedy as an art of revelation.” Jennifer Greenhill, “In the U.S., he was seen to be absolutely singular in terms of his political impact.” In fact, he’s credited with making the elephant the symbol of the GOP and popu- And that is what humor’s main function appears to be larizing the donkey as the symbol of the Democratic Party. when it comes to politics — to render a truth, whether it is to Nast, who is considered the father of the modern politi- further someone’s agenda, as in Nast’s case, or to shed light cal cartoon, began sketching caricatures of New York City on something uncomfortable or challenging by wrapping it politician William “Boss” Tweed while he was an illustrator in laughter to make its consumption easier. for Harper’s Weekly news magazine. Tweed, who ran the city’s Obama, for instance, has been acknowledged for using Democratic Party throughout the 1870s, was also one of his wit to connect with constituents to advance White its most infamous corrupt politicians — he was exposed House initiatives through channels that appeal to audiences for extracting bribes, filling his party’s ranks with his cronies of all ages. After the Affordable Care Act was signed into and stealing millions from public coffers. law, he appeared on comedian Zach Galifianakis’ parody Most often, Nast would depict Tweed with a money bag talk show Between Two Ferns to encourage millennial view- for a face, overweight, and with his brooch and hat embel- ers to sign up for health insurance while subjecting himself lished with dollar signs. to Galifianakis’ inane questions. Recently, he was featured “Nast makes it incredibly clear what the man’s motives in a Buzzfeed video encouraging Americans to register to are,” explained Greenhill, associate professor of art history. vote. His rundown of “5 Things That Are Harder Than She is the author of Playing It Straight: Art and Humor in Registering to Vote” included making friendship brace- the Gilded Age (University of California Press, 2012), which lets, anything involving the game Operation and listing all examines deadpan humor in late 19th-century American art. of the characters on Game of Thrones who have died. “Jon, “Caricature strives to make legible the aspects of his character but maybe that doesn’t really count?” Obama opined as he that are hidden — those he might work to conceal.” ticked off names on his fingers. For a public that included illiterate consumers of news He could have just looked into the camera and told people magazines, Nast’s drawings on their own were a powerful to vote because it’s their right as citizens, but Shrum noted statement. Tweed is reported to have said, “I don’t care so that Obama’s strategy is far more effective. “He’s meeting much what the papers write about me — my constituents young people where they live and laugh,” he said. “And can’t read. But, damn it, they can see pictures.” Eventually meeting them on their own media will always work better Tweed was brought to justice. than a statement from a podium in the White House In addition to the role Nast’s drawings played in Tweed’s press briefing room.” Clearly Obama is using humor to his downfall, the cartoonist held great power in swaying one, advantage. More than 2 million people have watched the if not two, presidential elections. His flattering images of Buzzfeed video. The Art of Humor Gen. Ulysses S. Grant were said to have helped Grant to his So, humor can help politicians advance their agendas, Art historian Jennifer Greenhill first term as president, but Nast’s influence was even more and it can humanize them so their public can relate to them. studies how 19th-century apparent during Grant’s bid for re-election when he took on On Twitter and other social media channels, humor offers artists like Thomas Nast used Grant’s opponent, Horace Greeley. an outlet for political opponents to artfully level one another their craft to express their “Nast shows Greeley shaking hands with the wrong sort with pithy posts and to reinforce our ideologies. And as Nast’s political ideologies and — everyone that a Liberal Republican wouldn’t want to work demonstrates, political humor can indeed influence the influence their audiences. be associated with,” Greenhill said. In one image, Greeley public. Meanwhile, in a world where we contend with injus- is even clasping hands with Tweed. “It becomes a visual tice, we look to humor to help us cope and heal, and to bring formula, an iconographic trope that is just relentless. It was people together. a brilliant strategy because it suggests that Greeley has no “Just as caricatures unmask hypocrisy,” Greenhill said, integrity whatsoever.” “we look to comedy as an art of revelation.”

28 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 29 A Colorful Career in Black and White by Dan Knapp

“The Presidential race, however, seems anything but nuanced,” Lord laughed. “Each no sacred cows morning, I thank the universe Topics for M.G. Lord’s political that I don’t have to log on to cartoons ran the gamut from news sites to come up with a politics and international cartoon. When I’m working on affairs to religion and repro- a story that takes place in the ductive rights. Many cartoons distant past, I often avoid the from the early days of her news altogether.” career were culled together in She is both writing and the book Mean Sheets (Little drawing her current project, Brown, 1982) and are still as a graphic novel about the relevant today as when they astronaut selection process. were first published. It is set in what she considers a “perfect world” — one populated exclusively by anthropomorphic animals.

photo “During the Apollo era, astronauts were selected for Most people know M.G. Lord as a Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll (Morrow, Pe by their ability to follow orders,”

prolific writer and cultural critic. 1994), was a critical and commercial success. It enabled Lord to put t explained Lord, who wrote er er

But long before she was writing down her drawing pen and concentrate full time on writing. Zh about the aerospace industry a

nonfiction on topics ranging from “I left cartooning, in part, because it takes a lot of energy to con- o and her relationship with her yu yu robotic space exploration to the ceive and finish a drawing each day,” she explained. “While I didn’t engineer father in Astro Turf: Zho films of Elizabeth Taylor, she had necessarily love the Clintons, I was much less angry with them than The Private Life of Rocket u; illus u; a career as a daily political car- with Reagan — who arrived just as I graduated. And in my early 20s, Science (Walker & Company, toonist for New York’s Newsday. I had the energy to work myself into a fury every day. 2006). “It was, ‘Houston, we t Lord, assistant professor of the “Looking back on my work from the ’80s, what strikes me is ra have a problem’ not ‘we have t i o

practice of English, began her how conventions of representation of culture and ethnicity have by ns a problem, let’s solve it.’ With career at Newsday shortly after graduating from Yale University changed,” Lord said. “I am slightly aghast at how I depicted long flights to other planets — m

with a degree in politics, graphic arts and letters. Her tenure at some groups — but I was following the example of the leading l .g. it takes a radio signal about 20

the newspaper spanned the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald male cartoonists whose admiration I sought. Nor were politi- o minutes to get from Earth to

“In my early 20s, r d

Reagan and George H.W. Bush. During her first eight years, she drew cal cartoons unique in their insensitivity to racial and cultural Mars — following orders will w

I had the energy i five cartoons per week. But she wanted to write as well as draw. stereotypes.” th no longer be an option. to work myself into p “My editors began to notice that I was shoving whole novels Lord, whose most recent book is the award-winning The Accidental er “Dogs tend to follow orders. m a fury every day.” into the talk balloons in my pictures,” Lord said. “To discourage Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness issi Cats don’t,” she said. “My cat m.G. Lord, assistant professor

this, they gave me a weekly humor column and reduced my and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice (Walker/ o George in particular doesn’t. of the practice of English n

cartooning load to three per week.” Bloomsbury, 2012), states that if she were drawing for Newsday o I don’t want to give away the f ne One column, about unearthing her baroquely cross-dressed on a daily basis, her jokes would still be just as hard-hitting, but whole plot, but I have had a lot w s

childhood Barbie dolls after 20 years in storage, led to a contract her pictures would be very different, with more nuance in terms d of fun recently drawing George for a social history of the iconic Mattel product. The resulting book, of cultural representation. ay in a space suit.”

30 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 31 Scientific advisers have counseled presidents at least as far back as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. PoliticalEven so, many politicians and much of the publicScience seem slow to trust them — a situation that needs a remedy, and soon. By Darrin S. Joy

On an unusually cold February day in 2015, Sen. James “I think one thing that we underappreciate in this coun- Inhofe reached around the lectern to the plastic bag on try is the value of having a bank of people who are trained the desk before him. Pulling a well-formed snowball from to think about our problems more broadly,” said Amber the bag, Inhofe addressed Sen. Bill Cassidy, who was pre- Miller, dean of USC Dornsife and professor of physics. siding over the day’s Senate debate in Washington, D.C.: An experimental cosmologist, Miller has taken her own “I ask the chair, do you know what this is?” training as a scientist beyond academe: She has served as Not waiting for an answer, Inhofe declared, “It’s a chief science adviser to the New York Police Department’s snowball. And it’s just from outside here. So it’s very, very Counterterrorism Bureau, on the advisory board for cold out. Very unseasonable.” He then tossed the icy ball Columbia University’s Center for Science and Society, and toward Cassidy. as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is Inhofe’s stunt was aimed at countering a report, filed jointly a proponent of the use of scientists as consultants and critical by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thinkers in the policy-making process. and NASA, that the preceding year had set record high “When government or communities need people to be temperatures for the globe. able to work hard problems, scientists — and particularly Inhofe’s effort to show that global warming is a hoax physicists — are a good group of people to ask because that’s swiftly gained attention from the media, most of whom were what they do professionally,” she said. “As a physicist, you’re quick to point out his error in confusing local weather with trained to take problems apart and ask what we know, what global climate change. Still, the Oklahoma senator’s mistake we don’t know and how we can move more things from the might have been overlooked if not for the fact that he chairs ‘not know’ column over to the ‘know’ column.” the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, In fact, many politicians and policy makers do tap scientists which sets the federal government’s energy and environmental for their expertise on complex subjects, said Jeffrey Fields, policy. As chair, the senator should be aware of how climate assistant professor of the practice of international relations. change works and of the science behind the issue. Fields, who earned his Ph.D. at USC Dornsife in 2007, BRAIN TRUST Or should he? worked as an analyst and senior adviser at the Department Politicians and policy makers of Defense and as a foreign affairs officer at the State have access to important Informed decisions Department supporting the Special Representative of the expertise and analytical Politicians ostensibly are paid to lead — to make decisions President for Nuclear Nonproliferation before joining USC’s skills through the nation’s on a broad range of issues for the good of their constitu- faculty. His current research examines U.S. foreign policy, scientists. ents as well as the larger community and nation. While terrorism and counterterrorism, international security and the personal knowledge is no doubt helpful in decision mak- proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. ing, no one person could be expected to hold expertise in “I think the public and pundits sometimes have this all areas. However, they should know who does, and they oversimplified view of the way that policy gets made, that should seek out those experts. it all happens in the Oval Office. Maybe the president

32 illustrations by Roy Scott for usc dornsife magazine Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 33 is there with his national security adviser and a few other while we rely on consensus, we are very bad at tracking it,” people, and they say, ‘Well, let’s make this deal with Iran,’ ” Schwarz said. “If you ask people how many believe some- he said. “But it really doesn’t happen that way.” thing or how often they have heard a statement, you find He points to the 2015 international effort to curtail they really are not good at keeping tabs.” Iran’s nuclear weapons program as a prime example. There, So people fall back on familiarity. The more familiar decision makers brought in scientists with a deeper under- something sounds, the more likely they are to believe it. standing of nuclear programs to analyze the situation and Because if it is familiar, it must have been said by others provide recommendations. who in turn must believe it, which leads back to social “There’s only so far a nonscientist can go,” Fields said. consensus. “Scientists are going to have to weigh in, especially in talking about what’s feasible or how things work.” While physicists and engineers played a crucial role in the Iran nuclear deal, their recommendations did not “There’s only so far a nonscientist can go. escape scrutiny. For example, the verification agreement, which outlined how the coalition nations would confirm Scientists are going to have to weigh in.” Iran’s compliance, allowed the Islamic republic as many as 24 days to prepare for inspections. Many in govern- ment and the media expressed outrage at giving nearly In a somewhat worrisome turn, Schwarz’s research shows a month’s forewarning, suggesting that it allowed Iran that all it takes is one voice to build familiarity. “You can plenty of time to cover its tracks. literally have a single voice say the same thing over and To the average person, so much lead time seemed clearly over again. Just one squeaky voice that keeps saying the foolish, Fields said. “But that 24 days wasn’t just made up. same thing,” Schwarz explained, and it is enough to cast Scientists said there’s absolutely no way in that time period doubt or solidify a belief. you can hide evidence that you are violating this agreement with respect to uranium enrichment.” They knew that tell- What then to do? tale traces of radioactivity would be impossible to remove Schwarz, Prakash, Fields and Miller all agree: Scientists completely, he said. must communicate more and do a better job of it in order This enquiry, while politically motivated to some extent, is to elicit greater confidence from politicians and the public. also symptomatic of a larger distrust of science among both “In my opinion, professors and scientists should become politicians and the public. a little bit more vocal,” Prakash said, “and then the elected representatives will pay more attention.” Failure to communicate Fields points out that government officials working with Much of the suspicion aimed at scientists may stem from a scientists also could be better at communicating the details single factor — poor communication. G. K. Surya Prakash, behind issues to the public, and he worries that the complex- George A. and Judith A. Olah Nobel Laureate Chair in ity of issues may pose challenges. Hydrocarbon Chemistry and professor of chemistry, has “They’re talking about all these peer-reviewed studies and made several forays to the nation’s capital to encourage their results, and it’s really complicated to explain. Al Gore support of research on climate-friendly energy sources, had to make an entire movie about climate change to try to with limited success. He places much of the fault on him- explain it, which may be just what we need — more creative self and his colleagues. ways to present issues, especially when it comes to science,” “I think the problem with scientists is that we are poor Fields said. communicators,” he said, explaining that scientists are Schwarz concurs and believes the research can help illu- trained to be precise and accurate. This can make communi- minate better ways of getting the points across. “I think we cating with nonscientists — including politicians — difficult. have to look at how people evaluate whether something is “With science, unless you know all the facts, you cannot likely to be true, and have to take that into account when we be very precise,” he said, “which leads scientists to speak in design messages,” he said. terms of probabilities rather than certainties. And usually For her part, Miller believes that academic institutions people, especially politicians, don’t like that. They want ‘yes’ can and should play a lead role in building trust through or ‘no’ answers.” better communication. She believes that leadership at aca- Norbert Schwarz, Provost Professor of Psychology and demic institutions such as USC Dornsife should encourage TALK IT OUT Marketing and founding co-director of the USC Dornsife scientists and scholars to be more vocal and support them Clear and understandable Mind and Society Center, agrees. In fact, he said, adher- in doing so, a critical step in building trust with the public communication is critical ence to good scientific principles actually lowers credibility and politicians alike. to building trust among in most people’s eyes. “I think that academics should be capable of explaining scientific leaders, politicians “The good scientists usually acknowledge that future their work in a way that the public or a journalist can under- and the public. findings may change the conclusion, and that should stand. Part of what is appealing to me about university lead- enhance the credibility of science because it shows that the ership is the ability to have a role in shaping that interface, science is done well. Yet, for most people, acknowledging The unreliable mind websites like Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes are so popular. to really think about how we encourage our academicians that you have doubts, acknowledging that you may change For many, Schwarz said, the answer may lie in how the “If most people think that a restaurant is good, we’re and others to be more open to that kind of communication,” your mind, is typically something that undermines trust.” mind works. more likely to go there,” Schwarz said. Likewise, if most she said. So why then do people not believe what the scientific “People use one very powerful heuristic, called social people, especially those in close social circles, believe It is an important first step in making sure people, evidence clearly shows? Why would someone — politician consensus or social proof, to determine what is true,” he global warming is not real, then it probably is not. including politicians and other leaders, learn to trust and or otherwise — veer from a rational conclusion to embrace said. In other words, if most people believe it, there is Unfortunately, the mind is not very reliable at keeping reap the benefits of science and critical thinkers — and not a less credible idea? probably something to it. Social consensus is partly why account of the actual numbers. “The problem here is that, get snowed.

34 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 35 By Susan Bell vietnamese

horror

story

36 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 37 Vietnamese who had the horror being inflicted upon them and their voices taken away.” For the young Vietnamese-American boy, watching Apocalypse Now opened the door onto a very different view of a very different war, one that was to have major personal and professional repercussions. America has always regarded the Vietnam War as its own personal horror story. “Watching that film made me feel like there was no As we recognize the 50th anniversary of this tragic conflict, USC Dornsife place for me in American culture,” he said. scholars challenge this one-sided perspective, re-examining the legacy of It was only later, after he developed a political con- what even the Vietnamese refer to as “The American War.” science at college, that fury also entered the picture. “Looking back, I realized that rage had rendered it im- possible for me to be an American. It made me feel like an outsider, and I knew that anger was going to be a catalyst for me to try to make sense out of the movie, the Vietnam War, and my place both in American society and in the history of that war.”

A QUESTION OF PERSPECTIVE A s the first Twenty years later, that anger was the catalyst that drove Nguyen to write his Pulitzer Prize–winning first novel, The Sympathizer (Grove Press, 2015), which explores the Vietnam War from multiple perspectives through the lens of his conflicted protagonist, an American-educated spy hypnotic for the Viet Cong. “Although a huge amount of work had already been done about the Vietnam War, I felt that no one had yet tried to write a novel that dealt with all sides, and with the problem of looking at a war from all sides,” Nguyen said. notes “That was going to be my subject, not just the war itself, but how the war was regarded.” The question of perspective lies at the heart of Nguyen’s novel and is a vital one for anyone seeking to establish a more balanced, less-biased truth about the 20-year conflict. of The Doors’ “The End” played over a lush, idyllic As his protagonist puts it: “This was the first war where the Vietnamese jungle, 10-year-old Viet Thanh Nguyen’s eyes losers would write history instead of the victors.” For not only (

widened as the peaceful green palm trees erupted into a America’s understanding of the Vietnam War but the world’s p fiery, orange inferno. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, perception of the conflict has been shaped almost exclusively revi o

the young boy watched, mesmerized, taking in the drift- by the viewpoints of Americans — by American soldiers, us p

ing smoke and the rhythmic chopping sound of the United politicians and journalists, and by the makers of American age) States military helicopters silhouetted against the hellish culture — while Vietnamese perception of the most deadly N

The Terror of War a scene of destruction unfolding on the TV screen in his fam- combat in its history has largely been ignored. p (Previous page) This photograph al ily’s cozy California home. For Nguyen, winning the Pulitzer was a personal victory, m

G of terrified children fleeing It was 1981, and unbeknownst to his parents — refugees a validation of his long-term project to force Americans and i irl from a South Vietnamese from Vietnam who fled to the U.S. six years earlier with their Vietnamese to reconsider the history of the war and their m age by by age napalm bomb attack on their then 4-year-old son when Saigon fell to the communists — involvement in it. village on June 8, 1972, became

Nguyen had rented Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War “Winning the Pulitzer felt like an endorsement of the N an iconic image of the anti-war epic Apocalypse Now to while away a solitary weekend importance of the memory of this war and of seeing it ick

movement. Ut

while his mom and dad worked long hours at their neighbor- from another perspective,” he said. “I think it’s a vindica- , c The Terror of War o

hood grocery store in San Jose. Watching it changed the 10 tion of the idea that the Vietnam War remains very much ur CLOUDING THE ISSUES Previous page: This photograph t

year old’s destiny, setting him on the path to becoming a USC in the American consciousness.” esy An American soldier guides of terrified children fleeing

Dornsife professor and a Pulitzer Prize–winning author. Americans are still arguing about the Vietnam War, o

U.S. Army helicopters in to land f from a South Vietnamese “The World War II movies I’d watched weren’t hor- and the arguments today have changed very little from A through a haze of purple smoke. P napalm bomb attack on their

rific, and it was clear who was the good guy and who was those that raged when the conflict was in full swing: Was hoto the bad guy,” said Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Chair of English it a good or a bad war? Was it a war of racism and atrocity, village on June 8, 1972, became ; P an iconic image of the anti-war

and associate professor of English and American studies or a war of noble, failed intentions? hoto and ethnicity. “Here that wasn’t clear to me, and what While Nguyen says the U.S. is not unique in the way movement. was worse, people like me were the ones being killed. My it remembers and forgets its wars and those involved in by B

e CLOUDING THE ISSUES 10-year-old mind had no way to make sense of drugs, them, it has nevertheless focused on the Vietnam War ttm An American soldier guides psychedelic rock, murder, atrocity, massacre and Playboy almost exclusively as an American war in terms of its cost — ann/ U.S. Army helicopters in to land

bunnies. It was a war movie that was horrific, and that to American lives and unity, and with respect to damage to G e through a haze of purple smoke placed me at the center of that horror. I was confused because the American psyche. tt y in this photograph from 1970. I wasn’t sure whether I should be rooting for the Americans This, he argues, is illustrated in presidential speeches, Im who were doing the killing, who were committing all from President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s to President ages the horrors, or whether I should be identifying with the Barack Obama today. Carter described the Vietnam War as

38 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 39 one “of mutual destruction.” While no one denies the tragedy And he replied, ‘It means nothing in the world can harm Vietnam and it still affects how I teach today,” he said. of the 58,000 American dead, that figure pales next to the you now.’ ” Just as Nguyen’s world was turned upside down by watch- 6 million Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians who died Standing on the deck of the Hancock, Luong said, he ing Apocalypse Now, Gustafson experienced a cataclysmic during the war and its aftermath. Obama’s 2012 speech already knew he would serve in the U.S. military to give back awakening when, as a junior at Yale University in 1974, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the war continued to the nation that had saved him and his family from almost he saw the anti-war documentary Hearts and Minds, which to focus squarely on American soldiers with virtu- certain death. Thirty-nine years later, he pinned on his first affected him so much emotionally he couldn’t sleep at night. ally no mention of Vietnamese fatalities. It also went a step star as he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. “I was struck by Gen. William Westmoreland’s state- further, explicitly describing the war as one of “noble sacri- While Luong condemns the war, he pays tribute to the ments in the documentary that ‘Orientals’ don’t have the fice” — a perspective on the war that has also found favor bravery and sacrifice of the American soldiers who fought same respect for life as Americans. His words are juxta- among Republicans. in Vietnam. posed with a funeral in South Vietnam showing a mother, “They did a super job,” he said. “You can’t take anything ravaged with grief, throwing herself on a grave,” Gustafson away from those men and women who fought over there. It said. “That Westmoreland, the leader of this war, is engaging took a little time, but I think we’ve recovered from Vietnam in this dehumanization, this prejudice and stereotyping of and that, demonstrably, our men and women across the ‘Orientals,’ shows that either he doesn’t understand anything “I think of it as a armed forces have done a great job in the last decade or about Asian culture, or that he is engaging in this dehuman- more of war.” ization as propaganda or because it allows him to conduct Nguyen, however, believes that the scars left by Vietnam, the war.” both in America’s psyche and on its soul, have yet to heal. Gustafson still shows the documentary to his students civil war in the Before Vietnam, he argues, the U.S. saw itself as a world at the end of his American studies class “America, the benefactor, a strong country that had never lost a war. Frontier, and the New West.” “The aftermath of the Vietnam War meant that no longer “I don’t want there to be any softening of the horror,” could Americans be self-confident about either their military he said. prowess or their good intentions,” said Nguyen, describing The birth of his oldest daughter in 1983 added another American soul.” the conflict as “deeply divisive.” perspective — one of empathy. “I think of it as a civil war in the American soul,” he “When I saw parents visiting the Vietnam Veterans said. “American self-confidence still hasn’t been restored Memorial in Washington, D.C., I imagined what it would “The bipartisan recasting of American memory is not to the quality it had in the 1950s. The long shadow of the be like to lose a child, and I broke down and cried. As a simply to focus on American soldiers,” Nguyen argues, Vietnam War continues to hang over every American literature professor, I teach critical thinking, but it must “but to turn the memory of what was at best an ambiva- foreign policy venture, even today.” be supplemented by empathy, the ability to put ourselves lent war for Americans into one that is now a war of noble in the shoes, the souls, hearts and minds of someone dif- intentions and human failure, rather than one of atrocity A LESSON IN DEMOCRATIC THINKING ferent from ourselves. For me, the seed of that came from and racism as it was portrayed by the anti-war movement Although their childhoods and backgrounds could not Vietnam.” in the 1960s and 1970s.” have been more different, Thomas Gustafson, associate Gustafson, who is fascinated by the politics of mem- Brig. Gen. Viet Luong also takes issue with this effort professor of English and American studies and ethnicity, ory and whose research focuses on the power of political to rewrite history. The alumnus, who earned a degree in shares with Nguyen a youth so profoundly impregnated language and discourse to shape those memories, agrees biological sciences in 1987, is the first Vietnamese-born by the Vietnam War that he, too, cites the conflict as the with Nguyen that those who are pushing to rewrite the general officer in the U.S. military. greatest influence in shaping his scholarship. Vietnam War as a war of noble failed intentions are winning. “It’s very difficult for me to view the Vietnam War as Raised at the dead end of a dirt road in a small, conserva- “We’re such a militaristic country, but we shy away anything other than an ugly conflict that should never tive town in New Jersey, Gustafson first became aware that from that, preferring instead to see ourselves as a republic, have occurred,” Luong said. “So it’s very hard to recast it as there was more than one perspective on the Vietnam War not as an empire,” he said. “We want to cover up how we a noble struggle between people with different ideologies during his hometown’s Fourth of July parade. began and developed as an empire. And now we’re covering because there was nothing noble about that war.” It was 1967 and Gustafson was 13 years old. up Vietnam.” “Amid all the Americana, high school students just a few BRAVERY AND SACRIFICE years older than me were carrying a coffin in the parade to THE WRONG WAR Luong was 9 years old when he escaped the ravages of protest the Vietnam War. When the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ “Covering up” is not a new concept where Vietnam is UNDER SIEGE war-torn Vietnam with his family, just a day before Saigon played they sat down,” Gustafson recalled. “My baseball concerned, argues Steven Ross, professor of history and The cover of Life magazine fell to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975. coach, who was also chief of the fire department, made director of the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish from April 7, 1967, featured

Communist forces had already started shelling the airport them stand and respect the flag. His politics were different P Role in American Life at USC Dornsife. While President hoto Hanoi residents taking shelter when U.S. marines flew Luong, his father — an officer in the from mine, but I knew he had a nephew who’d been killed Lyndon Johnson’s government maintained the official line, underground during an air South Vietnamese marine corps — mother and seven sisters in Vietnam. I felt sympathetic to the high school protestors, by telling Americans that Vietnam was about saving democ- raid. The headline reads “First L to a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Hancock. From there, but I could also see the war from the point of view of this ee racy — that if Vietnam fell to communism, everything else American Photograph in North Luong and his family, along with thousands of other wonderful man who had lost his nephew.” Lo would fall — it knew this to be untrue, Ross said. Vietnam Under Siege.” ck Vietnamese refugees in danger of communist reprisals, The rift Gustafson felt within himself that day was an wood In fact, he added, according to a secret CIA memo, made their way to the U.S. under Operation Frequent Wind, echo, he realized, of the division he now knew existed within 70 percent of America’s reason for fighting the Vietnam War /Ti

a political asylum program. his country. m was a face-saving exercise to avoid a humiliating defeat to the “We barely escaped,” Luong said. “My sisters and I were Gustafson, who is writing a memoir about the events of e & U.S. reputation as a guarantor. L scared to death. I still remember the formation of marine that parade, said growing up during the Vietnam War gave Pic ife “Only 20 percent was to keep South Vietnam from falling helicopters coming in to rescue us. They appeared, like him his first lesson in what he calls “democratic thinking.” into Red Chinese hands, while 10 percent of our war aims t images of angels from the sky.” “Tyranny tells people to learn from or respect one ures/ were committed to helping the South Vietnamese enjoy a

When they landed on the USS Hancock the ship was so voice,” he said. “Democratic thinking teaches you to see G better, freer democratic way of life,” he said. e big, Luong remembers, that he and his siblings were dis- things from multiple perspectives, to trust no single point tt When such memos were revealed, the result, Ross said, y

oriented. of view.” Im was that Vietnam killed Americans’ confidence in the ability “We asked our father ‘Dad, where are we?’ He said At university, his first politics course had him reading the ages of American military power to fight the right wars. “Vietnam ‘We’re on a U.S. carrier.’ We said ‘What does that mean?’ Pentagon Papers. “I was completely shaped by responding to was the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place.”

40 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 41 For many, the horrors of the Vietnam War were — and “Images of children resonate very deeply with us. Children still are — unforgettably distilled in one unbearable image: symbolically represent innocence, and we share a global ethic that of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the 9-year-old Vietnamese girl of caring for them. The image of the napalm girl fleeing running naked in the collective eternity of our imagina- in terror, the way she is robbed of her innocence in that “Images of children tions down a road, wailing in agony. She is naked because moment, captured the deplorable longstanding involvement she tore off her burning clothes after a South Vietnamese of the U.S. military in the region.” napalm bomb attack on her village on June 8, 1972. The But the Kurdi photograph, although equally heart- photograph, which became emblematic of the anti-war breaking, is more complicated. It’s only a matter of time, resonate very movement, dominated the front pages of the American Gualtieri notes, before the sympathy it evokes is overshad- press. In it, the callous cruelty of war is stripped bare and owed by more recurrent and powerful images of terrorists. the viewer is forced to confront America’s complicity in committing atrocities against the innocent. UNEASY LISTENING Today, despite our perception that we are more knowl- Nguyen and Gustafson think that while these images of deeply with us.” edgeable about current events thanks to 24/7 internet children caught in war can still have an impact, the pos- news access, Nguyen says censorship of war-zone images sibility of them moving us to take action has been reduced. has increased, leaving us paradoxically sometimes less “What we learned from Vietnam is not to show pictures “Hollywood is in the money-making business not the well informed than we were during the Vietnam era. of war,” Gustafson said. “Our media is not as willing to show consciousness-raising business. It didn’t want to risk being Ross agrees, noting that footage similar to that showing the ugly, tragic, atrocious side of war. We try to learn some accused of a lack of patriotism, so it avoided putting out military coffins being unloaded from troop ships, which wisdom from the suffering caused by the tragedies of his- films critical of the war until it was over,” Ross said. appeared on the nightly news during the Vietnam War and tory. But in some ways we don’t want to learn; we don’t want The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now — these films changed helped sway public opinion against the war, was banned by to confront it. We have such trouble seeing the ugly sides of our post-war view of Vietnam, recasting it as our very own SUFFER THE CHILDREN President George H. W. Bush — a ban that endured for America. There’s easy listening and uneasy listening, and we personal horror story. (Opposite page) A well- 18 years during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. have the hardest time doing the uneasy listening to the voices However, Nguyen warns there’s a real danger in arguing meaning American soldier “Censorship is much more pervasive now so the media that don’t flatter us, that don’t self-justify us. But that’s what that any kind of atrocity or war is unique, or more horrific, from the 7th Marine Regiment simply doesn’t have access to U.S. military operations in the we do in the humanities. We try to get students to listen to than any other. “What that means is that we’re personally tries to comfort a distraught same way American and foreign media did in Vietnam,” those voices, even when it’s challenging.” invested in it,” he said. “Our war, our horror, is more unique Vietnamese child by giving Nguyen said. “This means the possibility of capturing and Luong first saw Apocalypse Now in his late teens. Unlike than other peoples’ and that’s actually not true.” her a doll, near Cape Batangan, seeing horrific images like the napalm girl, which played a Nguyen, it had little effect on him. “To me it was just another The deaths of 3 million Vietnamese and 3 million Vietnam, 1965. role in bringing American involvement in the Vietnam War movie, it didn’t have an impact on me either way,” he said. Cambodians and Laotians during and after the Vietnam War to an end, is now reduced for the U.S. population.” However, like Gustafson, he says he has been deeply represent horror on a grand scale. Yet we must not forget, Long Walk to Freedom moved by some of the documentaries made about Vietnam. Nguyen reminds us, that 6 million Jews and 20 million Viet Thanh Nguyen as a small REDUCED IMPACT He cites Last Days of Saigon and certain combat documen- Russians died during World War II, and that 800,000 child in Vietnam with his Even when such images do emerge, their impact is dimin- taries. As an American soldier and a former Vietnamese Rwandans were slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide. mother, Linda Kim Nguyen, ished, Nguyen said. refugee, seeing images of the war triggered conflicting “What is really horrific about the Vietnam War is that at a rubber plantation in “When that image of Kim Phuc came out it was 1972. emotions. it wasn’t unique,” Nguyen said. “The fact that 6 million Ban Me Thuot in 1973. America hadn’t seen images like that before, so it had tre- “They made me feel absolutely torn and very committed people died during a war was actually not unique during P

mendous shock value. I was 10 to 15 years old when I hoto to the cause in South Vietnam,” he said. While such images the 20th century. That is the most horrific thing about it.” first saw these types of images, and they were devastating fueled the anti-war movement in the U.S., they served to for me. One I particularly remember showed a woman Paul by reinforce Luong’s determination to continue his family’s weeping over the remains of her husband that were in a legacy of military service. “That’s the ethos I was raised S

small garbage bag.” c with — that as ugly as war is, it’s important to sign up to h u

Nguyen argues that the impact of such images is now t defend your country.” reduced due to the desensitization caused by the rise in zer/T Luong believes that among Vietnamese who arrived in h

terrorism and our exposure to widespread graphic imagery e the U.S. as young adults and those who served in the South in movies, video games and terrorist videos. LIFE Vietnamese army, anger still lingers over what is perceived as “These images are simply not as raw and shocking to us as Pic a sense of abandonment, even betrayal, by the U.S. t they might have been to people 40 or 50 years ago,” he said. ure “Resentment persists among the diaspora, especially

If we maintain that the photograph of Kim Phuc Co among South Vietnamese officers and those left behind to resonated so deeply on so many levels that it had an impact llec suffer communist re-education camps and all the oppression t

on policy and indeed hastened the end of the war, what can i that followed,” Luong said, noting that he personally doesn’t o we say about a more recent shocking photograph of another n/ have those feelings, although his father and his father’s G e

child tragically caught up in the consequences of war — that tt comrades certainly did. y

of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian refugee boy washed up Im “Looking at the last years of that conflict and talking to on a Turkish beach in September 2015? ages; some of the very few remaining U.S. advisers in Vietnam,

Although the Kurdi image went viral, it did not have photo we learn that the South Vietnamese fought for the most part the impact of the napalm girl in mobilizing people and heroically. Yet, in movies and the media, they weren’t posi-

governments to find a solution to the refugee crisis, or c tively portrayed.” Luong feels the suggestion that somehow o to end the conflict that is causing such suffering, argues ur they didn’t do their part or were a bunch of cowards who t Sarah Gualtieri, associate professor of American studies esy didn’t defend their homeland, is very painful to his father’s o

and ethnicity, history and Middle East studies. f vie generation. “There were platitudes about caring for people in crisis, “That hurts even more than the sense of abandonment,” t but the Kurdi image had limited resonance in American nguyen he said. policy debates, despite the fact that it circulated so widely Ross stresses that the film studios largely remained silent in the U.S.,” she said. on Vietnam until after the war was over.

42 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 43 Pluribus unum (Out of Many, One)

Public service represents one of the most noble of career paths, one centered not on the individual’s betterment but rather on the greater good. Five remarkable alumni representing the spectrum of political ideologies carry with them a breadth of lessons garnered from their time at USC Dornsife to undertake storied careers in service to their communities, whether local, regional or national. Drawing from their experience at the university, these exceptional citizens set a high standard for what it means to represent their constituents — and their alma mater.

By Susan Bell, Michelle Boston, Lynell George and Laura Paisley 44 EFall 2016 / Winter 2017 45 By Michelle Boston / From the Mayor’s Desk / diane brooks dixon When Diane Brooks Dixon was in junior high school, Newport Beach — a tony coastal town of about 87,000 she and her parents attended a campaign event for Richard residents situated in Orange County between Los Angeles Nixon’s 1960 presidential run. Nixon’s wife, Pat, gave Dixon and San Diego — with a platform of fiscal responsibility, a hug and pinned a carnation to her sweater. It was a seminal transparency and listening to residents. Almost immediately, moment that spurred her interest in politics and public affairs. councilmembers appointed her mayor pro tem. In December “I was going to be president when I grew up,” recalled 2015, she became mayor. Dixon, who now serves as mayor of Newport Beach, Calif. During her campaign, Dixon walked through much of As a girl growing up near Phoenix, Ariz., Dixon spent Newport Beach speaking with residents. “It’s a fantastic a lot of time going to political events. She was the daughter community and the people care deeply about their neighbors of journalists — her father was a prominent newspaper and their quality of life,” Dixon said. publisher in the region and her mother a managing editor — She learned that people were concerned about issues that so local and state politics was a regular topic of conversation might affect the value of their property. “From one end of around the dinner table. the city to the other people believe that their property is their “I was always involved in school government activities,” most important asset,” she explained. Above all, they wanted Dixon said. Around the same time as the Nixon campaign a council representative who would listen to them about event, she learned the term political science — and knew that issues important to them and the quality of life in their it would be her major when she attended college. neighborhood. So once in office, Dixon instituted monthly Dixon started her freshman year at USC in Fall 1969. It town halls for residents to bring up concerns they had about was a politically charged time. The Vietnam War had been their city and the way it is run. going on for several years. The Civil Rights Movement was At Dixon’s first town hall, people filled the room, spilling fresh in people’s minds. into the aisles. “A different kind of political engagement was evolving,” “It was standing room only,” she said. “People were upset said Dixon, who earned her bachelor’s degree in political about one thing or another, but then we had our staff there, science in 1973. “All of this was happening while I was a listening to them.” City employees were on hand to answer student, so politics was really at the forefront of our lives on questions. campus.” “Now, 18 months later, we’re still holding town halls, During her time at USC Dornsife, Dixon absorbed every- but attendance has dropped. Of course, there are still thing that she could about politics. She was inspired by issues, but we’re seeing the overall temperature on hot-button her professors — “every one of them was really good,” issues decline by allowing open conversation and listening to she noted — including political science faculty members the debate. It’s a really wonderful example of the power of William Lammers, Totton James Anderson, Carl Christol, communication.” Larry Berg and Judith Stiehm. Dixon is committed to keeping the lines of communi- Dixon aspired to intern in Congress. The summer before cation open with residents. She’s also hoping to share her junior year, she set out to make her dream a reality. what she’s learned about leadership with her constituents, “I remember sitting in my room typing letters on a type- particularly women. writer to everyone I could think of in Washington, up to the Along with others in city government and city services, White House,” Dixon said. “One of my letters got to the Dixon developed the Women in Newport Networking right people and I was offered an unpaid internship working Forum, which encourages Newport Beach women to serve with the House Republican Conference Committee.” with local civic and community groups. Dixon’s key message Although politics remained at the forefront of Dixon’s to women who aspire to serve in local government but who interests — she worked on a variety of local and state politi- may need some encouragement is the same she has for cal campaigns throughout college — her own entrée into the community groups and residents who are looking for support world of politics didn’t begin until almost four decades after from the city. she earned her degree. “I tell them, ‘You are your best advocate. Tell your story.’ In Dixon spent more than 30 years working in the corporate life you can’t wait for the phoneD to ring, whether it’s for a new world, most recently as a senior executive in global strategic job or a new opportunity. Be proactive and define yourself.” Community Commitment communications and government relations with Fortune 300 She also offers the lessons she’s personally learned while in After a successful three- company Avery Dennison. She credits her corporate exper- office. “I’ve learned to trust my judgment, to stay true to my decade career in business, ience with setting the stage for her foray into local politics. principles, to be honest and transparent, to listen to others, Diane Brooks Dixon is now “My business experience really grounded me in solving to tell it like it is and to ask questions — always ask ‘Why?’ helping shape the future problems and working with people,” Dixon said. “In busi- “That’s my lesson in life, not just politics,” Dixon said. of Newport Beach as mayor ness, you have to bring people together if you want to sell an “‘Why did something happen? Why does it cost this much? of the affluent coastal idea or get funding within a corporation.” Why do we do it this way?’ I would say while I was running California town. In a chartered city such as Newport Beach, for example, for office, ‘If it ain’t broke, look again.’ There’s always a way to things don’t get done without a majority vote on a particular make something more efficient and cost less.” issue, she said. “That means working with people and making Dixon credits her time at USC Dornsife with shaping who your case. I say this often, whether it’s to a nonprofit that she has become. wants funding or to an organization or to a resident: Make “My USC experience helped make me who I am today,” your case. Be your best advocate.” Dixon said. “It prepared me for my career, and I am grateful In 2014, Dixon was seated on the City Council in for that.”

46 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 47 Mark Ridley-Thomas / The Winning Point of View / By Lynell George

From an early age, Mark Ridley-Thomas understood the grown up in the heart of Los Angeles, in what was then distinction between politics and activism. There was, he called the Eastside, those neighborhoods “east of Main discerned, a time and place for both. Street.” The youngest of five children, he attended Ascot There were the politics of the grand stage: the elected Avenue Elementary and George Washington Carver Ju- office and the figures one saw on the stump in newspa- nior High, a predominantly black campus at that time. pers or television. But too, there were the in-the-trenches While enrolled there, he would be selected to take part in folks pressing for change — the ministers, the community a summer program offered at the Claremont Colleges. The organizers. Here, he saw close-up the influence of interaction, experience opened his world academically and launched a the handshake, the day-to-day conversation. It was close-to- tradition of summer-program participation that put him in the-ground interaction that put one in touch with the most conversation with diverse students from across the region. urgent needs of a community at a block-by-block level. This experience became a window onto what it meant to The Los Angeles in which Ridley-Thomas came of age connect through common interests, as well as to find com- was a tinderbox. The Watts uprisings of 1965, the largest, mon ground. most devastating urban unrest of the time, revealed After graduating from Manual Arts High School, Los Angeles for what it was — a city deeply divided ra- he began his undergraduate work at Immaculate Heart cially and socioeconomically. It also shed harsh light on the College, majoring in social relations. He earned a master’s disparate cities that existed within one region: one that was degree in religious studies and completed his Ph.D. in cordoned off by politics and the other in desperate need social ethics with an emphasis on policy analysis from of advocacy. Those seven smoky days in August 1965 — USC Dornsife’s School of Religion in 1989. symbolically a community’s raised voice — recalls Ridley- USC served as a rich proving ground. “I’m formally Thomas, “had an undeniably profound effect.” trained as an ethicist,” he explained, “and for the last 25 In a long season of unrest, another tragedy seized his years, the range of issues that I’ve worked on — economic attention: the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. justice, issues related to criminal justice, health-care reform A leader and activist who had figured prominently in — we were studying [back then]. Not from a political per- Ridley-Thomas’ consciousness, King both preached and spective, but from an academic perspective. That academic organized out of the church Ridley-Thomas’ family attended. preparation gave me the ability to think about those issues “Upon his assassination, he became so large,” Ridley- from a variety of vantage points.” Thomas remembers. He recalls hearing that unmistakable His USC experience helped to both clarify the depth of intonation on every radio and television station. And in his political engagement and shape the arc of his profes- that echo, he recognized the power in both the day-to-day sional path. “One has to be able to make the distinction presence and the impact of a platform. between the academy and the laboratory. I function now, “I was transfixed,” said Ridley-Thomas. “Ultimately, and have for the last quarter of a century, in the labora- those speeches were transformative. They began my journey tory — the political [world]. I put a lot of emphasis on both in terms of understanding the philosophy and methodology thinking and doing. I allow my training to inform how I of nonviolent direct action.” Ridley-Thomas saw a legacy think and act, and ultimately, the policy perspectives that I to uphold. seek to advance are informed by my training.” Transforming the conditions of place and enhancing the In all, he said, “I’ve had many more good days than bad.” lives of those who live in it can be an incremental process, He can count among his successes construction of the Metro he would come to learn. Currently a supervisor in Los Crenshaw/LAX light rail line on L.A.’s west side, due to Angeles County’s 2nd District, he has served 25 years in open in 2019, the reopened and reimagined Martin Luther public office. “I’ve been in four different seats over that King, Jr. Community Hospital, which attends to a histor- hometown leadership M Mark Ridley-Thomas, drawing period of time — city council, state Assembly, the state ically underserved community, and the Empowerment Senate, the board of supervisors.” In his current post, he Congress, a citizen-involved, civic engagement forum that inspiration from civil rights represents 2 million residents, including the USC campus, holds its annual summit at USC. But he does not like to spend leader and activist Martin which he has always represented as an elected official. a lot of time cataloging wins or losses: What gets passed or Luther King Jr., has spent more Initially, electoral politics had not been his plan. “I had stalled, dismantled or transformed is an exercise of endurance than a quarter century working been working in civil and human rights [in the ’80s] at the and grit. When things do not work, he has learned, there is to transform the Los Angeles Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, usually another opportunity, as in the current fight to reduce community he calls home. an organization founded by Dr. King.” In his post as execu- homelessness in the county and statewide. tive director, he framed the organization’s agenda, focusing “Dust yourself off and be ready to go tomorrow. That’s on a range of public policy and advocacy issues including the nature of this business. You don’t get it done in one shot. school desegregation, child welfare, police misconduct and You have to try again, learn how to craft the argument differ- dispute resolution. But in the early ’90s, when a city council ently, await new colleagues to join you who share your seat opened up on his home turf, taking it felt like a natural vision. Allow your colleagues to appreciate what is not step. “I saw a need for leadership. So I stepped forward.” simply your own point of view. In other words, their views His depth of knowledge about vulnerable neighborhoods matter and their votes count. In the end, it always has to was rooted in firsthand experience. Ridley-Thomas had be the winning point of view.”

48 illustrations by david johnson for usc dornsife magazine Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 49 By Laura Paisley / A Career Serving the Public / lynne williams

Lynne Williams wasn’t planning to become a lawyer. because you don’t have the same high expectations. If you Her academic background was in psychology, having do better than you are expected to do, it’s still a big win.” earned a Ph.D. from USC Dornsife’s program in 1981. At USC Dornsife, Williams studied alternative dispute After graduating, the Brooklyn native spent more than a resolution as part of her dissertation research. She did field decade in the realms of progressive politics and commu- work and observation at the country’s first community nity organizing. She worked as a jury selection consultant mediation program, in Dorchester, Mass. This work was on political trials and for Democrat Gary Hart’s 1984 the foundation of what is now 30 years of experience as an presidential campaign, driving from state to state “for like interpersonal and community mediator. 50 bucks a week.” “I feel like I have always used my psychology training in But in 1994, Williams was a single mother living in many different real-world ways in my legal profession, my Northern California with her 6-year-old son, Brendan, writing and all sorts of other ways,” she said. who was about to start first grade. Williams is considering running for probate court judge for “I had been working out of my house so I could be there Hancock County, Maine, in 2018, a part-time position that when he got home in the afternoons,” Williams explained. would allow her to keep her solo law practice in Bar Harbor. “On his first day of school I said, ‘Have fun, you’re going “[In Maine] probate isn’t just wills and estates,” she to love it!’ and he replied, ‘I’m so excited to be starting big explained. “It also involves people who are judged to be boy school — what are you going to do now?’ I was 44 at incompetent and have hearings, plus guardianships, adop- the time, but I thought, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe I’ll go tions and name changes. People go in to see this judge to law school.” when they’re not in very good situations.” And that she did, graduating from Golden Gate University Williams considers public service to be extremely impor- School of Law in 1998 with a J.D. and a certificate in public tant, believing it should be something that you contribute interest law. Partly because her son had a disability, she to your community, state or government separate from your became interested in special education law and estate plan- paid job. ning for families with disabled and mentally ill members. “About 30 percent of my legal work has always been Later, Williams added land use, zoning and environmental pro bono. Sometimes when we need gas money we’ll have law to her specialties in addition to representing political them pass the hat,” she joked. “But basically it’s my com- activists arrested for civil disobedience. munity service.” Her initial engagement with politics began after she Williams is one of the leading authorities on medical finished her doctorate and volunteered for Democratic marijuana law in Maine and, as general counsel of Legalize social activist and politician Tom Hayden. He was leading Maine, she co-authored the recreational marijuana legaliza- the Campaign for Economic Democracy, a progressive, tion initiative appearing on the Maine ballot in November. grassroots political movement that promoted environ- She sees this popular initiative as providing a new economic mental protection, civil rights and solar energy. sector for her state. “During that time, I met [California Gov.] Jerry Brown “We only have a few paper mills left. We need to create and was very interested in what he was doing and wanting new economic sectors, and we’re a big farming state, we have to pursue in terms of alternative energy and sustainability,” a lot of land and it’s affordable, so it’s a natural fit for Maine. Williams said. “I got totally hooked.” We’re a libertarian state, people are very tolerant and I think In 1982, she was hired as Hayden’s finance director dur- it will provide opportunities for small businesses.” ing his election campaign for the California state Legislature. One of the achievements she is most proud of in her “I’m outgoing and I liked fundraising, and I was thrilled legal career was a 2008 civil disobedience trial in which that he got elected. I was spoiled by working for some- she represented a group of political activists who had been one in my first campaign who actually got elected,” she arrested after entering a RepublicanL senator’s office and laughed. “Luckily I had that to look back on along with refusing to leave. politics and law all the people I worked for over the years who didn’t get “My colleague and I worked really hard with the defen- Lynne Williams transitioned elected, including myself.” dants to frame a story of why they did this. We told the from political campaigning Williams, former state chair of Maine’s Green story about why — even if they were mistaken, which they and working as a jury selection Independent Party, decided to run for political office in were — they felt that international law compelled them consultant on political trials 2004, making an unsuccessful bid for the Maine House of to do this. to law school and a law career Representatives as a Green Party candidate. She announced “There were tears in the jury’s eyes, and they went out when she was 44 years old. her candidacy for the party’s nomination for governor of and came back two hours later and said not guilty for all Maine in the 2010 election, though she dropped out of the of them. Even though technically they were guilty, that race that March in order to run for the state’s District 28 was what we call in the trade ‘jury nullification,’ where a Senate seat. Williams received 12 percent of the votes in her jury decides to acquit even though the law would compel district, finishing in third place, though she hardly considers them to convict these people. Afterwards, some of the jury these experiences a failure. members came out and met with us, and they said, ‘We “[The campaigns] were very satisfying to me. Some- would’ve been out in 45 minutes … but we wanted to get times I think it’s easier to run as a third-party person the free lunch.’ ”

50 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 51 blAKE OSHIRO / Passionate Civil Rights Advocate / By Susan Bell

When Blake Oshiro ’92 made the most important speech that I became fascinated with political science,” he said. of his political career, he based it on an analogy drawn After returning to Hawaii for law school, Oshiro volun- from a Greek myth he had studied as an English major at teered with the Sierra Club. He was helping with lobbying USC Dornsife. efforts when several young legislators convinced him to stand It was 2010 and Oshiro was the Democratic majority for election. leader in the Hawaii House of Representatives. The Islands Oshiro threw his hat into the ring and was elected as of Aloha were embroiled in a highly charged debate over civil representative of Hawaii’s 33rd District in 2000. He held union for same-sex couples — a deeply controversial issue in a the post until 2011, serving as Democratic majority leader state that traditionally had strongly resisted same-sex unions. from 2008 until his final term ended. “When I gave my speech, I used the myth of Sisyphus, Oshiro said his USC Dornsife education gave him condemned to eternally push a boulder up a hill, as excellent communication skills. an analogy for the ongoing battle faced by civil union “That’s extremely important when it comes to any public advocates,” Oshiro said. office, but especially so in political office, where the ability Civil union was an issue that lay close to Oshiro’s heart to be precise, accurate and still convey a strong sense of and he was determined to convince his fellow lawmakers that sincerity is paramount,” he said. all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, should have Oshiro was also able to put those skills to great use while the right to legal union with the person they love. serving from 2011–14 as deputy chief of staff to then- In an effort to achieve that cherished goal, he had Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie — a job that required recently taken a courageous step. Though family and close Oshiro not only to be the governor’s primary political and friends had long known he was gay, Oshiro came out pub- policy adviser and to oversee the state budget, but also to licly during Hawaii’s civil union debate. write Abercrombie’s annual state-of-the state speech. “I thought it was important that I state that unequivo- Oshiro believes the most important value in politics is cally so that people knew what I stood for and why I was credibility. fighting for this,” he said. “People need to know they can rely on your word, that The bill passed. Oshiro went on to beat socially conserva- you’re not misleading them and that you’ll give them the tive challenger Gary Okino in his 2010 race for re-election answer and the information they need. I’m grateful it was and to serve as one of the leading political strategists involved a lesson I learned early because it contributed to a lot of my in passing same sex marriage in Hawaii. successes. However, it led to some failures, too, because if “Getting that vote felt like we had finally overcome the people ask me a tough question, I’ll give them the honest long battle of moving that boulder,” Oshiro said. “It was a answer, even if it won’t necessarily help my cause.” victory for gay rights and it was reaffirming for me to realize Before getting into politics, Oshiro said he shared much that so many community, political and business leaders of the population’s cynicism about politicians. “Having supported me and hadn’t rejected me.” worked with great political leaders, my view of why a The experience, he said, taught him not to be afraid of majority of people get into public office really changed. I doing the right thing. found most have a sincerely held belief of wanting to make “Seeing the movement towards equality was extremely things better and contribute to our society by becoming heartwarming and rewarding for me. It’s one of my greatest civic leaders. That’s really heartening to me. personal achievements because it really demonstrated to me “Having seen democracy at work, I think it’s an extremely why I wanted to be in elected office in the first place, which messy and complicated system, but I do think it’s one of the Bwas to make a difference.” best forms of government that exists. The level of debate and Oshiro’s proudest professional achievement, he said, exchanges of insults in this presidential election are very has been his ability to maintain good relationships with disheartening, but I’m still optimistic that at the end of the politics in paradise his colleagues, despite the harsh and bitter infighting that day a sense of diplomacy and maturity, and an overall sense of Blake Oshiro spent 14 years is often a reality of political life. doing what’s best for our country will prevail.” in public service in Hawaii, “They understood my role, and even if I had to be tough When Abercrombie was not re-elected, Oshiro opted three of them as Democratic or hold people accountable, they knew I did it for the better- to return to the private sector. He is now executive vice majority leader in the state’s ment of our majority caucus,” Oshiro said. president of Capitol Consultants of Hawaii, one of the House of Representatives, Growing up in a Honolulu suburb, the son of a blue- largest lobbying firms in the state. where he successfully collar electrician and an elementary school teacher, Oshiro “After 14 years of public service, 11 in elected office in championed civil union for never considered a career in politics, although a teenage the House of Representatives and three in the governor’s same-sex couples. fascination with the TV show L.A. Law ignited a desire to office, I felt it was time for me to try something different,” move to Los Angeles, attend USC and become a lawyer. Oshiro said. “People ask me all the time if I’m ever “It wasn’t until I was majoring in English at USC Dornsife going to return to politics and elected office. I tell them and my professors showed me the big picture — how politics I’ll never say never, but it has to be the right time and interrelates with history, social studies, literature and art — opportunity.”

52 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 53 By Laura Paisley / The Importance of Individual Freedom / BOB BARR

Though the product of a modest, Midwestern provenance, Following his initial service as a Republican congress- Iowa native Bob Barr gained a wider world view early on. man, Barr spent two years as an Independent before joining His father, a civil engineer who often received lengthy the Libertarian Party in 2006. He served on its national com- assignments in places as far-ranging as Malaysia, Pakistan, mittee before being nominated as the party’s 2008 presiden- Panama, Peru, Iraq and Iran, chose to bring his family tial candidate. He returned to the Republican Party in 2011. with him rather than be separated. Living abroad for nearly Barr said he is particularly proud of several accomplish- a decade was an experience that made a lasting impression ments during his time in Congress. These include his role in on Barr. balancing the federal budget — the first time in 40 years — “Having grown up overseas from third grade through through the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. Though it only lasted high school graduation in Tehran, I was exposed to a lot a few years, he said, at least it set a standard and showed the of different cultures and political environments — every- country that it can be done. thing from military dictatorships to monarchies,” the for- Also a leader in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, mer U.S. congressman said. “At a very early age, through Barr said he succeeded against tremendous odds in holding those experiences, I gained a deep appreciation for the Clinton to the standard of “we are a nation of laws, not of freedoms we have here in America.” men” when he passed articles of impeachment for perjury Barr’s political views put a premium on, in his words, and obstruction of justice in 1998. Despite this victory, Barr “the absolute importance of protecting, to the greatest ex- experienced how brutal politics can be. tent that we can, individual freedom.” “[During the impeachment process] the political His ideologies continued to develop when he came to maneuvering and the media became extremely personal and USC Dornsife to study international relations. Discovering nasty,” he said. “That affected my family as well as me, which philosopher Ayn Rand as a junior deepened Barr’s apprecia- I think emphasized to me just how important it is to develop tion for conservatism and prompted him to join the Trojan a very thick skin. Young Republican Club and the Objectivist Society. He was “The downside of that is that you learn to be very skeptical, also a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. almost cynical about people and things that happen in the “Through the fraternity I learned a great deal about political arena. It teaches you to be very tough, but on the individual responsibility and leadership,” Barr said. “That, other hand, it can develop callouses against perhaps the coupled with the broader experience at USC, with its large better side of humanity.” and diverse student body, helped prepare me for politics Barr tries to resist the temptation of cynicism in this era of and being involved in a very complex environment with a staunchly partisan politics. diversity of backgrounds and political views.” “My philosophy of public service and politics generally is Following his graduation in 1970, Barr began his career that if you cave in to a sense of absolute pessimism and cyni- as an analyst of Latin American issues for the Central cism, which is fairly easy to do, then you are admitting that Intelligence Agency. Though he lived at the epicenter of you’ve lost and you have no abilityB to change the direction in national political activity in Washington, D.C., his job which our political system is going.” prohibited partisan involvement. By the time he earned Barr said he works to maintain a sense of optimism and congress via the cia his J.D. and moved to Georgia to practice law in 1978, he encourages young people in particular to do the same. He Bob Barr started out working “had a tremendous amount of pent-up interest in politics.” also noted that politicians must learn to deal with failure as for the CIA. His love of politics In Atlanta, Barr got heavily involved with the local well as success. then led him to serve as a — and eventually state — Republican Party. In 1986, “Nobody is going to go through life without experiencing U.S. attorney for Georgia and President Ronald Reagan appointed Barr U.S. attorney for failure. It’s extremely important to recognize that and to eventually a Republican U.S. the Northern District of Georgia. During his tenure, he learn how to deal with it. It’s no fun losing an election but congressman. led prosecutions against state officials and members of the sooner or later it does happen — it happened to me when Medellín drug cartel, and indicted a sitting Republican I lost my election as an incumbent member of Congress in congressman for perjury. 2002 — and you have to deal with it. Barr entered the congressional arena in 1994 with his “It was also important to me to convey to my two sons, election to the U.S. House of Representatives and served who had worked very, very hard for the campaign, that you four terms between 1995 and 2003. He was a member of can’t take it personally. You have to learn from it and then several legislative committees during this time. move on and look for new opportunities.”

54 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 55 the of the party In a saga lasting more than 200 years, political parties in the United States have shifted, evolved and, more importantly, persisted. By Laura Paisley

Despite the fundamental nature of political parties in the election politics, perhaps their predictions weren’t too far daily life of American politics, the U.S. Constitution never off. And yet almost immediately in the early years of our even mentions them. Our first president had no party government, informal coalitions began to form within the affiliation, and the Founding Fathers were a bit wary of the legislature. It was almost impossible to get anything done whole idea and the potential problems these “factions” could in Congress without them, Grose said — after all, a coalition cause. But in the last two centuries, political parties have is how something gets passed when there is a large group of emerged to play a significant role in our system of govern- people trying to make a decision. ment and beyond, helping to shape legislation, culture, Parties became a fixture in our political system for identity and our ideals as a nation. another reason, too: They came in very handy in terms This year, the United States has been immersed in an elec- of organizing and supporting candidates in elections. tion full of personalities that at times seem larger than the It was the campaign leading to Andrew Jackson’s presidential parties they ostensibly represent. Donald Trump’s candidacy election in 1828 that cemented the Democratic Party, Grose as a Republican who has alienated many prominent members noted. The Whig Party emerged in opposition to Jackson’s of his own party while embracing a stance that is uniquely policies shortly thereafter, sticking around for a little more his own has raised the question of whether this election could than two decades. realign the electorate and the GOP. “The Republican Party came about in the mid-19th Is there any historical precedent for this? Well, yes and century,” Grose said, “and our modern two-party election no. But understanding how our dynamic party system works system really emerged after that.” can help us understand whether or not this election is just an anomaly and how much influence it might have on the politi- It takes two to tango cal landscape moving forward. For better or worse, the two-party system is thoroughly entrenched in the U.S. But why only two? And which is it: The party system is born better or worse? Christian Grose, associate professor of political science “A lot of political science research shows that the num- WHERE’S THE PARTY? and director of graduate studies of the Political Science ber of parties in a constituency [the voters in a specified area The U.S. Constitution does not and International Relations (POIR) Ph.D. program at who elect a representative to a legislative body] is basically the mention political parties at USC Dornsife, studies American politics. number of available seats plus one more,” Grose said, adding all, and our first president had “Even at the founding of the United States, George that this is based on a mathematical proof. We use the “first- no party affiliation. But today, Washington and the others were really concerned about past-the-post” voting system, which means voters each choose it is hard to imagine politics the idea of political parties,” he explained. “They thought one candidate and the candidate who receives more votes than without them. they would be too confining and would create permanent anyone else is the winner — and one winner takes all. coalitions that would be problematic.” “As a result, we tend to have two dominant parties in the Looking at the current state of affairs in Congress and U.S.,” he said.

56 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 57 So how is it working for us? On one hand, it could be Political Science Ann Crigler. “It helps explain how partisan argued that the two-party system promotes centrism, com- politics can change rather dramatically.” “Populism promise, political stability and, by extension, economic A notable period of political realignment occurred in 1932, growth. Governance is simpler, with less fractiousness and when FDR was elected by a large coalition of Democrats in fewer radical parties, and without the hung parliaments that addition to other groups of voters not traditionally associated is in the can occur with multiparty systems in other countries. with that party, Grose said. “In a positive sense, it creates two easy choices and it’s not “You had northern liberals, minorities and southern racist eye of the as complex as other systems,” Grose said. “On the other hand, whites all voting for FDR because of the Great Depression. when there are only two major parties, it makes it harder for That kind of stuck for the next few elections, with many of beholder. viewpoints that are less mainstream to be represented. There’s the same people continuing to vote Democrat.” a tendency toward keeping difficult issues off the agenda.” If a voice From this perspective, the two-party system potentially Fractured beyond repair? prevents alternative views from getting serious consider- The unexpected rise of Donald Trump in the 2016 presid- from the ation and encourages voter apathy if voters perceive that their ential race has led to a state of turmoil within the Republican choices are limited. And as we’ve seen in the current political Party, as it highlighted existing divisions and wrenched grassroots climate, the two-party system has often led to vociferous par- open new ones. Likewise, Bernie Sanders’ ascent posed tisanship and impasse. So what is the most efficient system? significant challenges to the Democratic Party as a ground- “That depends on how you feel about compromise,” said swell of support shifted toward him. There has even been agrees Dan Schnur, assistant professor of the practice of political some speculation as to whether, in the face of the disunity science and director of USC Dornsife’s Jesse M. Unruh stemming from Trump’s candidacy, the GOP might split with you, Institute of Politics. If a person believes strongly in a partic- into two parties. ular policy position, he said, and doesn’t want to compromise, Historically, however, there are very few examples of this then they then the two-party system becomes a source of frustration phenomenon in the U.S., called third-party fracturing. This and inefficiency. “If there are a dozen parties, you can be generally occurs when the two dominant parties ignore a represent absolutely pure on the issues that are important to you. With critical social or policy issue. The best example of this in our only two major parties, there’s a necessity for compromise. country’s past was the divisive issue of slavery, which was a powerful “But the U.S. system of government is designed to coming to a head in the early 1850s when the Democrats and encourage compromise,” he said. “The Founding Fathers put the Whigs were the two major parties. together a system with three branches of government and “Neither party was addressing slavery in any serious brand of two houses of Congress in order to protect against what they manner,” Grose said. “They were just trying to avoid the called ‘the tyranny of the majority.’ So even though we don’t issue because it was very difficult for their coalitions, but it populism. see it that much in 21st-century America, compromise is part was a massive issue.” of our country’s political DNA.” Meanwhile, the nascent Republican Party was promo- But if that ting the abolition of slavery along with other northern The parties they are a changin’ political and economic interests. Significantly, they were same voice Despite the steadfastness of the two-party system, political the only party to take such a position on slavery. parties themselves tend to evolve and change dramatically “When two parties keep a major policy item off the disagrees over time. This happens for a variety of reasons, such as agenda, that’s where a third party could actually emerge to changing attitudes and demands within the electorate as become a second or first party,” Grose said. with you, well as the efforts of parties to adopt different positions to This is largely how an ascending third party, the try to win elections and reach new voters. Republicans, overtook the Whigs. While the Democrats The platform of the Democratic Party, for example, were able to maintain cohesion as a party, over the course of they’re changed considerably over the early 20th century. the 1850s the Whigs experienced a swift decline due to inter- “Today’s Democratic Party is identified as being pro-civil nal divisions and a lack of national leadership — exacerbated irresponsible rights,” Grose explained, “but prior to [President] Lyndon by the disastrous mid-century presidency of Whig Zachary Johnson and [President] Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was Taylor. Within the space of four years, Gross said, Whigs demagogues.” not considered the party in favor of civil rights. In fact, it was were supplanted entirely in Congress by Republicans. anti-civil rights, a party of whites that was disenfranchising Nothing like this has happened since in American minority voters. history. Even though the candidacy of Donald Trump “During the Johnson era and going forward, the Democratic seems like an anomaly in some ways, even a potential Party tried to adopt more pro-civil rights policies because threat to his own party, the demise of the Whig Party that’s what the electorate wanted, especially with the cannot really be compared to what is happening with the enfranchisement of African Americans in the South. Republican Party of today. So conservative white voters moved to another party, the “There are definitely issues being ignored by both ADAPTIVE STRATEGIES Republican Party. parties now,” Grose said, “but those issues don’t rise to the Political parties can change “We see patterns like this throughout history where level of slavery.” dramatically over time due parties take different positions than they would have a to factors such as changing generation prior.” The upside of a splinter attitudes within the electorate A theory called realignment helps explain how some elec- Much more common than third-party fracturing, splin- and parties’ efforts to adopt tions can realign the electorate and alter positions of a party tering occurs when a group of voters separates from a different positions to attract in a way that shifts the balance of power on a lasting basis. major political party due to specific issues, ideologies or, voters and win elections. “Realignment has met with some challenges by schol- often, economic conditions. ars, but it’s an interesting theory because it helps to “Under most political circumstances, a third party comes explain how things happened in the past,” said Professor of into being in response to an unmet policy need,” Schnur said.

58 illustrations by Brian Stauffer for usc dornsife magazine Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 59 “In another system, the Tea Party would not simply be a fac- to represent the common people, vowing to protect them “Emotion tion in the Republican Party, it would represent a new party against the mainstream elites — is a powerful force unto itself. Similarly, Sanders supporters would be much less for partisan change, Crigler said. This year’s presidential is not likely to become active parts of the Democratic Party, they’d election is noteworthy for having had two impactful populist be more likely to set up a party of their own. candidates: Sanders and Trump. “But in our system, the two major parties have become Together with POIR graduate student Whitney Hua and separate very talented at recognizing unmet policy needs and adapting a colleague at Wellesley College, Crigler authored the paper themselves to co-opt an emerging ideological strain among “Populist Disruption: Sanders and Trump Tweets in the by Susan Bell from some the voters.” 2016 U.S. Presidential Primaries” about the candidates’ use The Intersection of Politics and Communication In the 1960s, the civil rights movement was “adopted” by of social media. kind of the Democratic Party, potentially avoiding the emergence of “Social media provide a platform that allows populist fred ryan, a former longstanding senior aide to that really added to my USC experience,” he said. a third party defined by that issue. A more recent example candidates who normally would not have been successful President Ronald Reagan, is now publisher and chief After earning his bachelor’s degree in political science from cognitive is the 1992 presidential election in which Ross Perot ran as within the two-party structure to work around it,” Crigler executive officer of the washington post. USC Dornsife and in speech communication from USC Annenberg an Independent. He mounted a highly successful third-party said. “Now the institution of social media allows candidates School for Communication and Journalism, and then graduating or rational campaign, attracting nearly 20 percent of the vote that to communicate more directly with people and allows voters As Air Force One touched down at Los Angeles International from USC Gould School of Law in 1980, Ryan first considered November. His major campaign issue was reducing and to magnify those messages to their friends.” Airport on Jan. 20, 1989, Ronald Reagan prepared to disembark. pursuing elective office but took a staff position at the White eliminating the federal deficit, Schnur said, which neither Populism, as it lashes out at the establishment and the tra- Earlier in the day, he had relinquished the presidency to his House instead. process; Democrats nor Republicans were devoting much attention to. ditional party structure, has a very strong affective component. successor, George H. W. Bush, and the expectation was that the “I found being part of the White House staff gave me the experi- “In 1993, the new Democratic president, Bill Clinton, “Emotions are incredibly important in electoral politics,” former president would now unobtrusively resume his life as a ence I originally sought in office,” Ryan said. “It was an exciting it’s funda- made deficit reduction a very large priority,” he continued. Crigler said. “You want to be able to tap in to and mobilize private citizen. time of positive change. America was going through a transition and “The following year, Newt Gingrich and the congressional people. Emotion is not separate from some kind of cogni- Longstanding aide Fred Ryan ’77, now Reagan’s newly appointed moving in a very positive direction and it was great to be a small mentally Republicans took over the congressional majority by empha- tive or rational process; it’s fundamentally a part of the way chief of staff, had other plans. part of that.” sizing deficit reduction as one of their key issues. By 1996, we understand the world. Good politicians know that. So all As the former president emerged from the plane, the Spirit of Asked why Reagan selected him to be his assistant, Ryan laughs. a part of when Perot ran for president again, his issue had been co-opted parties make emotional appeals to voters.” Troy — waiting on the tarmac to welcome America’s 40th president “Boy, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just glad he did. I enjoyed by the two major parties and he barely made any impact.” But is affective politics effective politics? home to California — struck up the stirring first notes of “Fight On!” working for him and with the team he put together, which Major third-party candidates tend to emerge every three “Populism definitely has two sides to it,” Crigler said. “It can “He was very touched because after the fanfare in Washington, included a number of Californians, several from USC.” “You can’t look at the way we he thought it would just be a quiet arrival, so he was really sur- Ryan, who traveled extensively with Reagan after his presidency, or four elections in contemporary politics, said Grose. Some allow for some political movement and representation of public one election cycle in understand of the more successful 20th-century candidates include frustrations, as well as an influx of ideas, which representation prised and delighted to see the USC Trojan Marching Band there drew great personal satisfaction from observing people’s re- Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, John Anderson, George Wallace and democracy need. But a lot of it can be quite detrimental to greet him,” said Ryan, who organized the welcome tribute. sponse to his boss after two successful terms in the White House. isolation and let it color and Huey Long. While third-party candidates are often a because it can play on authoritarianism and demagoguery.” Such loyalty is characteristic of Ryan, who served Reagan at the One overseas visit that stood out was Reagan’s trip to Germany. your perspective on the the world. source of splintering, they’re certainly not the only driver, as Schnur agreed, illustrating how populism can be fickle. White House for seven years after joining the successful Reagan/ “He went to Berlin and got a hero’s welcome as the wall was com- political system. You we’ve seen with Trump. “Populism is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “If a voice Bush campaign in 1980. In 1987, Reagan appointed Ryan assistant ing down. That was an amazing trip.” have to take a long- Good “What’s interesting about Trump is that he’s a Republican from the grassroots agrees with you, then they represent a to the president, a senior staff position in the White House, before In 1995, Ryan’s career took a new turn when he became vice chair of term approach.” and not a third-party candidate,” Grose explained. “And powerful brand of populism. But if that same voice disagrees making him his chief of staff, a position he held from 1989–95. television, cable and internet company Allbritton Communications. FRED RYAN, Publisher and politicians that has created splintering in the Republican Party, where with you, then they’re irresponsible demagogues.” Ryan was instrumental in creating the Ronald Reagan Presidential As president and chief operating officer, he managed its multiple Chief Executive Officer of mainstream Republicans and a lot of people who worked Library and currently serves as chairman of the Board of Trustees broadcast and cable properties. The Washington Post. know that.” for the Bush administrations are very hesitant to sup- Parties as they were meant to be for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and chair of the In 2007, Ryan co-founded Politico, a politically focused website port Trump. Still other Republicans are splintering away Beyond any potential to create divisions, political parties White House Historical Association. and newspaper, serving as its president and CEO. Then, seven years to support Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, also exist in order to facilitate our system of government. In 2014, he became chief executive officer and publisher of The later, Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, named Ryan to his a former Republican governor who has garnered up to “Parties serve a very vital function,” Crigler explained, Washington Post. “It’s amazing — I was a double major in political current position, signaling a new, digitally focused direction for the 10 percent in the polls this year. So what does this mean “which is to help govern as well as get people elected. The science and speech communication, and decades later, here I am in publication. for the future of the Republican Party? whole structure of the legislative branch is organized around a job that is at the intersection of communications and politics,” Ryan says he is excited to be a part of the rapidly evolving fusion “If Trump loses and four years from now a mainstream the majority party.” Ryan said of his new role. of media and technology. “Journalists know that because of the Republican runs again, things could probably go back to The majority party controls the seats and chairmanships Born in Tampa, Fla., Ryan’s father was a lieutenant colonel in the increasing role of technology, they should expect their entire career normal and perhaps the Republican Party would adopt of committees in Congress, and provides the speaker of the U.S. Air Force. This meant a peripatetic childhood that included a to be one of unprecedented change. Anyone in media today certain positions that are more in line with what Trump house and majority and minority leaders. It is also the job stint in Italy before the family eventually settled in L.A., where Ryan realizes it’s not a profession for the timid. It’s one that attracts has said, if that’s what voters want,” Grose said, “but it could of political parties to recruit candidates for the next election attended high school and became “an uncontrollable USC fan.” people who are willing to seek, embrace and shape change.” also just be a one-off. On the other hand, if he wins, that cycle, register voters and get people involved in politics. His lifelong passion for politics was sparked by family conversa- If Ryan has learned one lesson from his career — one he says could potentially lead to a realignment where you see people Parties groom individuals for elections, offer an organizing tions around the dinner table. applies equally to politics or journalism — it’s to come armed who, having been Republican, would become Democrats. structure and work together internally to set an agenda. “Neither of my parents were office holders, but they were both with a thick skin. “That’s another way parties can shift and evolve — due The challenge is to keep parties strong and functioning interested in politics and knowledgeable about it,” he said. “I was “President Reagan was always able to keep it positive and re- able to participate in conversations about politics from my early spectful, even with political opponents. Today, as we’re witness-

to the candidates that get nominated and the conditions as they are meant to within a democratic government. Super photo that result.” PACs and the growing role of huge wealth in politics repre- years. It’s something that just fascinated me and encompassed my ing in this campaign, that’s changed. But you can’t look at one interest then, just as it does today.” election cycle in isolation and let it color your perspective on the sent an outgrowth of the weakening of the parties in recent by P Populism: ‘In the eye of the beholder’ After being accepted to USC — his top choice for college — he drew political system. You have to take a long-term approach.” And in

years, Crigler said. These forces can create undue influence in h ili inspiration from faculty, who combined an academic background the reigning climate of political cynicism, Ryan remains optimistic

Even if some third-party issues end up getting co-opted the political sphere because individuals and groups can fund p

B with the rich experience of engagement in the political arena. that the American people will make the right long-term decisions. by Democrats or Republicans, third parties and populist their special interests and disseminate their message with er

m “They were able to give us the substance and theories of politics In a Washington, D.C., career spanning almost 30 years, Ryan has candidates still play a critical role in bringing alternative relatively little accountability. ing as well as real insight into the day-to-day engagement of what seen administrations come and go, but one constant is his satisfac- h

viewpoints to the forefront and helping the electorate “With the rise of more candidate-centered politics and a

m political campaigns or political process were all about. I felt that tion at watching USC’s prominence blossom. articulate their political desires. reliance on big money and independent groups to help fund P “Populist voices in both parties tend to represent passions candidates, it’s really shifted the role of parties. For a political hoto was very useful.” “When I first came to D.C., USC was certainly known and respected,

within the electorate — matters that voters don’t think are scientist, that’s a big problem. Because when parties don’t gra Ryan paid tribute to USC’s “unique, competitive spirit” and to but in the last few years, its presence here and the appreciation

being addressed by the political leadership,” Schnur explained. work effectively to recruit candidates, inform voters and ph his “stellar” professors, in particular the late William Lammers, and admiration for what the university does has grown enormously,” The rhetoric of populism — when a politician claims coordinate governance, other players fill the gap.” y professor of political science. “Many were leaders in their field and Ryan said. “As a proud Trojan that’s been great to see.”

60 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 61 dornsife family

Mary Mahl, 1960 HONORS Faculty News Fellowship at the School for If not for want of an umbrella, Advanced Research in Santa Fe, Legacyone of literature’s greatest DAVID ALBERTSON, associ- N.M., where he will pursue his treasures might never have ate professor of religion, has project, “Guys Like Me: Six Wars, been found. received a National Endowment Six Veterans for Peace.” While conducting research for the Humanities grant for his on a relatively minor literary project “The Tegernsee Debate on ANN OWENS, assistant pro- figure for her doctoral dis- Love and Reason: Mystical Letters fessor of sociology and spatial sertation in Norwich, England, and Treatises in Late Medieval sciences, was chosen as a 2016 in 1960, a sudden storm caused Germany.” National Academy of Education/ Mary Mahl, then a lecturer in Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. the Department of English, PABLO BARBERÁ, assistant Her fellowship will support her to take shelter in a city library. professor of international research on the consequences There, among the musty relations, has been awarded the of school and neighborhood books, she spotted a priceless 2016 Miller Prize by the Society economic segregation. manuscript that no one had for Political Methodology for his yet identified: a 1585 version article “Birds of the same feather MARJORIE PERLOFF, Florence of Sir Philip Sidney’s “Defense tweet together: Bayesian ideal R. Scott Professor of English of Poesy.” point estimation using Twitter Emerita, received an honorary Mahl, who received her Ph.D. data.” The Miller Prize is awarded doctorate in philosophy from the in literature from New York for the best work appearing in University of Innsbruck at a cer- University following careers as the journal Political Analysis the emony at the Austrian university a Sudan Interior Mission worker, preceding year. in recognition of her outstanding a bank teller and a nurse’s aide, scientific work. became one of the world’s fore- RONGDAO LAI, assistant most experts on Sidney. professor of religion, has been NATHAN PERL-ROSENTHAL, Mahl taught at USC Dornsife awarded a postdoctoral fellow- assistant professor of his- for 21 years, retiring in 1981. ship at the National University of tory and spatial sciences, illus During that time, she taught the Singapore, where she will pursue was awarded the 2016 Gilbert t works of Wordsworth, Coleridge ra a new research project on trans- Chinard Prize by the Society for t i and Byron, and helped pioneer o national lineage networks in French Historical Studies and n c research trips abroad, when 20th-century Chinese Buddhism. the Institut Français d’Amérique o she returned to England each ur for his book, Citizen Sailors. The t

esy Closing in on Cancer summer with students eager to M.G. LORD, assistant professor award recognizes a distinguished Susan Forsburg receives recognition for both her outstanding research and o

unearth other treasures. f ©Trus in the practice of English, was scholarly book published in North exceptional teaching abilities. “There are so many things in honored by the Los Angeles Press America in 2015 on the history of

England that need research,” t Club at the 58th Annual Southern themes shared by France and the ees As dissimilar as they are, certain yeast and human cells have much in common when it Mahl said. “There are tre- California Journalism Awards for Americas. o comes to how they deal with instability in their genomes. Studying the simpler yeast, Susan f mendous collections that are th her Dame Magazine article “You’d Forsburg hopes to shed light on these essential, shared processes — revealing information untouched, the English don’t e Be Such a Good Mother. If Only NORBERT SCHWARZ, Provost B

ri that one day could lead to cures for cancer and other genetic disorders.

even know what treasures t You Weren’t You.” The awards Professor of Psychology and is “At a fundamental level, we’re interested in how cells try to maintain the integrity of h there are waiting to be brought Museu recognize and honor professional Marketing, was awarded an their genome, specifically in response to challenges during the process of DNA replication, to light.” journalists who produce honorary degree from the which is a very vulnerable time,” said Forsburg, Gabilan Distinguished Professor in Science

m outstanding work. University of Basel, Switzerland. ; and Engineering and professor of biological sciences. m

a He also received the Distinguished

In recognition of her discovery h Forsburg’s research aims to understand how cells manage stresses during DNA replication l JILL MCNITT-GRAY, profes- Scientist Award from the Society and authentication of the photo to minimize damage, focusing on three main areas of inquiry. The first seeks to determine sor of biological sciences and for Experimental Social Psychology.

manuscript “Defense of Poesy,” how cells respond to replication stress throughout the whole cell, and particularly what Fo c biomedical engineering, rsburg rsburg Mahl was presented to Queen o happens to those that survive. The second looks at meiosis, the specialized process leading ur received the 2016 Jim Hay RAYMOND STEVENS, Provost Elizabeth II in London in 1968. t to the production of reproductive cells — spores in yeast and eggs and sperm in humans. esy Memorial Award for Research Professor of Biological Scienc-

photo The third aims to uncover regions of the genome that are particularly vulnerable sites and o

f in Sports and Exercise Biomech- es and Chemistry and profes-

USC understand how protections may differ for them.

by Pe by anics from the American Society sor of neurology, physiology

U The work recently gained support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences

niversi of Biomechanics. and biophysics, and chemical

t through a new grant program dubbed MIRA (short for Maximizing Investigators’ Research er er engineering and materials Award). Forsburg was among the first group of investigators in the nation to receive Zh t MICHAEL MESSNER, profes- science, has been elected a y a

o MIRA awards. A yu yu rc sor of sociology and gender member of the Norwegian Acad- In addition to her research, Forsburg places strong emphasis on instruction. Her dedication h Zho ives studies, was awarded a 2016 emy of Science and Letters. earned her the 2016 USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching, which she received at

u Ethel-Jane Westfeldt Bunting the university’s 35th annual Academic Honors Convocation in April. —D.S.J.

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 63 62 Details Page 5 dornsife family

FACULTY CANON

Press / Professor of History Elliott Distinguished Chair in and East Asian Languages and Economics, provides a rigorous Cultures Kyung Moon Hwang though user-friendly account of In a Flash explores the institutional, ideolog- the time series techniques dealing Samuel Steinberg re-examines the student movement ical and conceptual development with univariate and multivariate — and massacre — in Mexico City. of the modern Korean state and time series models as well as panel analyzes the state’s relationship data models. It is 1968, and like many to five social sectors, each through countries worldwide, Mexico a distinctive interpretive theme: is experiencing student-led economy (developmentalism), revolt. However, unlike Paris, TOURIST DISTRACTIONS: religion (secularization), educa- ACROSS LEGAL LINES: which romanticized its cultural Traveling and Feeling in tion (public schooling), population Jews and Muslims in Modern and sexual revolution as a cele- Transnational Hallyu Cinema (registration), and public health Morocco Yale University Press / bration of youth, and London, Duke University Press / Associate (disease control). Through the experiences of a where youthful rebellion was Professor of East Asian Languages single Jewish family, Ruth Ziegler expressed principally through and Cultures Youngmin Choe Early Career Chair in Jewish music and fashion, Mexico’s shows how the integration of Studies and Assistant Professor of student movement ends in the tourist imaginary into hallyu Religion Jessica Marglin charts bloodshed. On Oct. 2, up to 300 young protesters (the exact (Korean-wave) cinema points to how Moroccan law helped Jews FOOD, HEALTH, AND CULTURE number is still unknown) are murdered while protesting the region’s evolving transnational to integrate into Muslim society IN LATINO LOS ANGELES in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, by paramilitaries in a state- politics and the ways Korea negoti- — until colonial reforms abruptly Rowman & Littlefield / Assistant sponsored massacre. ates its colonial and Cold War past curtailed their legal mobility. Professor (Teaching) of Spanish Samuel Steinberg’s book, Photopoetics at Tlatelolco: with East Asia’s neoliberal present. Sarah Portnoy explores the Afterimages of Mexico, 1968 (University of Texas Press, history of Latino cuisine in Los 2016), explores the state’s dual repression in terms of both Angeles and the contemporary the massacre’s crushing effects on the movement and the IN THE NOT QUITE DARK Latino food scene, one that manipulation of cultural discourse and political thought Counterpoint Press / Associate sharply contrasts with urban in the aftermath. Through this lens, Steinberg, assistant Professor of English Dana Latino neighborhoods where professor of Spanish and Portuguese, considers the broad Johnson illuminates the travails access to affordable, healthy photographic and photopoetic nature of modern witnessing of contemporary Los Angeles life food is a struggle. as well as the specific elements of light (gunfire, flares Combing the White Sands Language Faculty faced with aspects of gentrifi- and camera flashes) that he argues ultimately defined the In his genre-defying new collection of thoughtful and self-deprecating essays, USC Dornsife Writer in Residence Science cation — social, economic, sexual massacre. and racial. Geoff Dyer explores “the power that some places exert and why we go to them.” HAJIME HOJI Said Steinberg: “My hope is that this book can free EDGE OF IRONY: Modernism Mexico 1968 from the way dominant historical narrative has LANGUAGE FACULTY SCIENCE in the Shadow of the Habsburg

Liberally infused with generous helpings of the author’s deadpan wit and philosophical St presented it up until now and recover its lost legacy.” —S.B. wisdom, Geoff Dyer’s new book White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World (Pantheon, Cambridge University Press / einberg Empire University of Chicago Press / 2016) is both enlightening and hilarious. Associate Professor of Linguistics Florence R. Scott Professor of and East Asian Languages and English Emerita Marjorie Perloff Dyer’s secular pilgrimages are permeated with the disappointment of not encountering what photo d he set out to find. Yet, his blighted hopes are constantly redeemed by finding other things on the Cultures Hajime Hoji offers a yer explores how Austro-Modernist

articulation of how we deduce Meik by literature is characterized by a journey — things unexpected and more intriguing than what was originally sought. photo Among the tales in White Sands are a trip to Norway, during which Dyer and his wife definite predictions about the radical irony beneath a seemingly by Ma by judgments of an individual speaker o conventional surface, an acute EDO KABUKI IN TRANSITION:

spectacularly fail to see the longed-for spectacle of the Northern Lights, a deeply unsatisfying A on the basis of universal and rquill sense of exile and an erotic From the Worlds of the Samurai

voyage to Tahiti to walk in artist Paul Gauguin’s footsteps and a curtailed sightseeing tour of tt

language-particular hypotheses. (and quixotic) sensibility. to the Vengeful Female Ghost Los Angeles’ Watts Towers. St o uar s; s; BLUE SKIES OVER BEIJING: Columbia University Press /

If the settings couldn’t be more disparate, certain common themes emerge, one being that R t e ; Economic Growth and the Associate Professor of East d Sp

Dyer’s stories are never what they seem. Da

iral iral Environment in China Princeton Asian Languages and Cultures Dyer’s desire to see Gauguin’s 1897 masterpiece Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? launches w n s University Press / Professor of Satoko Shimazaki revisits three J

this series of essays. The painting was — of course — disappointingly not on display at the museum where Dyer went to see e t tt ill c ill Economics and Spatial Sciences centuries of kabuki theater and it. But its title clues us in to some of the elemental questions the author, winner of the 2015 Windham Campbell Prize for y P o

hoto Matthew Kahn co-authored its dynamic representations of

Nonfiction, tackles in this volume. ur

t an examination of how Chinese medieval Japanese tales and esy esy If Dyer rejects any suggestion that his work could be pigeonholed as travel writing, he embraces the importance of place c

o urbanites are increasingly tradition, reframing Edo kabuki as ur in both his fiction and nonfiction, stressing that nothing has been more important to him as a writer. o f

t demanding cleaner living a key player in the formation of an S esy esy

Dyer is the author of four novels and nine works of nonfiction. The latter occupy a particular place in the world of English a

m conditions. early modern urban identity. uel uel letters, a place where the borderline between fiction and nonfiction is deliberately — and intriguingly — blurred. o f G St “It’s been one of the bees in my bonnet, this idea of the nonfiction work of art,” he said. “There’s this notion that typically e o einberg you go to fiction for style and inventiveness and you go to nonfiction for the information, the content, and if the nonfiction RATIONALIZING KOREA: Dyer ff TIME SERIES AND PANEL DATA The Rise of the Modern State, ECONOMETRICS Oxford University book is well written that’s a sort of bonus. This is why I’m always trying to make a case for the nonfiction book that’s defined Actors portray a mother and her young son witnessing Mexico’s Tlatelolco student by the experience you are having as opposed to the book that you go to for the content.” —S.B. 1894–1945 University of California Press / Hashem Pesaran, John massacre of 1968 in this still from director Jorge Fons’ 1989 film Red Dawn.

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 65 64 Details Page 5 dornsife family

alumni and student canon Alumni News CHRIS MUNN (B.A., political science, ’99) was named director 1960s for watchlisting and countering Composed Connection KARIN FRIEDRICH DONALD- terrorist travel at the Executive Creative writing alumna chronicles dating after SON (B.A., philosophy and Office of the President’s National being diagnosed with a chronic disease. religion, ’62) was honored among Security Council. the “Women of Dedication” by the San Diego Salvation Army in April. 2000s Public health nurse JENNIFER L. DALE GRIBOW (B.A., history, SMITH (B.A., neuroscience, ’07) THE FACE: Cartography of the IN THE CROCODILE GARDENS ’65) was again named a top lawyer was selected from a pool of 90 Void Restless Books / Nigerian- LEVIATHAN Hyacinth Girl Press / CURED Infinitely Improbable Press / IT’S NOT JUST THE ECONOMY, Sundress Publications / Saba FOREIGN AGENT Atria/Emily by Palm Springs Life magazine and nurses to be named Outstand- born Chris Abani (Ph.D., Neil Aitken (Ph.D., creative Melissa Delangis Dickerson STUPID! Trade Competitive- Syed Razvi (Ph.D., English Bestler Books / Brad Thor (B.A., listed among its “Legal Eagles.” ing Nurse of the Year for 2015 by creative writing and literature, writing and literature, ’15) follows (B.A., international relations, ’05) ness in the 21st Century and creative writing, ’12) draws creative writing, ’92) takes his Gribow received an Avvo 10.0 per- the Los Angeles Department of ’06) explores his personal identity the extraordinary life and losses of reimagines the walking dead apoc- Cambridge Scholars Publishing / contemporary currents of politi- hero, Scot Havarth, around the fect rating by his fellow attorneys. Children and Family Services. through a meditation on the face Charles Babbage, a 19th-century alypse when her zombie heroine is Sarita D. Jackson (B.A., Span- cal concern and cultural identity globe in order to confront one of and provides insights into the role mathematician who dreamed of (mostly) cured and has to figure out ish and broadcast journalism, through the sieve of inherited the greatest evils the world has 1970s ANNA WALTHER (B.A., of race, culture and language in building what would have been the who unleashed Armageddon in the ’99) argues that market factors mythos and ecstatic awareness. ever known. DIANE BROOKS DIXON (B.A., international relations and fashioning our sense of self. firstT uring-complete computer. first place. and business strategies alone political science, ’73) was German, ’04), a human and civil do not determine industry elected mayor of Newport rights lawyer, will work with the competitiveness and firm import Beach, CA. Dixon was elected Guatemalan government after behavior. Councilmember for District 1 in being selected for a Fulbright- At 27, Cory Martin had the life any college graduate would November 2014 and served as Hillary Clinton Fellowship in public dream of. She lived in Hollywood, writing scripts for TV — mayor pro tem in 2015. policy for 2016–17. most notably for Fox’s drama The O.C. — and had a flourish- ing social life. Just before she turned 28, everything changed. 1980s 2010s Martin, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in cre- DANIEL DODGEN (B.A., NATHANIEL HAAS (B.A., politi- ative writing in 2001, was diagnosed with multiple sclero- psychology and Spanish, ’86) cal science and economics, ’15) sis (MS), a disease that attacks the body’s central nervous spoke at the White House on April received a first-place award at the HOPE FOR COMMON GROUND: BELLE LA FOLLETTE: system. 4 during an event celebrating the 58th Annual Southern California ONLY MORE SO Salmon Poetry / MAKING MONTE CARLO: EAST & WEST Lost Horse Press / Mediating the Personal and the Progressive Era Reformer “I started looking for books about young women dealing release of the United States Global Journalism Awards for an online Weaving jazz imagery throughout A History of Speculation Tearing down linguistic borders Political in a Divided Church Routledge / Nancy Unger (M.A., with MS, and there was nothing out there,” Martin recalled. Climate Research Program report, investigative report he wrote as her lyric poetry, Millicent Borges and Spectacle Simon & Schuster / while also preserving cultural Georgetown University Press / history, ’81; Ph.D., history, ’85) shows The internet was even more disheartening. The Impacts of Climate Change a USC student for Neon Tommy: Accardi (MPW, ’93) explores Mark Braude (Ph.D., history, peculiarities, current creative LIONS Grove Atlantic, Black Cat / Julie Hanlon Rubio (Ph.D., how women’s suffrage and peace “I found terrible message boards where people wrote, on Human Health in the United Annenberg Digital News. themes of sex, gender, marriage, ’13) reveals how the world’s first writing Ph.D. student Piotr Bonnie Nadzam (M.A., English, religion and social ethics, ’95) pres- advocate Belle Case La Follette ‘I’m in bed, and I hate my life,’ and then 50 other people States: A Scientific Assessment. the Holocaust, violence, war, modern casino-resort emerged as Florczyk investigates themes ’09; Ph.D., creative writing and ents a case for local engagements wielded influence through her would echo that,” she said. “It was a depressing place.” LOGAN HELEY (B.A., journal- music and silence. a glamorous destination and then of identity, politics and memory literature, ’11) excavates a “living around commonly held values as speeches and journalism. Inspired by her education, Martin embarked on writing DAVID HIZAMI (B.A., political ism and history, ’15) is running was reinvented to suit the desires of while wrestling with what it is that ghost town” on the brink of col- a way beyond the stale left-right, her story, Love Sick (Write Out Publishing, 2016), which science, ’88) was appointed a for election in the 21st Kansas Jazz Age tastemakers such as Coco makes us human. lapse, and the individuals who liberal-conservative polarizations. chronicles her experiences meeting men in the wake of her judge in the Los Angeles County State Senate District. Chanel and F. Scott Fitzgerald. are confronted with either chas- diagnosis, broaching topics such as when it’s OK to tell po- Superior Court after serving as ing their dreams or — against all tential boyfriends about health problems. a deputy public defender at Educational psychology graduate reason — staying where they are. While she studied at USC Dornsife, English professors the Los Angeles County Public student CHRISTINA ZDAWC- Aimee Bender and T.C. Boyle stood out as mentors Defender’s Office since 1993. ZYK (B.A., neuroscience and because of their quirky styles and abilities to help students East Asian languages and “think outside the box.” TOM MIRTI (B.A., interna- cultures, ’14) received a presti- Martin believes her college education has helped fuel her tional relations, ’81) was named gious three-year National Science THE TROUBLE WITH resilience. But she wishes she had learned sooner that life director of the Division of Water Foundation research fellowship HUMPADORI The (Great) isn’t always what you expect it to be. Resources at the Suwannee River that supports graduate students Indian Poetry Collective / Vidhu THIS BORING APOCALYPSE “When I graduated and my dreams started coming true Water Management District in Live studying science, technology, Aggarwal (Ph.D., creative writing Civil Coping Mechanisms / Part Oak, FL. engineering and mathematics

P it was pretty empowering,” she said. “The hardest part of and literature, ’04) moves from THE ARRESTING EYE: Race CANNIBAL University of Nebraska hoto The Notebook, part Re-Animator, dealing with my diagnosis was watching everyone around (commonly called STEM) subjects lyrical intimacy to predatory DATING YOUR CHARACTER: and the Anxiety of Detection Press / Confronting The Tempest c the third book by current creative me move forward and feeling like I was being held back.” 1990s and education. o rage, examining the “textures” of A Sexy Guide to Screenwriting University of Virginia Press / Jinny and postcolonial identity, the ur writing Ph.D. student Brandi She added, “I wish someone had said, ‘Eventually you’ll JOHN BANKS (M.S., applied t feeling available to marginalized for Film and TV Stairway Press / Huh (Ph.D., creative writing and AMERICA, THE “BEAUTIFUL” poems of current creative writing esy Wells is a Frankenstein-like idea find your place again. It may not be what you thought it mathematics, ’90) became bodies in a globalized world. Co-authored by Devo Cutler- literature, ’05) examines the racial Kalimbaradio / Khefa Nosakhere Ph.D. student Safiya Sinclair o sprawl of gore and impulsive director of the Undergraduate Continued on page 70 f was, but you can keep going in a different direction and be Rubenstein (MPW, ’15), this guide formations of African and Asian (aka Kef Marks) (B.A., creative explore Jamaican childhood and Co feeling, set in a mutative land- Research Opportunities Center

ry Mar just as successful.’ ” —L.H. offers screenwriters practical Americans not only in detective writing, ’09) imagines what would history, race relations, woman- scape where bodies are playthings at California State University, Te ll us about your book Write to USC Dornsife Magazine, advice on how to create a working fiction, but also in narratives happen if there was a second Great hood, otherness and exile. and death reigns on in brutal, Monterey Bay. t 1150 S. Olive Street T2400, Los Angeles, California 90015 or in relationship with a character. centered on detection itself. Depression. fertile wonder. [email protected]

66 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 67 dornsife family

TROJANALITY

The Rio Games were Hosszu’s fourth appearance at the biology, ’15) and Murphy Troy (B.A., physics, ’11) helped

ALI Olympics, and the first in which she won a medal. Her coach capture bronze medals for the U.S. Following a heart- Heavy Medal Performances PHOTO and husband, Shane Tusup (B.A., human performance, ’11), wrenching semifinal loss to Italy, the American team Microeconomics USC Dornsife students and alumni dominate at the 2016 Olympic Games in raised a few eyebrows with his exuberant, fist-pumping pool- faced Russia in a bid for the third spot on the podium. The

Brazil, shattering records along the way. BY

side jubilation over Hosszu’s wins, leading an NBC com- U.S. trailed 0-2 early on, but stormed back to win the next CA

M mentator to advise Twitter followers to “find someone who three sets and left Rio’s Maracanãzinho Arena as Olympic ER and a Microphone O loves you the way Katinka Hosszu’s husband loves her.” medalists. N

For Marvin Young — aka rapper Young M.C. — a phone S

P “It wasn’t the storybook ending like we all planned for and call to his USC dorm room led to his big break. ENCER Inspirational Feet wanted, but this is a great honor to be coming home with

; Another strong show of familial support came in a pint- an Olympic medal, and we’re going to wear it proudly,” said C H

RIS sized package. Christenson, the 6-foot-6-inch setter from Hawaii.

T When first-time Olympian Nia Ali (B.A., psychology, Proving that cameraderie is not just for the guys, U.S. ENS

O ’11) ran off with the silver medal in the women’s 100-meter volleyballers April Ross (B.A., international relations, N

AN high hurdles, her 15-month-old son, Titus, ran onto the ’03) and Kerri Walsh Jennings captured bronze medals in

D T track and stole the show with his toothy grin. The toddler a three-set win (17-21, 21-17, 15-9) over the top-seeded R R O O SS

Y embraced his mother, who helped Team USA become the Brazilian team on the sands of Copacabana Beach. PHOTO PHOTO PHOTO PHOTO first-ever to sweep the event. It was Ross’ second consecutive Olympic medal; she previ- “He won’t remember this, but he will see photos and see ously won silver in London. BY BY

BU A that you can do anything you put your mind to,” Ali said. “I “My goal now is Tokyo for sure,” Ross said of her hopes M D IN

A knew it was going to be hard to medal.” for a chance at winning the elusive gold medal at the 2020 MOH M

EN Canadian runner Andre De Grasse (B.A., sociology, ’15) games. “It feels so far away, but it just flies by.” D A ES MM received similar messages of encouragement, albeit from an Kami Craig (B.A., sociology, ’10) knows a thing or two ; A CRAIG

D unexpected source: Jamaican world champion Usain Bolt. about competing in multiple Olympics. Rio marked her third JA “He told me to go out and do my best,” said De Grasse. “He games, and her third medal as well — a gold as part of the M PHOTO PHOTO ALI feels like I’m the next one, and I’m just trying to live up to it.” American women’s water polo team. Craig previously won (

ALL Although Bolt bested De Grasse in the 100-meter dash, a bronze in 2008 in Beijing and a gold in 2012 in London. BY PHOTO

competing against Bolt inspired the sprinter to a personal The team’s 12-5 win over the Italians cemented Team AN

THO best of 9.91 in the event and a bronze medal. USA’s dominance in the event; they are the only nation to win S

NY C “I’m feeling pretty good right now, I can’t complain,” a medal at every Olympics where water polo has been held. O

UR L

. De Grasse said after the race. “To be able to race against T S ESY O A Medal-winning Powerhouse

LIS Usain and [Justin] Gatlin, being a part of the same race as O ; D

F them and being a part of history today in Rio, it was a great USC Dornsife athletes won as many gold medals as the

GE E

GRASSE

TT feeling for me, and I just have so much to learn from that race.” nations of New Zealand, Canada and Uzbekistan. More- Y

It was 1987. When Marvin Young was not studying micro- I Days later, De Grasse finished second in the 200-meter over, if the USC Dornsife athletes had competed as a M AGES economics or serving as a student senator, he was looking PHOTO with a time of 20.02, a scant 0.24 seconds behind Bolt. country, their total number of medals would have eclipsed

to make a name for himself in hip-hop, rapping under the ); De Grasse and fellow Trojan Aaron Brown (B.A., those of Ukraine, Sweden and Cuba, among others. BR BY

name Young M.C. OW political science, ’14) were both part of Canada’s bronze “Competing at the elite level in any sport requires an

KIRBY

Fall semester of his junior year, Young got a call from N medal–winning team in the 4x100-meter relay. The team’s incredible amount of focus, discipline, self-motivation and PHOTO PHOTO all hail, troy

the Los Angeles-based Delicious Vinyl record label asking LEE 37.64 time broke the record that won Canada Olympic gold resilience,” said Amber Miller, dean of USC Dornsife. “I Nine USC Dornsife alumni for a sample of his rhymes. ; HO at the 1996 Atlanta games. believe these are qualities found in all Dornsife students, BY won medals at the 2016 Rio

SSZU “I rapped about five verses over the phone and they JAS “Glenroy [Gilbert] is our coach, and he’s the one that ran it in but I am so proud that our athletes were able to prove it Games, including (clock- liked it,” Young said. They sent a record contract to his O the Canadian record in 1996,” said Brown. “We’ve been want- with the world watching.” —D.K. PHOTO PHOTO N

wise, opposite page) Katinka dorm room. RANS ing to break that record — no better place than at the Olympics. Hosszu, Andre De Grasse, OM, OM, The first record he produced was Stone Cold Rhymin’ in When the quadrennial celebration of athletic prowess known as the Summer Olympic Games y It’s the 20th anniversary; it’s about time it goes down.” BY o Aaron Brown and Steve

ung ung 1989 — the same year he earned his B.A. in economics was over and the hullabaloo had died down, nine USC Dornsife graduates had ascended the CLIVE C

O You Gotta Have Friends Johnson; (top to bottom, UR from USC Dornsife. His break-out single, “Bust a Move,” podium to collect their well-earned medals. Of the 44 Olympians representing USC at the m

.c. P .c. R T this page) Kami Craig, April O ESY

debuted during finals week and skyrocketed Young to games in Rio de Janeiro, three-quarters of them were from the College. SE Numerous other award-winning partnerships played out hoto

O Ross, Micah Christenson and ;

stardom. The song earned him a Grammy Award for Best J during the games. F OH The “Iron Lady” Earns Gold and Silver TH Murphy Troy, and Nia Ali. by by

Rap Performance, an American Music Award for Best NS Steve Johnson (B.A., human performance, ’12) took E

O CANA A N

Rap Artist and Billboard ’s Best New Pop Artist Award. Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu (B.A., psychology, ’12) — known in swimming circles as the llen bronze in men’s tennis doubles with partner Jack Sock. PHOTO PHOTO

Young has released nine albums and continues to per- “Iron Lady” — was the first USC athlete to win a medal at the games. Handily winning D “I grew up my whole life playing team sports,” Johnson ex- IAN B form. When it comes to dreaming big, his advice to students gold, she also set a new world record in the 400-meter individual medley, besting the previous erez plained. “I love being part of a team atmosphere. You play for O BY LY is to keep working hard at what they love and to focus on record by 2.07 seconds. o yourself every week on tour. Here you get to play for some- CLIVE vsky/Wire MP

their successes. “Honestly, I didn’t think I could go this much faster, but it’s just unbelievable I’ve been able IC thing bigger than yourself. To have good buddies around, it’s

BRUNSKILL C

“Even if you fail 99 times, if you feel success is your norm, to break it by this much,” said Hosszu, who set another record, as the oldest woman to ever OMM all good fun for me.”

that one time you make it, it will feel normal and those win in the event. Im “I couldn’t be any happier,” he added after winning 6-2, I TT age

99 failures will feel like anomalies. That’s how I approach She also won two additional golds, in the 100-meter backstroke and 200-meter individual EE 6-4 against Canada. “I might sleep with [the medal].” things.” —M.B. medley, and a silver in the 200-meter backstroke. ; Men’s volleyballers Micah Christenson (B.A., human

scan for extras Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 69 68 Details Page 5 dornsife family

TROJANALITY REMEMBERING B Weddings and RUTH ELOISE CARTER (B.S., during the Korean War then ils in French literature from USC Births nursing, ’53) Broken Arrow, OK returned to attend USC School photo Dornsife in 1992, taught in the JASON BUCKNER (B.A., politi- (4/11/16) at age 93; former U.S. of Architecture on the GI Bill; Department of French and Italian c o

cal science, ’11) and Christabel Army nurse who survived the worked for the LA Unified School ur for 24 years. Former students t

Saldana-Buckner welcomed their Battle of the Bulge; was awarded District for 24 years, retiring as esy admired her passion for teach-

second daughter, Emmy Niamh, a European Theater of Opera- chief architect. o ing, praising her great interest in f

on March 10, 2016. tions Campaign Ribbon with one USC students’ progress and her ability

Battle Star, an American Theater BARBARA JEAN POLLARD U to motivate them to continue their niversi CORAL SCHNEIDER EBY (B.S., Ribbon and a Victory Medal (B.A., psychology, ’46) Santa French studies. business administration, ’08; for her service; member of the Barbara, CA (5/21/16) at age 92; “She was very dedicated to USC,” t y

M.A., applied psychology, ’18) Disabled American Veterans a third-generation Californian A said Julia Chamberlin, a senior rc

and Christopher Eby welcomed Association and supporter of the with family roots reaching back h lecturer of French language and ives; c ives; a son, William James Eby, on Wounded Warrior Project. to the Mayflower; active member Professor Emeritus of Biological culture. “Even on days when she

April 2, 2016. of the Assistance League of h Sciences ROBERT BILS died on wasn’t teaching, she would be on an

JOSEPH MEDICINE CROW Santa Barbara. d March 26, 2016. He was 85. campus, meeting with students.” ler ler CHESTER BARRY FERNANDO (M.A., anthropology, ’39; Bils spent 37 years at USC Dornsife (B.A., economics, ’04) and honorary doctorate of hu- LEONARD ROBERT SAGER photo before retiring in 1996.

KATRICE QUIJANO (B.S., mane letters, ’03) Billings, MT (B.A., political science, ’60) c He is remembered as a skilled o

kinesiology, ’07) welcomed their (4/3/16) at age 102; last living war Palm Springs, CA (4/19/16) at ur electron microscopist who played t first child, a son, Miles Barry, on chief of the Crow Tribe of Montana age 78; served as Deputy District esy a crucial role in founding the

July 2, 2016, in Pasadena, CA. and celebrated Native American Attorney for South Orange County o Center for Electron Microscopy f historian and anthropologist; judicial district for 26 years; Sh and Microanalysis (CEMMA) at USC. erry Marie Marie erry Voice of the People JOANNA KAHN (B.A., English, recipient of the Presidential worked for 10 years as pro bono In 1983, under Bils’ leadership, Serving Congregation Kol Ami, alumna Denise Eger ’04) married Robert Ar on June 11, Medal of Freedom from President counsel and at a free L.A. clinic USC received a National Institutes uses her rabbinate as a platform for social activism. 2016, in Corona Del Mar, CA. Obama for his contributions in providing legal services; director of Health grant to purchase a V WWII; author of seminal works on of the California Association of elasc state-of-the-art transmission

IAN MICHAEL LIVIE (Ph.D., Native American history, including Realtors for eight years; owned o electron microscope.

Ordained in 1988, Rabbi Denise Eger began her rabbinical ; K

history, ’10) married Lana Lea a history of the Battle of Little a general real estate business i “CEMMA has played an essential career serving a gay synagogue in Los Angeles at the height m

of the AIDS crisis. Adlawan on July 3, 2016, in Bighorn based on the memories of in Palm Springs, CA. photo role in attracting outstanding YOUNG BAE KIM, professor of Petaluma, CA. his great uncle, a scout for George researchers to USC, and it is now physics and electrical engineering,

“I was 28 years old and working every day to bury Armstrong Custer. JOHN SMART (B.A., interna- Co a powerhouse in the field of ultra- died on July 7, 2016. He was 93. young men who passed away,” Eger said. “Those years ur

M. BEAUMONT SHAPIRO (B.A., tional relations, ’55; M.A., t structural analysis in Southern Joining the USC faculty in 1968, shaped me.” esy religion, ’05) and Ashley Shapiro CHARLES ROY HARPER (MLA, international relations, ’55; California,” said Chien-Ping Ko, Kim focused his research in the o

Eger, who is the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol f fa welcomed their first child, a liberal arts, ’75) Saint-Hilaire- Ph.D., political science, ’68) professor of biological sciences. fields of low-temperature physics, Ami, a Reform Jewish synagogue in West Hollywood, This tribute portrait of Solomon Golomb by computer scientist, mathematician and physicist Stephen Wolfram is m Calif., helps those who are marginalized, using her rabbinate daughter, Evelyn Wallis Shapiro, d’Ozilhan, France (5/25/16) at age Huntington Beach, CA (4/19/16) at ily; g “[Bils] was enthusiastic about cryogenic engineering and super- constructed from polyominoes, which Golomb invented. on May 19, 2016. 82; director of the Latin American age 81; California State University science and committed to the conductivity. He was renowned

as a platform for social activism. She advocates for social o l justice issues, including equal rights for the LGBT commu- human rights resource office at vice chancellor emeritus; served om long-term development of our among scientists investigating nity, prison reform, racial equality and economic justice. In Memoriam the World Council of Churches in the U.S. Army Psychological b illus department and its faculty,” added superconductivity materials, RAYMOND “RAY” ALSWEET from 1973–92; recipient of Warfare School at Fort Bragg; Professor of Biological Sciences publishing more than 70 technical

She also serves as president of the Central Conference t An Imaginative Mathematician (B.S., international relations, presidential awards from Chile joined the Coordinating Council ra Albert Herrera. “He was a consum- papers on the subject. Many of Legendary scholar’s work was key to modern communications, and his invention

of American Rabbis, the largest and oldest organization t i ’56) Pasadena, CA (4/19/16) in 2011 and Argentina in 2014 for for Higher Education as assistant o mate professional, a class act.” the empirical laws in high-field of polyominoes inspired the popular video game Tetris. of rabbis in North America. Eger is the first openly gay or n c

at age 94; served in the U.S. his dedication to the defense, director before beginning a o superconductivity — in which

lesbian rabbi to head the Reform rabbis. ur

Navy during WWII; founded protection and restoration of 40-year career with the California t superconducting materials help

Eger, who grew up in the South, earned her bachelor’s esy Solomon Golomb, a legendary and longtime electrical engi- labor relations firm Fortune & human rights in those countries. State University system; held produce exceptionally strong mag-

degree in religion with a minor in Jewish studies from o neering and mathematics professor, has died. He was 83. Alsweet; among his clients were positions of associate dean of f netic fields — bear his name. USC Dornsife in 1982. Her early years cultivated the St Golomb, who held joint appointments in USC Dornsife and e

Hollywood Park and Santa Anita RONALD S. HAY (B.A., academic affairs, director of ph Stephan Haas, professor and

roots of her dedication to social activism. eger USC Viterbi School of Engineering, began his career at USC en W en “Growing up in Memphis, Tenn., where Dr. King was racetracks, spurring his lifelong psychology, ’69) Saratoga, institutional relations and deputy chair of physics and astronomy, in 1963 and continued to teach into his 80s. o passion for horse racing. CA (12/6/15) at age 68; an ortho- provost. photo noted Kim’s contributions to murdered, you can’t help but be surrounded by the civil lfra Video images from the Mars Rover Curiosity owe a debt pedic hand surgeon; honored the field.

rights struggle,” she said. “That inspired me to see that m to Golomb’s mathematical coding schemes, and his work is c ; g

ROGER DEAN AYERS (B.A., with the dedication of the Ronald BARBARA FLETCHER o “Young Bae is well remembered ur

wherever there’s injustice and oppression, good people o key to the functioning of cell phones. His cryptology research l

economics, ’48) Los Angeles, CA S. Hay Hand Surgery Center at STEWART (B.A., international t for his kindness with students, om

can’t stay silent.” esy ushered in new ways of securing communications signals.

(4/11/16) at age 92; served in the the Palo Alto Medical Foundation relations, ’49) Worcester, MA b dedication to teaching and work to photo Eger said she felt privileged to study at USC. “I had o “Professor Golomb was truly a giant in the fields of math- been a young person from Memphis who knew nothing U.S. Air Force as a B-17 pilot during Facility in Sunnyvale, CA. (9/19/15) at age 88; worked for f rabbi build a vibrant physical sciences ematics and engineering,” said USC President C. L. Max about the big city of Los Angeles. Within a year I was WWII, flying 35 missions; served as U.S. State Department in Lyon, j by community at USC. We would Nikias. “He was an exceptionally imaginative thinker, and so many enduring innovations a juvenile probation officer before SAMUEL “SAM” MOLE MOORE France, from 1951–53; founding d PAULETTE CHANDLER, lecturer certainly not be in the position of oh blessed to have amazing experiences on campus. That eger enise and highly creative games — including polyominoes and pentomino — emerged from his was really a growing period for me, and the kindness and joining Pacific Press; co-founded (B.A., zoology, ’61) Los Angeles, member Lake Shore Unitarian n livzey in French language and culture, international leadership we now inimitable genius. But beyond the innumerable accomplishments, Professor Golomb was also mentorship that I received at USC really helped launch Pohl and Ayers Marketing Corpora- CA (6/10/16) at age 87; served Society, Winnetka, IL. died on March 7, 2016. are without his tireless dedication a dear friend and colleague, having served on USC’s faculty for more than half a century. me in a way that I will forever be grateful for.” —M.B. tion in Los Alamitos, CA. in the U.S. Army for four years Chandler, who earned her Ph.D. to our community.” Indeed, he helped transform our university into the world-class institution it is today.”

70 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 71 IN MY Opinion

may seem shocking, but according to The Washington Post, “Before the 1980s, if you knew which party an American voted for, you couldn’t predict very well whether the person After Hours held liberal or conservative views.” That’s because of a logical observation most people are Learning is not just a day job. At USC Dornsife, students capable of understanding, but incapable of following: How have countless opportunities to expand their educations you think about a particular issue in a given political party’s well beyond their time in the classroom. Research, intern- platform should have little or no value for predicting how ships and programs are offered throughout our more than you will think about another issue. 40 specialized institutes and centers. This allows students For example: The Republican Party platform is both pro- to augment their core curricula and enhance their training gun rights and skeptical of human-caused climate change. to meet the ever-expanding challenges of a 24/7/365 world. But is there a commonality in these issues that should en- able one to predict how a Republican gun owner will think Learn more about the many USC Dornsife institutes about the environment? Of course not. The two are totally distinct issues. And yet, the vast majority of climate change and centers and their options for discovery at skeptics turn out to be strong gun-rights advocates. dornsife.usc.edu/institutes-and-centers. The same is true for Democrats: Despite little issue over- lap, most supporters of the Affordable Care Act are also strong believers in the science supporting human-caused climate change. After listening to Professor Shrum moderate panels with icons like former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd of MSNBC, The Washington Post’s George Will, and other D.C. thought leaders, the path forward seemed much clearer. I’ll high- light two suggestions we developed. First, revamp the Washington — and by extension, the American — political culture. For years, members of Congress lived in Washington, D.C. That’s no longer the case. They jet home for long weekends to campaign, and many no longer have permanent residences in the district. Beyond that, cross-party interactions often seem forced. Gone are the days when President Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill would share a 5 o’clock scotch and hammer out compromises. Corporations, by contrast, promote after-work gatherings. They know that when their people are happy together outside DividedNathaniel Haas ’15 draws We from his USC FallDornsife the office, they work better inside the office. The same is true experiences to address the nation’s political woes. of Congress. But Washington isn’t a vacuum — improving cross-party dialogue all across the country is both possible Political forecaster Nate Silver said it best: “ ‘With the and necessary. exception of the 2016 election’ will be a common phrase in Second, fix the media echo chamber. In a blatant example Ph.D. dissertations in 2044.” of confirmation bias — surrounding oneself with like-

This presidential election is the first or second that my minded opinions to feed the notion of one’s correctness — illus generation will have voted in. When the dust clears, we most liberals I know watch MSNBC, and most conserv- t have a simple job: to ensure that the extreme political divi- atives watch Fox. That practice has made us less willing ra t i o

siveness that has defined the period leading up to this elec- to consider each other’s opinions. Challenge yourself to n by tion remains the exception and does not become the norm. watch or read a news source that you don’t agree with. R ic

The task of understanding how to accomplish that was It might open your eyes. h ar

before me and five other USC students when we traveled I don’t mean our opinions should become more vanilla- d to Washington, D.C., last summer. Led by Robert Shrum, flavor bland, but rather that we should be more receptive Mia;

Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics to flexibility. If you think some give-and-take between the photo and professor of the practice of political science, we had come parties is a bad idea, ask yourself if it’s not an improvement to explore the workings of our nation’s capital. over what we have now. j by

I’ll never forget the first thing we learned: Starting oh sometime in the 1980s, the most moderate Democrats Nathaniel Haas earned his bachelor’s degree from USC Dornsife n livzey moved further left than the most moderate Republican. The in 2015 with a double major in political science and economics. American people, their constituents, soon followed suit. This He currently is a law student at USC Gould School of Law.

72 Fall 2016 / Winter 2017 73 change service requested Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID University of Southern California

University of Southern California 1150 S. Olive Street, T2400 Los Angeles, California 90015

#DornsifeLife anniversary of a TRANSFORMATIVE NAMING GIFT

Five Years On …

This year marked the fifth anniversary of a visionary $200 million gift from international philanthropists Dana and David Dornsife, renaming USC’s college of letters, arts and sciences. photo by j by oh n livzey