USC Times September 2017

USCTIMES

SEPTEMBER 2017 / VOL. 28, NO.7

PURPOSE & MEANING

Call it a Calling

How Did We Get Here?

Picking a Path

U101 instructors bring First-Year Reading Experience to life, share thoughts on the book, page 4

Faculty retrace their paths and remind us what it means to find meaning in our work, page 10

USC programs help students figure out where they’re going, how to get there and why, page 8

USC TIMES / STAFF

FROM THE EDITOR USC Times is published 10 times a year for the faculty and staff of the University of South Carolina by the Office of Communications & Public Affairs, Wes Hickman, director.

Managing Editor Craig Brandhorst Creative Director Bob Wertz Designer Brinnan Wimberly Contributors Chris Horn Page Ivey Megan Sexton Melinda Waldrop Photographer Kim Truett Printer USC Printing Services Campus correspondents James Raby, Aiken Kerry Jarvis, Beaufort Jeanne Petrizzo, Greenville Shana Dry, Lancaster Jane Brewer, Salkehatchie Misty Hatfield, Sumter Annie Smith, Union Tammy Whaley, Upstate Jay Darby, Palmetto College Submissions Did you know you can submit ideas for future issues of USC Times? Share your story by emailing or calling Craig Brandhorst at craigb1@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-3681.

YOUR CALLING IS CALLING Why do we do what we do? How did we end up doing it? What keeps us doing it year after year?

Relax. We’re not having a crisis. In fact, quite the opposite. Despite all the deadlines, the writer’s block, the dread of typographical errors and the nagging sense that we’re supposed to have won our first Pulitzer by now, we’re happy with our career choices here at USC Times.

And why wouldn’t we be? We’re writers, designers and photographers who get to write, design and take photographs for a living. We’re curious people who get to indulge our curiosity with some of the smartest, most interesting people in town. We’re natural-born conversationalists who spend hours each month having enlightening conversations, and then sharing those conversations with our readers.

The Pulitzer committee hasn’t called yet, but that’s on them. And even if it isn’t, so what? We’re doing what we were meant to do, or pretty close to it.

This issue, if you haven’t figured it out, is about finding your calling and helping others find theirs.

It was inspired by this year’s First-Year Reading Experience book, “Callings,” by StoryCorps founder Dave Isay, but you probably figured that out, too, if you noticed our cover.

This issue is also about stories — the ones we share with each other to make sense of our lives and meaning from our experiences.

Witness “Call It a Calling” (page 4) and “How Did We Get Here?” (page 10). The first offers insights from University 101 instructors — some old hands, others relatively new to the game — who are incorporating Isay’s book into their sections of U101 this fall. The second feature is a series of as-told-to narratives from veteran faculty who have found their own callings and agreed to discuss how they got there.

Still not feeling inspired? Look no further than “Passion and Purpose” (page 8). We scheduled back-to-back-to-back meetings this month with several folks on campus who help students find their paths, and learned in the process that the path to self-discovery is a two-way street. Helping others, it turns out, can't help but help you.

So there you have it. With any luck, you’re already doing what you were meant to do, and if you’re not, no worries. Keep reflecting on your life, keep listening to others, keep reading USC Times, and it will come to you by and by.

Answer the call,

CRAIG BRANDHORST MANAGING EDITOR

The University of South Carolina does not discriminate in educational or employment opportunities or decisions for qualified persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation or veteran status.

ON THE COVER: Senior graphic design major Ashlyn Murphy is behind this year’s First-Year Reading Experience cover. Check out End Notes to put a face with the name and learn about her creative process.

VOL. 28, NO.7 3

TIMES FIVE

sc.edu/sotu

#UofSCsotu

#ICYMI IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Follow the Leaders The university has selected its 2017 cohort for the Emerging Leaders Program. The Emerging Leaders Program is designed for administrative professionals currently serving in a supervisory or management position who have the potential to hold a higher-level administrative leadership position at the university in the near future. Over the course of this academic year, the 24 members of this cohort will participate in more than 50 hours of targeted professional development activities. To learn how you can become a part of the Emerging Leaders Program, visit sc.edu/hr and click on Leadership Development Programs under the Training and Professional Development tab.

Couldn’t get a seat for President Pastides’ State of the University address Sept. 12? Curious about his vision for Carolina’s continued growth as a global university? Check out the full speech online at sc.edu/sotu.

Learn from the BEST How do you get students engaged? Learn from your peers at Oktoberbest: A Symposium on Teaching, featuring keynote speaker Ken Bain. Bain is president of the Best Teachers Institute and author of “What the Best College Teachers Do." Register by Oct. 5 for the Oct. 13 daylong event.

Oktoberbest is free for USC faculty and educational support staff but not open to the public.

RETIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW Whether retirement is 30 years down the road or just seven months away, the university’s Training and Professional Development team can help you learn more, prepare better and be a savvy retiree. Several upcoming seminars are available free of charge. Workshop topics include: “Applying for Retirement” (Sept. 26, 9 a.m.); “Social Security Planning (Sept. 27, 1 p.m.); “The Psychology of Retirement: Coping with the Transition from Work” (Oct. 6, 11:30 a.m.);

ONE FOR THE BOOKS

“Pathways to a Lucrative Retirement” (Oct.

Richard Brown has been named director of the University of South Carolina Press. Brown has a

12, noon). Registration and more information

bachelor’s in English, a master’s in theological studies, a Ph.D. in religious studies and an MBA in

on each class can be found on the Human

entrepreneurship, and is widely acknowledged as a leader in scholarly publishing. He joins Carolina

Resources website under Training and

from Georgetown University, where he has served as press director since 2001.

Professional Development.

4 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2017

CALL IT A

CALLING UNIVERSITY 101 INSTRUCTORS REACT TO THIS YEAR'S FIRST YEAR READING EXPERIENCE BOOK Many instructors in University 101, Carolina’s seminar for incoming freshmen, will use the First-Year Reading Experience book “Callings” in their classrooms this semester. USC Times asked a few of them to talk about their plans for incorporating the text into their syllabi and how they will use their own experiences to help students figure out paths of their own. BY MEGAN SEXTON

DAVID DeWEIL is the associate principal of the Capstone Scholars program. This will be his ninth semester teaching U101.

Since 2009, I’ve had my U101 classes meet with people in the community — doctors,

coaches, artists, chefs, small business owners and even Uber drivers — to find out how they got to where they are now. They talk about what they’re passionate about, what obstacles they’ve had to overcome, what their plans were when they were freshmen in college

— if they went to college — how those plans have changed over the years, who their mentors were and/or the people who opened a door of opportunity for them. Basically, they describe their story since being an 18-year-old and the winding road that led them to where they are. My goal is to help freshmen realize that they don’t have to have life figured out just yet, but also to give them hope that as long as they pursue their passions, amazing things can happen even when facing trials and obstacles.

It’s all about that resiliency.

I typically share my own story of how I

So many students come to college with

I feel incredibly blessed to be able to teach

motivations, dreams and aspirations, but

U101 because it allows me to do what I love,

there are many questions along with uncertainty. Not everyone has that “passion” their freshmen year or has that particular “thing” they know they want to pursue at this point.

Reading through these stories gives hope and inspires them to value those things they find interesting and to pursue what they feel like they’re called to do.

and that’s connect students to experiences that are going to help them find purpose at USC. I love being able to showcase what our university has to offer but also to play that small role in telling them, “It’s OK, you don’t have to have it all figured out, you don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself, the clarity of your calling will come with time.”

began as an undeclared major, changed my major multiple times, and even when I graduated from USC still wasn’t 100 percent certain what I wanted to do. When I discovered the world of higher education and student affairs, I began to recall all of the things I was involved in as an undergrad, and how each of those beyond-the-classroom experiences was preparing me for my future career. When I was 18 or 19, I wasn’t sure what that was at the time, but looking back it’s so clear.

VOL. 28, NO.7 5

I plan to incorporate the book through a series of discussion strategies and a large project RACHEL M. DENMARK is an academic advisor

that asks students to interview faculty or staff about their callings.

in the South Carolina Honors College. This is her first year teaching U101.

A student's first year is such a pivotal time in their lives. They are learning more and more

about themselves and discovering that life is a journey. By discussing other individuals' callings, hopefully students are able to make meaning of their own journey.

Since this is my first year, I hope I will make an impact on my students by giving them the

resources necessary to make informed decisions and provide the challenge and support necessary to help them achieve their goals. I feel as though many first-year students have an idea of their calling, but I would encourage students to be open to different paths and do what "feels right."

I can't wait to positively impact my students by sharing my story and supporting them

while they work through their own story. Being an instructor is an exciting new endeavor for me, and I do believe this experience will play a part in my calling.

As an instructor for a Darla Moore School of Business/Capstone Scholars section, I’ll focus

a great deal on helping students be major- and career-ready. There’s no better text through which to analyze your values, your interests and your skills than “Callings.” I hope this text helps our class evaluate what really motivates them, and how you can shape your personal and professional pursuits around that calling.

We all want to devote our lives to something that creates meaning and purpose. “Callings” is

appropriate at any age, but when we are able to help first-year students begin their collegiate journey, asking such important questions with intentionality, that’s a tremendous win. The deeper the questions we can present now, the more fruitful their Carolina experience will be.

Students in U101 have a dedicated space to question, to dig deeper and to redirect their ef-

forts as new interests presents themselves. I think U101 is our intentional way of saying, "We are confident we can help you find yourself here, and we’re launching that journey with you." I think many students arrive with an inkling of their calling, but if they’re doing it right, they’ll turn that inkling upside down — or at least put it to the test.

I’m a teacher at heart. Before coming to higher ed, I was a middle school English teacher.

There’s no question I’m in my element when I’m with a group of people presenting, questioning or facilitating. I feel like every student I teach allows me to reaffirm or reexamine my calling, and I find that healthy cultivation to be incredibly meaningful. In that way, we’re learning together.

DREW NEWTON is the assistant director of first-year academic advising. This is his sixth semester teaching U101.

6 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2017

RYAN LLOYD is an area coordinator in USC Housing over Preston Residential College,

from students when they arrive at college is that they are worried about finding a job and being happy after graduating.

South Tower and the Carolina Men’s Community at McBryde. He has taught U101 since 2013.

MAUREEN GREWE is director of student conduct in the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity. She has been teaching U101

University 101 is an extraordinary learn-

at Carolina since 2011.

ing lab where students are able to explore

what life will be like for them in college. The transition from high school to college can be difficult and bumpy for many students, and U101 helps to ease their path as they begin their new journey. As a U101 instructor, I have the amazing opportunity to impact my students through engaging pedagogy, class activities and discussions that are both formal and informal. It is magical to see students engage in discussions regarding their values and beliefs and how they have changed over the course of their lives and in their first semester of college.

The book has an overarching theme of finding your passion in life as well as smaller

sub-themes ranging from perseverance, social justice, relationships and values development.

This allows me to integrate the book into classroom discussions around employability, academic advising, values clarification and diversity. I am also weaving the book into a career plan assignment that students will interact with over three stages as they explore potential passion areas, begin to develop their resume and conduct informational interviews with professionals in their desired career path.

“Callings” provides a window into the lives of others who have found their passion in

life. The first year of college can be a very difficult and exciting time of transition as students negotiate what it means to be themselves as newly independent individuals. One of the greatest concerns that I typically hear

I’ve witnessed my students from fall 2013 progress through their four years of college and enter the workforce, and it is

incredible to stay in touch and continue to mentor and learn about what is going on in their lives. I am confident that I am a better student affairs educator because of the work that I do inside of the classroom and the relationships that I build through teaching students in University 101.

My entire syllabus this year is based around “Callings.” Each day in class we will

have a brief discussion or journal about a StoryCorps question to help students identify their callings. For their midterm, I plan on having my students interview someone who has found their calling in a field my students think they might be interested in. I also plan on using “Callings” for their final project, where students will synthesize their first semester experiences, both in and out of the classroom.

VOL. 28, NO.7 7

“Callings” does an amazing job of showing that there is no one path to discovering

what to be when you grow up, and that it’s OK to change your career direction as you change as a person. It’s a message all first-year students can benefit from hearing.

As a first-year student myself, I thought I had identified my calling, to become

an attorney like my dad. After taking a pre-law section of U101 and my first political science course, I realized it was not, my plan was shattered, and I was anxious. I think is a common experience for many first-year students.

Teaching U101 is by far one of my favorite things about working at USC. It plays into

my calling as an educator and my desire to make an impact in my community. Serving as a role model to incoming students and helping them discover the magic of being a Gamecock is an incredible honor. T

ABOUT THE BOOK “Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work,” by StoryCorps founder Dave Isay, is filled with stories of people who have found their path to doing what they believe they were meant to do.

The book features the story of a woman who left her job as a state employee to become a bridgetender, opening and closing drawbridges; a conversation between a neurosurgeon and an eighth-grade science teacher who inspired his career; and a retired accountant who became a salmon slicer in a New York City deli.

"Callings" also includes two stories with South Carolina ties. Carl McNair remembers his brother Ronald McNair, an astronaut from Lake City who was killed when the Challenger space shuttle exploded in 1986, and 10-year-old Sydney Reed talks with her grandfather, Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, about his life in politics.

The stories were edited from transcripts of interviews done as part of StoryCorps, a radio program that shares interviews of people telling their stories as a way to build connections.

StoryCorps began in October 2003, with the opening of a story booth in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Since then it has expanded to include permanent and mobile StoryCorps studios and a weekly broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition. “Callings,” released in 2016, is the fifth book of StoryCorps interviews.

U101 instructors aren’t the only people talking about their callings this semester. Provost Joan Gabel is encouraging all faculty who teach freshman level classes to discuss their own callings during the week of Sept. 25, and President Pastides will be talking to freshmen about his calling Sept. 26 at the Koger Center for the Arts.

8 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2017

PICKING UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS HELP STUDENTS DISCOVER THEIR PASSION

BY MELINDA WALDROP

Some students coming to college knowing exactly what they want to do with their lives, some think they know, and some have no idea, but all of them can benefit from campus organizations designed to help students discover their life’s calling.

“Finding one’s passion and purpose is going to be a period of discovery and rediscovery,” says Thomas Halasz, director of the USC Career Center. “It is not static. There may have been a time when you might spend 30 or 40 years in an occupation and never change, but the world of work has changed dramatically. So we have to prepare students to discover and rediscover what they’re passionate about.”

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM Now in its sixth year, USC Connect helps students expand their classroom experience into community leadership and personal growth through study abroad, community service, internships, peer leadership and research. For those who choose to pursue it, the path can also lead to a Graduation with Leadership Distinction (GLD) recognition.

“We want to encourage all students at the university to be engaged in purposeful experiences beyond the classroom,” says Irma Van Scoy, USC Connect executive director. “We want students not just to engage but to really be able to learn from that engagement and relate that to their academic work.”

Since 2014, more than 1,000 students have received GLD recognition, Van Scoy says. The work required to achieve that — including an e-portfolio in which students must identify three key insights informed by their work in the classroom and beyond — better equips participants to understand their career goals and skills, and to articulate them to employers.

“They can really walk into an interview and express to their potential employer what it is they know and can do,” says Van Scoy, who points to

one student who used her e-portfolio to pinpoint what she learned about international marketing concepts while studying in France. The student was then able to share those insights during an interview for a job she landed.

And the questions and resulting insights generated by the e-portfolio process don’t only benefit undergraduates. Lisa Camp, a student advisor with USC Connect currently pursuing a master’s in English literature, says that helping undergraduates through the reflection process causes her to reflect, as well.

“I had a conversation with a student about how ethics align with biological concepts — really complex questions,” says Camp. “She told me, ‘After I started this process, I realized I want to go into genetics.’ Asking students to do this puts you in a position, inevitably, to say, ‘What am I doing and why am I here?’ at the same time.

“This reminds me that I need to be thinking through these questions for myself."

VOL. 28, NO.7 9

G A PATH PARALLELS AND ALTERNATIVES Erica Roy graduated in May with a degree in business administration, management and marketing. The link to her e-portfolio is at the top of her resume. “It gives me a sense of confidence to go out in the work world,” she says. “It makes me realize that I can be a force to be reckoned with, that I have accomplished a lot and deserve to be viewed in a professional manner.”

But finding her calling wasn’t a straight line. Though she loved working with students as a leader in her sorority and other university platforms, Roy kept pursuing the business career in athletics that she thought she wanted.

“I love sports, and I love the atmosphere,” Roy says. “My father and I were very close and connected through sports. He passed away when I was 17. Athletics was something I stuck to, but then I realized that the options available to me right now aren’t what I want to do.”

Roy currently works in an accounting role on special projects for Vehicle Management and Parking Services at USC, but she plans to begin pursuing a master’s degree in student affairs next year.

Those kinds of stories are familiar to Sandra Varney, assistant director of academic coaching and major change advising at USC. “It’s really interesting when we start talking about goals with students related to major and graduation,” Varney says. “We see a lot of times there’s pressure from parents or from friends. They’re engaging sometimes in a curricular experience that is not very desirable for them from the beginning, so we help them figure out what they want to do and try to help them have those conversations with their support group as well.”

Varney’s office deals with two primary student populations: students who have realized they want to change their career path and students who are not meeting the requirements of their major.

“We do some exploration for students who are really unsure about their next step,” Varney says. “We do self-assessments to help them identify their interests and their skills and the majors that go with that.”

Varney recalls a student who transferred from USC Upstate, determined to pursue a nursing career.

“She didn’t quite meet the GPA requirements for that,” she says. “We spent a lot of time talking about parallels and alternative options. She wanted to stay in the health care field, helping people, so we explored options in public health. That ended up being a really good fit for her. It was still in line with what she wanted to do.”

THE CONFIDENCE FACTOR At the Career Center, Halasz generally sees four types of students —those who have done some career exploration and have made a career decision, those who have explored options without making a decision, those who haven’t explored options and haven’t made a decision and those who’ve made a decision without exploration.

In each case, Halasz says, getting out in the world can make a huge difference.

“Experience is critical,” Halasz explains. “If we can get a student out in the world of work through an internship or a co-op, if they can do research or any number of activities where they’re experiencing what goes on in the world of work, they can make much better decisions.”

But the process of identifying career goals and paths can be labor-intensive. Halasz remembers meeting with one student 10-12 times over several years before the student finally experienced a career epiphany. Sometimes, Halasz says, the struggle comes from an unrealistic hope of identifying the perfect career path.

“They’re putting so much pressure on themselves that they can’t decide,” he says. But when everything does click, “it’s very gratifying to see students work through the process and recognize what they are excited about, where they feel they can make a contribution and really enjoy that work.”

Halasz cautions against seeking instant gratification, whether in the process of choosing a career or adjusting to unexpected turns within it.

Students also have to be flexible in terms of where they’re willing to work or what type of employer they envision.

“This is not easy,” Halasz says. “Quite often with finding purpose and passion, one has to give as much as one hopes to get. Despite the challenges of identifying careers of purpose and passion, USC students are succeeding. So much of it is that confidence.

“If a student believes they can achieve, they’re more likely to.” T

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HOW DID WE GET HERE? Do we find our careers or do our careers find us? In the end, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is what we learn along the way and where we find meaning in our experiences. USC Times talked to four faculty members from four different disciplines and heard four different stories about the path to workplace fulfillment. We were also reminded how important it is to help students see the value in failure, being out of their element and getting themselves purposely, gloriously lost.

As told to Craig Brandhorst

VOL. 28, NO.7 11

“It’s really easy for a professor to be an expert in their field, because we’ve been doing it so long, but you have to remember that the people you’re teaching aren’t just a little behind you; they’re light years behind you,” says media arts associate professor Simon Tarr. “If you don’t remember what it’s like to be utterly lost, it’s tough to bring them along.”

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MEIR MULLER ASSISTANT PROFESSOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION CO-FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL, CUTLER JEWISH DAY SCHOOL I come from a family of educators. My dad was a principal his entire career, my mom a kindergarten teacher. I have two sisters, both pre-school directors. Education was what we discussed around the dinner table. It’s what my parents are and what all three of their children became.

But there was another underlying current in our family, and that was the Holocaust. One set of grandparents survived the Holocaust and came here as survivors — my grandmother was pregnant with my dad on the boat — so the Holocaust was a big part of their lives. And while my parents did shelter us from it as children, the idea of oppression and antisemitism was always there.

On one hand, they were very much people of the times, the 1970s — the house, the dog, three kids.

At the same time, one reason they had three children was to do more than just replace themselves — because of the Holocaust.

So, I had these liberal educators as parents who believed in the potential of each person, coupled with an awareness of antisemitism, racism, all the –isms. As a result, I took an interesting path. I took a year after high school to go to a Jewish school, and while I was there I met this incredible group of rabbi educators. They were just so personable and cared so much about each individual student. The leader of the group, what’s known as the rebbi, was very charismatic and really changed the direction of my life. Before that, I’d thought about being a writer, a psychologist — I had all sorts of ideas — but I decided at that point that I would like to follow in these great footsteps.

But I also recognized that I didn’t want to be the rabbi of a congregation, so during rabbinical school, I worked at early childhood centers and senior citizen residences, and in my last year, I needed to pick a direction. It’s clichéd, but I saw children as the future, and I knew that would be meaningful to me. I had often babysat when I was young, which was a little unusual in the 1970s for a boy. My friends mowed lawns and I would babysit, or I would volunteer with the children’s groups in my synagogue, so I was immersed in that world.

As life happened, my best childhood friend was a rabbi in Columbia. I helped him move down and set up his apartment. After that, I'd come back to help with children’s programs, and that led to an opportunity to start a Jewish school here with my wife. We began with just two- and three-yearold children, and at the beginning, it was great. My rabbinical training really helped me listen to families.

As the school grew, however, I was expected to understand more about education, and I realized, “Wow, I’m really out of my element,” so I came to USC to pursue a master’s degree in education. Once again, I was influenced by the personalities of the professors. They were just so dynamic, so knowledgeable. They cared about the things I cared about — issues of equity, race and oppression — and I started to think, “Maybe I should just get a Ph.D.” Well, a year after I got my doctorate, there was an opportunity to teach here as a clinical faculty member, so the two worlds came together. I was able to teach USC students at the day school, give lectures on theory and application, have small conversations in class, and then my students could go spend time with the children and tell me what it was like. This calling to be there for young children and to help them develop into great citizens shifted a bit to the college students.

Looking back, I can see that these callings are tightly woven.

Maybe as a 19-year-old in rabbinical school, I wouldn’t have seen it that way. I might have thought of myself as more narrowly pursuing Jewish education. And perhaps there were times at the day school where I thought, “Aw man, I’m not a rabbi, I’m a school administrator.” But now, at just over 50, I see that all of these different threads have woven together to create the person I am.

VOL. 28, NO.7 13

ANGELA McLEOD CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR COMMUNICATION SCIENCES AND DISORDERS My younger brother, Roderick, was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate. We’re two years apart, so everywhere he went, I tagged along as the older sister. For a long time, I was his translator. I would get pulled out of my class to go to his class and interpret for the teacher — I was probably in second grade, and he was in kindergarten. But even before he started school, I remember my mother asking, “What did he say?” My mom couldn’t understand anything he said, but I could because we played together all the time. That’s what brothers and sisters do.

I can’t remember the exact age, but at some point, he began receiving services with a private clinician. My mother and I used to go with him, and back then, instead of watching on a computer monitor, they had a two-way mirror. We would sit on one side and my brother would be on the other with the clinician. I remember, if he did certain things successfully, the clinician would give him little prizes to motivate him, and over time he began to do better. His teachers stopped pulling me out of classes to come help them with him. My mom stopped asking me to interpret as much.

So that was my introduction to the profession, but honestly, when I left high school to go to college, I can’t say that I was certain this is what I wanted to do. In fact, I started out studying medical technology, because I knew that I wanted to work in a profession where I could help people, and that evolved into a biology degree and then a degree in science teaching. Then while I was studying to become a teacher, I told one of my professors in special education about my experience with my brother, and he helped me figure out a path. I can’t say that I’ve always thought of this as my calling. I’ve realized that over time, after the fact.

But my experiences growing up absolutely affect how I do my job. When parents come in frustrated because they’re unable to understand their own child, I have some experience with what they’re going through. I had no trouble understanding my brother, but my mom did, his teachers did. To have a child trying to communicate and you can’t understand them is very hard.

Students have described me in course and practicum evaluations as patient, supportive, willing to lend an ear and easily approachable. I eventually began to realize that being these things seemed natural and intuitive. I didn’t have to work at being patient, available or approachable, and I enjoyed the work with students. My early experiences helping to address my brother’s challenges gave me an excellent foundation for serving others and a great compassion for their difficulties. As my career developed and a greater number of teaching opportunities emerged, I was able to draw upon my personal experiences with family, and skills that I had acquired as a clinician, and employ them in my teaching and mentoring.

As for my brother, he didn’t have his final surgical procedure until he was a senior in high school, but he’s fine now. He has some residual hearing loss — that’s common among people with cleft palate — but it’s not even enough that he needs amplification. He has a visible scar because he had a cleft lip and a cleft palate, but that would be the only obvious symptom. If you met him now, you would never know that he ever had a problem.

14 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2017

SIMON TARR ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MEDIA ARTS; FILMMAKER AND ARTIST Seeing “Star Wars” in the theater was probably the most formative thing for me. I was four, so I’m pretty sure I slept through a lot of it, but the experience has been with me since. It seems silly, but being a child, you have a sense that a movie is not real, yet you don’t know that people had to make it. A movie is just this amazing thing that exists somehow. As I became an older child — six, seven, eight — I wanted to recreate those experiences, probably just for myself, to invoke that sense of grandeur, majesty and hugeness.

By the time I was eight, I knew I wanted to make a movie, but I didn’t have any way to do it. I had a friend who said he had a movie camera, but once I learned I had to buy film and get it processed, I thought, “Well, I can’t afford to do that,” so I figured out another way. I literally drew the movie on sandwich bags, which I guessed was like film, cut holes in a shoebox and fed the strip through the box. I made a lens with a toilet paper tube and a magnifying glass, and it totally worked — for a few seconds. And then it melted. But it actually did work. I remember there were spaceships shooting at each other on the wall.

Still, I didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to do with my life because I didn’t know filmmaking was thing you could do. I didn’t live in California. If you’re in L.A., that’s just part of the scene. I grew up in Pennsylvania. But then I went to Penn State as an undergraduate, and there was this moment when I realized, “Wait a minute, you can actually major in filmmaking?”

I was like, “Oh, well, yeah, I’m doing that, obviously.” Just knowing that it was possible, that it was a legitimate field of study, was enough.

I still make films, but here’s the weird part. As much as “Star Wars” and big science fiction epics inspired me when I was a kid, that’s not even close to what I do now. I make weird experimental films.

And I do other stuff because I’ve evolved as an artist. I do a lot of live media performance, working with theater or with an orchestra. Or I’ll infuse fine arts with media arts — to spark that feeling in people of unexpected delight, or sometimes gravity. I’m still trying to invoke that sense of wonder and giddiness that I had when I was four.

I do think there's something that ties it all

together, though. Or, people have told me there is, and I believe them. Most of my art is about figuring things out, being thrown into a situation where everything is unknown. I’m really interested in that journey from knowing nothing to knowing something to knowing everything you can. That feeling of being completely lost is really important.

It turns out, that’s what I do in the classroom as well. I teach mostly intro students, so part of my job is to show them what it’s like to figure something out. It’s easy for a professor to be an expert in their field, because we’ve been doing it so long, but you have to remember that the people you’re teaching aren’t just a little behind you; they’re light years behind you. If you don’t remember what it’s like to be utterly lost, it’s tough to bring them along.

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SUSAN PARLIER CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SOCIAL WORK In 1990, I went to work as executive director for Lexington Interfaith Community Services, a local nonprofit. We were a one-stop shop with three separate buildings — a service building, the community relations building where I worked and a 5,000-square foot thrift shop — and then we had this giant dumpster in between.

I would often go down the hill to the service building from my office in the community relations building and work with the volunteers because I wanted to make sure that we were providing services in a just manner. During that time I got to know this woman and her five children who would come in for services but then wouldn’t be eligible.

Anyway, one of our staff people would catch her sometimes, late in the evening, digging in our dumpster, and she’d tell her over and over, “It’s against the law to be in our dumpster. We’re going to have to report you. There’s stuff in there that’s not safe.” And then I caught her a couple of times myself, and I’d say, “Come back tomorrow, and we’ll work with you.” But then she wouldn’t come. She was a very proud lady.

Finally, one night I said I was going to call the police and tell them to start driving through our parking lot. She said, “Okay, I’ll leave,” and got in her car.

I left, too, but then I thought, “No, I’m going back." That’s when I saw her children in the dumpster, handing her stuff. I hadn’t seen them before because they were down deep in the trash. She had made it like a game for them to find things, and they were absolutely filthy. But when I confronted her, she told me, “We don’t have a choice.” She was a hard-working woman, but she only made minimum wage, and back then that was $5.25. She had a faith community, but she was afraid to ask for help because of the gossip line of faith communities. Her husband had left her. She had five children — I mean, she had every kind of problem.

That experience changed my whole life. Since then I’ve focused on the causes poverty instead of just services. I started looking more closely at policies and procedures. We added evening hours, because women in these circumstances don’t know their work schedules one week to

the next, and I personally started asking these women to tell me about their lives so we could fit services into them. As a result, we started to see more and more low-wage, working women.

Eventually, I realized that I could continue to impact one community, or I could pursue a Ph.D. and teach students about giving people a sense of dignity and worth, the importance of hearing people’s stories and building relationships. If I could do that, I decided, maybe I could change social service delivery.

In early 2005, I started in the Ph.D. program at USC, and wrote my dissertation on how low-wage, low-income women make meaning in their lives when they’re doing everything they can but still can’t make it.

When I talk to students, I share stories where I've succeeded, but I also tell stories where I haven’t, like the story with the woman and the dumpster. I feel like I failed her — until I finally got it. I was being too much the professional, not enough who I am, a person, and she made me confront that. It’s a horrible experience to have to help a two-

year-old out of a dumpster, to realize that they’re in that dumpster because your policies and procedures deny them services.

I also tell students they’re accountable.

They’re going to be working with people who have broken stories, broken relationships and broken lives, and if a person lets them in, they need to cherish the journey they are walking with that person. That journey will affect them as much as it affects the person they are working with. It’s going to change their lives — if they’re doing it right. T

16 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2017

BREAKTHROUGH BREAKOUT

TIME TRAVELERS A new generation of space telescopes could take astronomers to the edge of the universe

By Chris Horn

You probably weren’t thinking about this weeks ago while watching the

astronomers to understand what they are seeing when those far away

solar eclipse, but it took eight minutes for those solar rays to travel from

stellar explosions appear.

the sun to the Earth. Kind of mind blowing when you think that traveling

They’re doing similar work on the WFIRST (wide-field infrared

at the speed of light — 186,000 miles per second — those solar photons

survey telescope), another NASA telescope that will be able to scan

need 4,800 seconds to get from there to here.

large swaths of the sky, though not as deeply as the James Webb. The

Now wrap your brain around this: Astronomy professor Steve Rodney

WFIRST won’t launch until the early 2020s — it’s still under development

and doctoral student Justin Roberts-Pierel are part of a NASA-funded

— so Rodney and Roberts-Pierel’s work could play a significant role in

project that could locate stellar explosions so far away that their light

optimizing the telescope’s ability to see new objects in space.

has taken more than 13 billion years to reach us. The universe is a little

“Like the Hubble, both of these telescopes will be deployed in

less than 14 billion years old, so that means those stars exploded — give

space,” Rodney says. “The James Webb and the WFIRST will be able

or take a few million years — near the dawn of time.

to make detections that are completely inaccessible to us now. They

“We’re looking ahead to the next generation of space telescopes after the Hubble that will allow us to look much deeper into space," says Rodney. “One of the results of that is finding rare and peculiar stellar

will revolutionize what we’re able to see from the ground, even with enormous modern telescopes.”

Rodney and Roberts-Pierel will also study a phenomenon known as

explosions that are so far away, it’s taken the photons most of the age of

gravitational lensing, which occurs when light from distant celestial

the universe to reach us."

bodies is bent by the warping of space. This distortion is caused by

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is expected to launch next fall,

a massive object — a planet or galaxy cluster, for example — that lies

and it will scan a fairly narrow range of sky but with the ability to look

between Earth and the distant target object. Light from the distant body

very deeply, to the edge of the universe. Rodney and Roberts-Pierel have

becomes visible to astronomers because the massive body between it

NASA funding to develop software that will simulate what the James

and the Earth acts like a gravitational magnifying glass. The mass of

Webb will see when it first opens its eye to the early universe and help

the intervening body bends the fabric of space, forcing light to follow

VOL. 28, NO.7 17

This Hubble telescope image shows rare supernova explosions that appear, at right, as multiple images of the same light source.

a curved path and focusing many disparate light paths. Einstein first

cosmos. But it's also true that the more we can build up a complete

predicted this effect, and it has now expanded into a vibrant subfield

understanding of the way the universe works, the better we can

of astrophysics.

understand our little corner of it.

For modern astronomers, gravitational lensing effectively supersizes

“We’ve been building up that story over time, and it’s a very complex

a telescope, making faint bodies brighter and making light visible from

picture. We’re now reaching back to the very first part, the beginning of

more distant bodies. Rodney was part of a team that, using the Hubble

that story.”

T

telescope, discovered rare supernova explosions a couple of years ago that appeared as multiple images of the same source, a result of the gravitational lens effect.

“We will soon be able to reach back even farther in time to see even more distant stellar explosions,” Rodney says. “To get ready we're studying what we can expect to find, and getting our tools ready so we can get the most out of these very early stellar systems when we find them."

So what’s the point of being able to look so deeply into space?

Astronomers have an answer.

“When we look back at the very beginning epoch of the universe, it doesn’t have a direct impact on our day-to-day lives on Earth, but it contributes to the larger tapestry of our understanding of the universe as a whole,” Rodney says. “Partly we are driven by natural curiosity, wanting to understand our origins and the whole grand scope of the

Justin Roberts-Pierel and Steve Rodney

18 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2017

SYSTEM EQUATION

USC MED SCHOOL:

ANATOMY OF A MENTOR

BY MELINDA WALDROP

F

From calming students’ uneasiness in dissection lab to helping them process the death of a friend, Erika Blanck provides encouragement and support beyond the classroom.

Blanck, a clinical associate professor and director of the gross anatomy laboratory and the Gift of Body Program at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, graduated from USC’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program 12 years ago. The challenges her students face are still-fresh memories.

“I remember the pressures of graduate school, and you need that support system. Other times you just need to vent,” says Blanck, the course director for the human medical embryology and gross anatomy course taught to first-year medical students. “If I can be there for my students in ways that those instructors previously were there for me, I absolutely want to do it.”

Blanck arrived in Columbia in 2001 fresh from Central Michigan University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in sports medicine, not knowing a soul. As one of 12 students in the second class of USC’s newly established D.P.T. program, Blanck leaned heavily on faculty such as Paul Beattie, Harvey Mathews and Stacy Fritz.

“I would go over to Paul Beattie’s house for Thanksgiving dinners, because I wasn’t near my family,” Blanck says. “Harvey Mathews and his partner would watch my golden retriever for me so I could fly home for Christmas. Stacy Fritz has helped me transition from graduate student to faculty member. All the faculty were really invested in us, and that made a lasting impression.”

Second-year medical student Emily Ham saw Blanck’s care for her students up close during the first-year anatomy lab.

“The emotional aspect of seeing a cadaver was unsettling,” Ham says. “She was really quick to pick up on the fact that lab was challeng-

ing me. She met my difficulties with the attitude of, ‘This can be hard, but you can do it, and how can I help you do it?’ Just knowing I had that support made things a lot easier.

“She showed me how to, as a woman in medicine, portray strength and assertiveness alongside kindness and compassion.”

Ham drew on that compassion this past June, when classmate and friend Seth Thomas died in a hiking accident while on a medical outreach trip in Peru.

“That was an extremely difficult loss,” Ham says. “I think because Dr. Blanck had already shown her concern for students and investment in helping us through tough times, I felt comfortable talking to her about it.”

No longer Blanck’s student, Ham still pops by Blanck’s office to chat about life and says her door is always open.

“I’m in no way the exception. When I visit for five minutes, you would be amazed at the amount of students that drop by,” Ham says.

“I don’t know how she does it, honestly. But it’s amazing, because she interacts with every single student who visits in a way that lets them know they’re what’s important in that moment.”

Blanck says she’s only doing for her students what other professors did for her.

“In gross anatomy, I’m asking the students to memorize a lot of material,” says Blanck. “I tell them from Day One, ‘The least I can do to repay you is to learn your name and get to know who you are.’ It’s only fair.” T

VOL. 28, NO.7 19

Erika Blanck and Emily Ham

ENDNOTES Each year, students compete to design the cover for a special edition of USC’s First-Year Reading Experience book. The cover for this year’s book, Dave Isay’s “Callings,” comes from senior graphic design major and Bluffton, S.C., native Ashlyn Murphy. The project began as part of a cut-paper assignment in an art class taught by Stephanie Nace, but Murphy ultimately rendered the image digitally.

“Everybody in the book had that one moment where they figured out, ‘OK, this is what I want to do with my life.’

That’s where I got the image of the hot air balloon. That moment ignited a spark and a fire was lit underneath them. That fire filled them not just with passion but with happiness, and that lifted them up. I made the scenery sort of ominous — for example, I made the mountains sharp — because a lot of the people in the book were facing a confusing time in their lives, but then they broke into the clear, which is why I have the balloon breaking through the circle.”