F O R A L U M N I A N D F R I E N D S O F U S C D A N A A N D D AV I D D O R N S I F E C O L L E G E O F L E T T E R S , A R T S A N D S C I E N C E S
MAGAZINE
FALL 2019 / WINTER 2020
The Happiness Issue
FINDING YOUR HAPPY PLACE
Joy is often where you least expect it. USC Dornsife scholars illuminate the path.
Finding Joy
Faculty reflect on what brings them happiness.
“What brings me joy is spending time outside with my wife (and a camera!). Whether it’s swimming in the ocean, hiking in a canyon, scrambling down a desert escarpment, exploring byways in a new city, birdwatching or just sitting for a bit — my biggest happiness comes from experiencing all that with the person I care about most. And, because I’m a photographer, I love the challenge of catching those moments and experiences. But, the camera is always secondary to the experience of being alive in the space we share. Being totally in the moment is the best thing ever. It’s a pretty awesome world out there. Don’t miss it.”
“I love anticipating happiness, perhaps because happiness itself can be so fleeting. I love the moment when you are sitting on a plane and it takes off. I like putting Christmas gifts out early so I can look at them and wonder. I might even set a time every evening for a treat so I can look forward to it after dinner.”
“A major source of joy and serenity are my (almost) daily walks on the beach. Hearing the ocean, watching the waves and feeling the sand between the toes clears my mind like few other things can. And, amazingly, in SoCal we can do that year-round.” NORBERT SCHWARZ, Provost Professor of Psychology and Marketing
LINDSAY O’NEILL, associate professor (teaching) of history
“Fatherhood has taught me that children are the source of all happiness. They are curious, funny, dynamic, opinionated, joyful, thoughtful, calm, intense and indiscriminately loving. Their energy is infectious and gives them a marvelous ability to impact their surroundings. They are living examples of humans in perfect form, as God intended us all to be.” OLU ORANGE, adjunct assistant professor of political science
“My daughters, sons and grandchildren; cocktails on the patio at sunset; dining out with my wife; piano concertos and opera arias; watching Trojan and Eagles football with my family; golf with buddies; summer at our family’s Adirondack island home; beautiful natural scenery; sailing; reading and writing about happiness.”
SUSAN FORSBURG, professor of biological sciences
RICHARD EASTERLIN, University Professor Emeritus of Economics
“Morning runs on the beach followed by working together productively with my graduate students, making progress in understanding processes that matter make me happy.” DAPHNA OYSERMAN, Dean’s Professor of Psychology
“Happiness is to live a life of love. To be surrounded by those I love, to do the things I love and to see those I love thrive, these bring me happiness. For me, being happy means to be around my sisters, spend time with my husband, cuddle with my dogs, do yoga with my guru, Arya, binge-watch Homicide Hunter and all the murder mystery TV shows I can find, read a book, write and learn about people and their experiences.”
RHACEL PARREÑAS, professor of sociology and gender studies TROJAN FOOTBALL PHOTO BY JOHN MCGILLEN
“I have enjoyed a wonderful life that has taken me from a small town in New Zealand to Toronto; Bozeman, Montana; and, most recently, to Los Angeles, California. This journey has exceeded my wildest dreams, but the joy and happiness I have experienced each day can be traced to the opportunities my life and career have afforded me to help and assist others in pursuing their goals and dreams.” JOHN WILSON, director of the Spatial Sciences Institute and professor of sociology, civil and environmental engineering, computer science, architecture and preventive medicine. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 1
Contents
COVER STORY
SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES AND COMMUNICATION
Lance Ignon
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Susan Bell
ART DIRECTOR / PRODUCTION MANAGER
Letty Avila
WRITERS AND EDITORS
Michelle Boston Margaret Crable Darrin S. Joy Jim Key Stephen Koenig DESIGNER
Dennis Lan VIDEOGRAPHER AND PHOTOGRAPHER
Mike Glier
COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT
Deann Webb
CONTRIBUTORS Lilly Kate Diaz, Emily Gersema, Greg Hardesty, Rhonda Hillbery, Eric Lindberg, Laura Russell, Annamaria Sauer USC DORNSIFE ADMINISTRATION Amber D. Miller, Dean • Stephen Bradforth, Divisional Dean for Natural Sciences and Mathematics • Steven Finkel, College Dean of Graduate and Professional Education • Lance Ignon, Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Communication • Andrew Lakoff, Divisional Dean for Social Sciences • Peter Mancall, Divisional Dean for the Humanities • Renee Perez, Senior Associate Dean and Chief Operating Officer • Eddie Sartin, Senior Associate Dean for Advancement • Andrew Stott, College Dean of Undergraduate Education USC DORNSIFE BOARD OF COUNCILORS Kathy Leventhal, Chair • Wendy Abrams • Robert Alvarado • Robert D. Beyer • David Bohnett • Ramona Cappello • Richard S. Flores • Shane Foley • Lisa Goldman • Jana Waring Greer • Pierre Habis • Yossie Hollander • Janice Bryant Howroyd • Martin Irani • Dan James • Stephen G. Johnson • Suzanne Nora Johnson • Bettina Kallins • Yoon Kim • Samuel King • Jaime Lee • Arthur Lev • Kathy Leventhal • Roger Lynch • Robert Osher • Gerald Papazian • Andrew Perlman • Lawrence Piro • Edoardo Ponti • Kelly Porter • Michael Reilly • Harry Robinson • Carole Shammas • Rajeev Tandon
Finding Joy Faculty reflect on what happiness means to them.
4 FROM THE HEART OF USC Linguists learn from beatboxing and Pokémon; Tolerance for intolerance wanes; Experts discuss political tribalism; Science camp teaches sustainability.
Our creative journey began with photographs of children. After all, aren’t children a universal symbol of joy? It was an obvious place to start, even though we were keen to avoid cliché. We first considered the black and white picture below, by French photographer Raymond Depardon. Taken in 1981, it shows a group of kids jumping rope in Harlem, their grinning faces and leaping bodies bursting with the sheer energy of happiness. Literally jumping for joy. Then, as we widened our search, another image stood out — a shot of a child in Nepal. Suddenly, we remembered our alumnus Barry Shaffer and his superb photographs of Bhutan. Shaffer is a remarkable man who has forged an extraordinary life. A dentist for more than 40 years in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, upon retirement he exchanged Encino’s bustling Ventura Boulevard for the pristine air and sweeping mountain views of the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to start a new life as a photographer. He made three trips to the principality and the result, his first major book of fine art photographs, Echoes of Bhutan, was launched two years ago at the prestigious Telluride Mountainfilm Festival. As soon as we saw Shaffer’s photograph of an elderly Bhutanese woman, her weatherbeaten face radiating joy, we knew we had found our cover. At first glance, perhaps this seems a surprising choice. This woman is clearly poor. She is old. She appears to be in the middle of nowhere. And yet, she embodies the startling research findings of our scholars — findings that that you will discover in this issue: that happiness isn’t about more money or youth or possessions; that, in fact, we will grow happier in old age; that our digital universe of dating apps and social media, rather than making us more connected, is actually making us lonelier and more isolated; and that where we live in the world can have a major influence on how we assess our well-being. The fact that this photograph was taken in Bhutan, a nation committed to Gross National Happiness — its signature quality-of-life indicator — gave it even more resonance. If you are curious about what makes us joyful and what does not, you may find some answers within this issue of USC Dornsife Magazine. As you read it, consider the words of author Kurt Vonnegut: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’ ” —S.B.
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Curriculum
6 Profile
9 Lexicon 12 The
14 Our
Bench
World
36 Legacy THE HAPPINESS ISSUE
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Happiness Across the Life Span
Contrary to popular opinion, when it comes to well-being, our lives do not represent an inevitable decline from the sunny uplands of youth to the valley of death. Instead, the opposite is true — we can confidently look forward to old age as the happiest time of our lives. By Susan Bell
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It Was the Best of Times
History has no laugh track, so how do we measure our changing conceptions of happiness through the ages? By Stephen Koenig
COVER PHOTO BY BARRY SHAFFER ’70
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PHOTO BY JOCHEN STIERBERGER
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We puzzled long and hard over what to put on our cover for this issue. Happiness means so many different things to so many different people. How to distill its essence into one perfect image of joy?
P H O T O BY R AY M O N D D E PA R D O N / M AG N U M P H O T O S
USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE Published twice a year by the USC Dornsife Office of Communication at the University of Southern California. © 2019 USC Dornsife College. The diverse opinions expressed in USC Dornsife Magazine do not necessarily represent the views of the editors, USC Dornsife administration or USC. USC Dornsife Magazine welcomes comments from its readers to magazine@dornsife.usc.edu or USC Dornsife Magazine, SCT-2400, Los Angeles, CA 90089.
What Happiness Looks Like
FA LL 2 0 1 9 / W I N T E R 2 0 2 0
And Now, Live From New York …
Ego Nwodim ’10, now in her second season as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, graduated from USC Dornsife with a degree in biological sciences — never doubting she would succeed as an actor. By Greg Hardesty
Looking for Happiness in All the Wrong Places
We believe love and money will make our lives happier. But will they? Perhaps we’re barking up the wrong tree when it comes to searching for lasting happiness. By Susan Bell
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Happiness Around the Globe
The annual World Happiness Report gives us a glimpse of how different countries rank their well-being. By Michelle Boston
37 Faculty
News
38 Faculty
Canon
37 Alumni
News
39 DORNSIFE FAMILY Faculty earn Guggenheim and AAAS honors; Religion plays role in internment; Mayor sets record.
40 HAPPY FAMILIES
Psychology researcher Darby Saxbe explores the complex joys and challenges that constitute family.
42 Alumni
and Student Canon
43 Remembering 44 TROJAN COMMUNITY USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller welcomes Trojan Family Weekend attendees to a morning reception. CONNECT WITH USC DORNSIFE dornsife.usc.edu/facebook dornsife.usc.edu/twitter dornsife.usc.edu/youtube dornsife.usc.edu/instagram
dornsife.usc.edu/magazine Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 3
Curriculum
FROM THE HE ART OF USC Viewpoint EXPERT OPINIONS
“Why is a musical that perpetuates a Western fantasy of Asians as small, weak and effeminate people still so popular?”
VIET THANH NGUYEN, University Professor, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English, American studies and ethnicity and comparative literature, in an Aug. 3 New York Times op-ed about the Broadway revival of the musical Miss Saigon.
“Immigrants may just hold the key for the U.S. to outmaneuver China in the struggle for global economic supremacy – as long as Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric doesn’t get in the way.” BENJAMIN GRAHAM, associate professor of international relations, in a July 17 op-ed in The Conversation about the competitive advantage that immigrants give the United States when doing business in emerging markets.
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On the screen, a grainy magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of a human mouth shows a tongue, leaping and curling as a sound like a snare drum rings out. This is a beatboxer in action — viewed from a new perspective: inside her mouth. Once heard, never forgotten, beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion in which humans mimic drum machines, laying down beats using only their mouth, lips, tongue and voice. How do beatboxers make such a stunning range of sounds? USC Dornsife linguists, including doctoral candidate Reed Blaylock, have teamed up with electrical engineers from USC Viterbi School of Engineering at the interdisciplinary research group SPAN (Speech Production and Articulation kNnowledge), to solve the mystery. To do this, the researchers analyze real-time MRI videos they have created of the vocal tract in the process of producing beatboxing sounds, using data from five beatboxers. Among them is award-winning beatboxer Nimisha Patil ’17, who joined the project as an undergraduate. “The project needed a linguist to analyze the videos, figure out what the beatboxers are doing, how they coordinate the movements of the lips and tongue with the soft palate to make all the different sounds,” said Blaylock, who is writing his doctoral thesis on beatboxing. “As a linguist who studies the mouth, I was equipped to do that.” The first phase of the team’s research is figuring out different sounds beatboxers make and how they make them. Beatboxers already have some knowledge of how they make their own sounds, but until the USC study, there hadn’t been any real video evidence for what’s actually happening inside their mouths. The research team is developing algorithms to study the live MRIs and provide feedback on exactly how the performers create the sounds. The next phase looks at how beatboxers might change sounds, depending on what other sounds are around them. One of Blaylock’s hypotheses is that when a certain beatboxing sound — the clickroll — is used, it changes how nearby sounds are produced.
The clickroll is an example of a particular kind of airflow manipulation that hasn’t been found in any language, Blaylock says. So, if humans can make these sounds, why don’t they appear in languages? One theory is that because language needs only a handful of sounds to make an infinite number of words, we may as well use sounds that are relatively easy to produce. By analyzing the movement patterns beatboxers use, we can better understand how the human body learns and produces coordinated actions. “The whole point of all this research, from a linguistic or cognitive science perspective, is to figure out what’s going on in the human mind,” Blaylock says. His research tries to answer such questions as: If someone is learning how to beatbox, how do they transition from speech to beatboxing sounds? Once they’ve learned beatboxing, does it affect the way they speak or how they unconsciously think about and manipulate sounds in their head? “Beatboxing research is important,” Blaylock says, “because it shows us what the limits of human vocal behavior are, and that helps us understand how we conceive of sound and movement in our minds.”
THE BIOLOGY OF FOOD Instructor: Grayson Jaggers, assistant professor (teaching) of biological sciences
PHOTOS BY MIKE GLIER
VAHE PEROOMIAN, associate professor (teaching) of physics and astronomy, in a July 15 op-ed in The Conversation, making the case for why Mars should be our next “moon shot.”
Beatboxers expertly manipulate their vocal tracts to make sounds unknown in any language. Thanks to cuttingedge technology, USC researchers show how it’s done. By Susan Bell
IL L U S T R AT I O N BY D E N N I S L A N
“I look at the effect the space race had on not just my generation, but on those that worked to make the moon landing a reality: the thousands of scientists and engineers who were trained for that singular goal, and the millions after that who were inspired by these deeds.”
Mysteries of Beatboxing
BISC 115LXG
Who doesn’t love a beautifully browned baguette fresh out of the oven? The bread’s appealing crusty finish is the result of a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars, known as the Maillard reaction. Students in this general education class learn concepts such as this one to understand the fundamentals of biology. They get a broad overview of microbiology, nutrition, biochemistry,
genetics and molecular biology from the cellular level to the macro level through the lens of food and cooking. Why food? There’s nothing more universal, says Jaggers. “We can all relate to food and health.” The course combines lectures and labs, covering basic food molecules and tissue structure to fermentation and the biology of sensory receptors.
In one lab experiment, students learn how to calculate calories. Using an instrument called a calorimeter, which measures the heat of chemical reactions, they take turns igniting different foods in the device’s combustion chamber, which is suspended below a metal container of water. They measure the water’s change in temperature to calculate the number of calories each food item contains.
Jaggers believes the hands-on lab experiences and relatable content help students better understand how science relates to their everyday lives. “I want students to have a better understanding of the world around them.”—M.B.
Students in the course take turns igniting cheese puffs, popcorn, spinach and other foods in a calorimeter to calculate their caloric content. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 5
Profile
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JINGMAI O’CONNOR ’09
itting in pride of place on paleontologist Jingmai O’Connor’s desk is a cast of Qiliania graffini, a fossilized bird she named after Greg Graffin, lead singer of Los Angeles punk band Bad Religion and himself a former paleontologist. The cast was made for the award-winning traveling exhibition “Rock Fossils,” which also features a trilobite named after Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and a Silurian
bristle worm named for Danish rocker King Diamond. “Apparently, it’s a thing to name fossils after rock stars, metal artists and punk rock bands,” O’Connor says. “Graffin signed it … and I keep it here as one of my little crown jewels.” The pierced and tattooed O’Connor, who’s been dubbed “The Punk Rock Paleontologist,” is a world leader in her field. In January, she led a research team to discover a
perfectly preserved bird’s foot that is 99 million-years-old. This year, the Paleontological Society awarded O’Connor the Charles Schuchert Award, which recognizes excellence and promise among earlycareer paleontologists. She’s also been immortalized in a comic book created during the “Rock Fossils” show. A massive Bad Religion fan, she was over the moon when Graffin sent her a signed copy.
So, given her sobriquet, it comes as something of a shock when she admits that — with the exception of Graffin’s band — she’s not really that into punk. In fact, if you pass O’Connor’s office at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, you’re more likely to hear faint dance music, punctuated with the odd Irish folk song. Her go-to song when she’s working isn’t a hardcore punk anthem, but the upbeat
PHOTO BY SIM CHI YIN/MAGNUM PHOTOS
Paleontology’s wild child Jingmai O’Connor has found happiness and success through hard work and a singular determination to remain true to herself.
S
FROM THE HE ART OF USC
disco hit “Sunny” by Boney M., and her motto, she says, is “all dance music, all the time.” No wonder then that she’s in demand to DJ at professional meetings from Berlin to Dallas and provided the beats after the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting in Brisbane, Australia, this fall. A BOHEMIAN UPBRINGING How did O’Connor carve out such an extraordinary life?
Most paleontologists, she says, get into the field very young. “They’re the kids who’re obsessed with dinosaurs.” Her own path was different. The daughter of a Chinese American mother and an Irish American father who met in a Bulgarian folk dancing troupe in L.A., paleontology’s wild child was raised in a creative and bohemian family in Pasadena, California. She grew up listening to Irish folk music, celebrating Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, dancing, and playing violin with her parents in a folk band. O’Connor’s father is an artist, and the family struggled financially when she was a child, prompting her mother to go back to school at age 41 to earn a Ph.D. in Earth sciences from USC Dornsife to support them. O’Connor clearly admires her mother’s work ethic, describing her as “a great role model.” However, O’Connor says that, unlike her siblings, she wasn’t particularly academic as a child. “My mom would always say, ‘You’re just lazy.’ And I’d say, ‘Why can’t she just accept that I’m not as smart as her? Why does it have to be that I’m lazy? Maybe I’m just stupid.’ But she saw through me. It really was laziness.” O’Connor developed a fascination for evolution as a geology major at Occidental College. Her decision to specialize in feathered dinosaurs and other fossils of prehistoric birds drew her to USC Dornsife, where she could work with Luis Chiappe of Earth sciences and biological sciences at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “Once I got into grad school, I fell in love with what I was doing and worked incredibly hard,” O’Connor says, adding that she published more geology papers than anyone else in her year.
THE AGE OF DINOSAURS After earning her Ph.D. from USC Dornsife in 2009, O’Connor’s decision to specialize in Mesozoic birds — which lived between 160 million and
Her decision to focus on birds was initially pragmatic. “I actually had no interest in birds whatsoever when I started,” she says. “I even had some very negative feelings towards
life sartorial style matches her outspoken, freedom-loving personality, making her stand out a mile from what she calls “the Teva-wearing geology types.” Then there are the tattoos.
“It’s not the age of mammals; it’s still the age of dinosaurs.” 65 million years ago, around the same time as large dinosaurs — drove her move to Beijing. There, she has access to thousands of unique, well-preserved fossils from northeastern China’s Jehol Biota region. “Dinosaurs with wings on their arms and legs that look like they were hit by a car yesterday,” she says. “All these soft tissues preserved — which is very rare — and they’re 130 million years old.” O’Connor mentions her good fortune and her gratitude frequently, almost as if pinching herself to remind herself it’s real. Paying tribute to her doctoral advisers at USC Dornsife, Chiappe and David Bottjer, professor of Earth sciences, biological sciences and environmental studies, she says, “I’ve had a blessed trajectory in academia. I was just really lucky every step of the way.” O’Connor shared the stage with Bottjer in September when they were honored as best junior and best senior paleontologists by the Geological Society of America. “Paleontology has been such a wonderful, rewarding journey. I honestly feel like I’ve never worked a day in my life because I just love what I do so much, and none of it has ever been burdensome or difficult,” O’Connor says.
them, having been attacked by a rooster while doing fieldwork in Inner Mongolia.” Her choice worked out, but only, she says, because she moved to China. Her fascination with her chosen subject grew as she studied it. “Birds are incredible creatures. There are three times as many species of living birds as species of living mammals. I always say, ‘It’s not the age of mammals; it’s still the age of dinosaurs.’” MENDING BROKEN WINGS O’Connor is determined to help young scientists, especially women, gain access to positive experiences similar to her own by teaching them to be more resilient and to stand up for themselves. “For women in science, it’s very difficult,” she says, admitting she cried after her first two professional conferences. “I bounced back and stood up to the challenge, but a lot of women don’t. They just quit. And that really sucks. So I try to take these people with broken wings …, bring them back to academia and give them a better experience.” A SINGULAR STYLE Rocking multiple piercings and leggings that boast a Tyrannosaurus rex battling a unicorn, O’Connor’s larger-than-
O’Connor has 25 at last count, including a hummingbird skull; a trilobite; an ammonite; a crop circle; a plesiosaur skeleton (think the Loch Ness monster); the Buddhist goddess of mercy, Guanyin; her first pet dog, Sampson; a coelacanth; and a giant Chinese phoenix, which she had transformed into an enantiornithine (Enantiophoenix), the group of birds that were the subject of her dissertation. THE PATH TO HAPPINESS Freedom to be herself is clearly important to O’Connor. In China, she’s found it, along with a profound sense of happiness and contentment. But her life hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Despite her outgoing personality, O’Connor suffered from depression for much of her life. A believer in the power of spirituality, she blames much of society’s malaise on consumer culture. “Buying things is not going to make you happy,” she says firmly. O’Connor follows Buddhist philosophy, which says all human suffering is self-created. “It’s a constant battle not to fall into negative thinking,” she says, “but if we control our minds and realize that we create our own realities with the way that we choose to think about the world and about ourselves, then we create our own happiness. “It’s a never-ending journey.” —S.B. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 7
Lexicon
FROM THE HE ART OF USC Distinction USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE EARNS HIGH HONORS
Socially Sustainable
Social science may open new pathways to solving environmental challenges.
The Fun in Science
Fun, educational summer camp encourages Native American middle school students to pursue science. The window still open. have We have The iswindow is stillWeopen. opportunities to change to ourchange trajectory — opportunities our trajectory — from onefrom in which one inclimate which change climate change brings disastrous effects to effects the natural brings disastrous to the natural environment, our globalour economy and environment, global economy and human health one that thrives humanto health to one thatonthrives on clean energy, and boundless cleaningenuity energy, ingenuity and boundless opportunity. opportunity.
Want to teach middle school students the science behind green energy? Let them build and race their own solarpowered minicars. That’s one way the Summer Experience in Renewable and Green Energy (SERGE), a four-day science camp for Native American middle school students, aimed to spark interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers. Nationally, college attendance among Native American students lags and has been declining since 2000. Programs like SERGE can help reverse this trend. “Our big goal is just making sure that students have some fun while learning,” said Brent Melot, associate professor of chemistry at USC Dornsife and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma. Camp participants, invited through a Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians outreach program, attend middle schools in Southern California. This year, they took part in a scavenger hunt and visited the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Learning by doing helps spark interest in STEM as well as sustainability — including renewable energy such as solar, wind and hydro power, and battery storage. The camp’s final day featured a test tube “gummy bear sacrifice” led by Melot and Megan Fieser, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Chemistry. When placed in a potassium chlorate solution, the candy oxidizes violently, producing noise and flame as it emits carbon dioxide and water vapor. The demonstration showed the energy stored in food and illustrated chemistry principles ranging from exothermic (heat-generating) reactions to energy transformation — while delighting the campers. Camp leader and Ph.D. student JoAnna Milam-Guerrero summed it up: “My goal was to get the kids interested and excited about science, so if that involves blowing things up, that’s fine.” —R.H. But we need Butradically we needdifferent radicallythinking. different thinking.
With a reinvigorated commitment to tackling to tackling With a reinvigorated commitment what is among most pressing ever issue ever what the is among the mostissue pressing faced by humankind, USC Dornsife is Dornsife looking is looking faced by humankind, USC beyond technical to the systems, beyondinnovation technical innovation to the systems, policies andpolicies mindsets must drive societal andthat mindsets that must drive societal transformation. transformation.
“Well-designed, well-written and filled with an interesting mix of thoughtful content, this publication goes well beyond expectations for a college magazine.”
Over half a century, the half USCa Wrigley Environmental Studies, Over century, Institute the USC for Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, headquartered at USC Dornsife, at hasUSC undertaken that fills critical headquartered Dornsife,research has undertaken research that fills critical gaps in environmental From newscience. insightsFrom on ocean to acidification to gaps science. in environmental new acidification insights on ocean pioneering techniques for sustainable aquaculture, scientists and students are and students are pioneering techniques for sustainable aquaculture, scientists committed to preserving our planet and our livelihoods through the discovery committed to preserving our planet and our livelihoods through the discovery and testing of groundbreaking sustainability practices and technologies. and testing of groundbreaking sustainability practices and technologies. But the USC Wrigley Institute just getting started. But the USC is Wrigley Institute is just getting started. Because sustainability challenges are as complex as are the aspeople and associal Because sustainability challenges complex the people and social structures that create them, the is drawing on expertise from on theexpertise from the structures thatinstitute create them, the institute is drawing social sciences to social accelerate the adoption of sustainable solutions. It’s an solutions. It’s an sciences to accelerate the adoption of sustainable ambitious new initiative that places the institute at the center of sustainability ambitious new initiative that places the institute at the center of sustainability research and scholarship conducted across USC Dornsife. research and scholarship conducted across USC Dornsife. By engaging the full of intellectual firepower — fromfirepower experts at— thefrom experts at the By range engaging the full range of intellectual USC Dornsife Center the Political Future to Political innovators in thetoemerging USCforDornsife Center for the Future innovators in the emerging field of prediction field science — The USC Wrigley Institute provide new will provide new of prediction science — The USC will Wrigley Institute strategies for using strategies the knowledge we have about human economfor using the knowledge we motivation, have about human motivation, economics and political structures to shorten the roadto from idea to ics and political structures shorten theimpact. road from idea to impact.
An Ecosystem An Ecosystem of Ideas
of Ideas Greenhouse gases have caused rising sea levels. Air pollution has intensified health problems. Competition for natural resources has created political instability. As humans respond to the growing environmental crisis, we are proving to be our own worst enemy, raising many of the barriers that prevent the adoption of readily available solutions. To help unwind this Gordian knot, the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies will become the nexus for a far-reaching sustainability initiative at USC Dornsife that asks scholars from the natural and social sciences to develop and implement creative approaches for overcoming these self-imposed obstacles. “Building this big new initiative in the social sciences is about understanding how to use the knowledge we have about human motivation and the functioning of society in ways that accelerate the adoption of solutions,” said Dean Amber D. Miller. The USC Wrigley Institute will prioritize both scientific innovation and the production of tools and knowledge to spur more meaningful action. It also aims to attract engagement from leaders in both the public and private sectors. “Our work on sustainability will have the most impact if we reach outside of the academy,” said Divisional Dean for the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology Andrew Lakoff. “We plan to collaborate with government agencies, advocacy organizations and businesses.” The USC Wrigley Marine Science Center on Santa Catalina Island provides a test bed for sustainable solutions, where scholars and students are working on early-stage innovations that could be implemented in communities. But many of these innovations require ideas from social scientists to take the next leap forward. “The vital work of Wrigley’s natural scientists continues to build out the knowledge base we need to understand the limits, adaptive capacity and complex dynamics of environmental systems under the stress of human consumption,” said Miller. “The more stones we turn, the more options we find for developing viable solutions to our sustainability challenges.” —S.K. Sustainability Across theAcross Disciplines Sustainability the Disciplines
To maximize effectiveness, USC Dornsife Toour maximize our effectiveness, USC Dornsife is buildingis robust with the with the buildingconnections robust connections policymakers and business policymakers and leaders business who leaders who implement implement solutions. Ensuring that actions solutions. Ensuring that actions are informed the best are by informed by evidence the best and evidence and problem-solving methods available, we are problem-solving methods available, we are seizing opportunities for innovation that can that can seizing opportunities for innovation safeguard our planet for safeguard ourfuture planetgenerations. for future generations.
CRIGLER PHOTO BY PETER ZHAOYU ZHOU
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The USC Wrigley Institute The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies for Environmental Studies
M AG A Z IN E IL L U S T R AT I O N BY D O U G L A S J O N E S; C O M P O S I T E BY D E N N I S L A N; S C IE N C E C A M P P H O T O R H O N DA H IL L B E RY
So said judges for the 61st annual Southern California Journalism Awards this past summer, who awarded USC Dornsife Magazine first place in the “Magazines, Best In-house or Corporate Publication” category. The magazine also took first place in the “Magazines, Page Design” category for the Los Angeles issue’s “Talk the Talk” article, with judge’s noting “excellent use of color, design and layout.” The magazine’s cover rounded out the evening with a third place win in the “Art/Photography – All Platforms, Cover Art” category. “Journalists act as judges for these awards, so when they hand us the prize, it validates the quality and integrity of our work,” said Lance Ignon, senior associate dean for strategic initiatives and communication at USC Dornsife. The magazine, as well as USC Dornsife Office of Communication news writing, also earned honors from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education: a Silver Award in the “Excellence in News Writing – General News” category and a Bronze Award for “Editorial Design.”
As our scientists develop newdevelop sourcesnew of energy As our scientists sources of energy and expandand knowledge of our ecosystems; our expand knowledge of our ecosystems; our social scientists help us to help us social provide scientistsinsights provideto insights overcome political and personal thatbarriers that overcome political andbarriers personal prevent more rapidmore adoption sustainable prevent rapid ofadoption of sustainable technology technology and processes. our and Meanwhile, processes. Meanwhile, our scholars who explorewho history, culture, literature scholars explore history, culture, literature and philosophy offer new offer frameworks for and philosophy new frameworks for understanding how humans interact with the with the understanding how humans interact environment. Together, they are creating a more environment. Together, they are creating a more comprehensive understanding of the stepsofwethe steps we comprehensive understanding can take to can move thetoneedle take move on thesustainability. needle on sustainability.
P O L I T I C A L S C I E N C E A N D I N T E R N AT I O N A L R E L AT I O N S NO-PLATFORM ,no 'plæt.f :rm / verb / trans To refuse someone an opportunity to make their ideas or beliefs known publicly because you think these beliefs are dangerous or unacceptable. Origin: 1980s from the No Platform policy of the UK National Union of Students (NUS), forbidding individuals identified as holding racist or fascist views from standing for election to NUS positions or speaking at NUS events. Usage: “A platform is usually associated with political parties or advocates of a coherent position on policy issues. These can range from a loose assembly of interests to a coherent statement on governance. To have a platform gives legitimacy and recognition as part of an organized group. ‘No-platform,’ a British term gaining traction in the United States and elsewhere, is a denial of elevation and space for public discussion, and therefore, a denial of power.”
Ann Crigler, professor of political science and policy, planning and development, and vice chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations, studies how people understand and learn about politics from the news media. She has co-authored several publications on the subject, and she recently received the 2019 Murray Edelman Distinguished Career Award from the American Political Science Association’s Political Communication Section. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 9
FROM THE HE ART OF USC
FROM THE HE ART OF USC
Numbers “TREASURE ISLAND” LABORATORY From South American expeditions to a student-led resolution to address climate change, the history of the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies is one of innovation, adventure and environmental stewardship. Take a look back at some important milestones for USC Dornsife’s marine science center on Santa Catalina Island.
1901
The research vessel that G. Allan Hancock, a wealthy oilman and avid science enthusiast, donated to the university in 1939. It undertook numerous expeditions to South America to study marine invertebrates.
5.5
Linguistics of Pokémon
No Love for Hate Speech Targeting Insomnia Tolerance for bigoted speech has declined for some, coloring their devotion to First Amendment principles.
The popular media franchise holds useful lessons in how the human mind makes the connection between sounds and their meanings. By Michelle Boston Researcher Stephanie Shih and her colleagues are taking a closer look at the linguistics of the Pokémon universe to help them understand ways that the brain processes language. One of the underlying fundamentals of human language is that there is no specific connection between the form of words and their meanings — the sound of a word doesn’t inherently carry meaning. This allows for free expression and flexibility in languages. However, there are some instances where sounds do appear to signal meaning, a phenomenon called sound symbolism, in which sounds are linked with specific shapes. For example, the word “bouba” might conjure something large and round while “kiki” might make you think of a smaller, sharper object. These two words were actually shown to have those particular associations across different and unrelated languages in a series of studies by different linguists dating back to the 1920s. To dig deeper into the phenomenon, Shih and her colleagues are looking to Pokémon character names — or “pokémonikers” — as a dataset. “One of the challenges of studying patterns across languages is that not only are languages different from each other, how people perceive the world around them is different from culture to culture,” Shih explained.
With more than 800 Pokémon characters, pokémonikers are a constant referent across many different languages, with slight reinvention from one language to the next. Also, Pokémon characters are categorized by their physical characteristics — weight, height, color, among a host of other traits — and they metamorphize over the course of the game into a similar but stronger species. As their physical attributes evolve, so do their names, which is what makes them such a compelling dataset, says Shih. In an initial study looking at sound symbolism in English and Japanese, Shih and her colleagues found a tendency in both languages to encode the same attributes with sound symbolism. For instance, in both English and Japanese, the length of a Pokémon character name correlates to the size and power of what it represents. Abra, the character and name, is smallest and has the least power, while Alakazam is largest and has the most power. These findings help us understand more about how the mind operates. “It gives us a clue to the question: ‘Are sound symbolisms something that we’re born with in our cognitive system or is it something that gets learned from our exposure to our native languages?’ ” Shih explained.
The number of acres Philip K. Wrigley, heir to the Wrigley chewing gum fortune, deeded to USC in 1965 to build the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center at Big Fisherman’s Cove on Santa Catalina Island.
20%
Amount of energy used by the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center generated by solar power.
Number of student delegates who joined activists and business leaders at the science center in April 2019 to discuss the best ways to curb climate change. They developed a simple but powerful plan, called the Catalina Declaration, to enact change. 10
PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES
35
M E L AT O N I N R EC E P T O R I L L U S T R AT I O N BY Y E K AT E R I N A K A DY S H E V S K AYA ; PAT T E R S O N -W E S T P H O T O C O U R T E S Y J A B R E A PAT T E R S O N -W E S T
Velero III
The year USC hired its first marine biologist, Albert Ulrey, a freshwater expert who came west from Indiana to study saltwater marine life.
Spotlight
Debates about hate speech have transformed Americans’ understanding of the right to free expression and its limits, argue USC Dornsife’s Dennis Chong, professor of political science, and Morris Levy, assistant professor of political science. Published in the journal Social Research, their analysis shows tolerance toward racist expression in the United States is declining, particularly among younger Americans, liberals and the college-educated. “For an increasing number of Americans, hostile, abusive or demeaning speech constitutes a distinct category of expression that is not entitled to First Amendment protection because it inflicts harm on its targets and undermines the value of equality,” Chong said. Americans born before 1980 saw no contradiction between supporting racial equality and tolerating the right of racists to express their views, prior research showed. “That’s changed,” Levy noted, “because growing support for racial equality has influenced our attitudes toward free speech.” Describing the study as “powerful and revealing,” Robert Shrum, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, noted it shows increasing levels of tolerance for once widely disdained groups, ranging from atheists to the LGBTQ community. “At the same time — and this is an encouraging sign about our society — the study also reports Americans’ tolerance for racist speech has declined, although despite a slight increase in tolerance for it among conservatives,” Shrum said. Chong and Levy note that while it’s become fashionable for conservatives to criticize “liberal intolerance” and campus “political correctness,” these accusations distort reality. Tolerance for most controversial types of speech continues to grow in all segments of American society, including among liberals, the researchers found. College graduates continue to exhibit higher levels of social and political tolerance than those who have not attended college. Most liberal tenets continue to promote tolerance, and conservatives are still less tolerant of the expression of far-left ideas than liberals are of the expression of most far-right ideas. —S.B.
New 3D models of two cell receptors may give rise to sleep disorder treatments. A third of all Americans suffer from sleep disorders. While many take melatonin supplements to drift off to dreamland, the effect of melatonin on the biological clock is not fully understood. Scientists at the Bridge Institute at USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience and an international team of researchers have shed much-needed light on melatonin by developing a 3D model of two key melatonin receptors, MT1 and MT2. They are two of the tiny antennae on the surface of cells that synchronize the body’s internal clock. This finding enables researchers to design drug molecules that better target the receptors than over-the-counter melatonin supplements. A better drug could reduce side effects. “Our goal is to provide the structural information to other researchers who can use it for designing new drug compounds or study mutations of these receptors in patients,” said corresponding author Vadim Cherezov, professor of chemistry and physics and astronomy at USC Dornsife. MT1 and MT2 are among an estimated 800 receptors in humans that are known as “G protein-coupled receptors,” (GPCRs) that appear on the surface of a cell. About a third of all drugs on the market are designed to bind with the GPCRs, and each one has a different role in regulating bodily functions. The benefits of understanding those melatonin receptors could go well beyond improving sleep. “There have been several mutations identified in the MT2 receptor that are associated with type 2 diabetes,” said Linda Johansson, a research associate at the Bridge Institute and USC Dornsife’s Department of Chemistry. “That also would be important to understand.” The MT1 and MT2 receptors are also associated with some cancers, as well as the immune and reproductive systems. —E.G.
JABREA PATTERSON-WEST ’20 Art History and French
“After earlier feminist and black arts movements, we tend to position artists based on their identity politics. But that’s not all there is to the work. These artists are technical; they’re geniuses. And I want to emphasize that.” When JaBrea Patterson-West first came to USC, she was on track to become a doctor. Then, after taking an art history elective, her earlier passions for art and design reignited. Growing up outside New York City, visits to museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art exposed her to hundreds of inspiring historical paintings, but few showed black subjects. “I was going to The Met and the only black art that you really see is African masks,” she said. Later on, through the blog “Black Contemporary Art,” she discovered a vibrant world of modern black artists who seemed often overlooked by mainstream museums. A discussion with humanities student adviser Octavio Avila emboldened her to switch paths and pursue a career in the arts as an advocate for the underrepresented. She secured a Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, under the mentorship of modern art curator Stephanie Barron. This summer, she wrote an extended object label (the informative placard placed next to a work of art) for the Max Pechstein painting “Sunlight.” The painting and her label will be on view at the museum in the fall of 2020. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 11
The Bench
FROM THE HE ART OF USC PSYCHOLOGY
BRAIN POWER
Difficulty with everyday tasks Confusion with place or time Problems with words or numbers
5.8 MILLION
Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease
Every
65 SECONDS
someone in the United States develops the disease
Memory loss Change in mood or behavior
TWICE
Nearly as many women as men have Alzheimer’s
PREVENTION
KEEP YOUR BRAIN ACTIVE
People who keep learning may be less likely to get the disease.
EXERCISE REGULARLY
Keeping your blood flowing can significantly protect your brain.
Alzheimer’s disease costs the U.S. more than
$275 BILLION each year
EAT WELL
Following a diet high in omega-3s, vegetables and fruits may lower the risk of cognitive decline.
GET ENOUGH SLEEP
A waste-draining system that clears the brain of beta-amyloid is more active while we sleep.
T R I B A L I S M C O M P O S I T E B Y D E N N I S L A N . I M A G E S O U R C E : I S T O C K ; R O S S P HIOMTAOG EB SY BE YR IDC ELNI N IDSB LE A RN G
12
SYMPTOMS
IL L U S T R AT I O N BY D E N N I S L A N
After decades of research on Alzheimer’s disease, scientists are beginning to focus on effective prevention and management rather than a cure. “The idea that there is going to be one drug that fixes all this seems more and more unlikely. It is a multifactorial disease,” said Margaret Gatz, professor of psychology at USC Dornsife. Sticky amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain are an obvious Alzheimer’s hallmark, but they are not the sole factors behind the memoryerasing illness, which affects more than 5 million Americans. The search for solutions is urgent amid an aging baby boomer population. Annual costs associated with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States are projected to quintuple to $1.5 trillion by 2050, according to USC studies. Researchers at USC Dornsife have identified a host of factors that raise the risk for Alzheimer’s and that could be potential targets for treatment or prevention. “USC’s angle on this is that we need to incorporate things other than just amyloid and tau, such as vascular and inflammatory contributors,” said Daniel Nation, associate professor of psychology at USC Dornsife. “And that treatment may need to target, more generally, how to sustain brain health and how to stop neurodegeneration.” Alzheimer’s research at USC is advancing because a cadre of scientists in several fields — biological and computational sciences, medicine, neuroscience, psychology and policy — have collaborated on studying the disease. The ApoE4 gene, sometimes called the Alzheimer’s gene,
can raise someone’s risk for the disease, but it’s not the only genetic risk factor. Carol Prescott, professor of psychology and gerontology at USC Dornsife, and T. Em Arpawong of USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, found that the gene TOMM40 may also be influential. Genes are not the only reason someone may develop a disease or become immune to it. The location of someone’s home, their line of work, years of schooling, or even their own mental health may influence Alzheimer’s onset. Titus Galama, associate professor of economics at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research, is studying the intersection of genetic risks with environmental factors, such as the work environment. “We know what kind of work these individuals are in, and we can tell whether these are cognitively, physically or socially demanding, to see whether certain jobs protect them from cognitive decline. We then want to see if, for example, cognitively demanding jobs can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s for genetically at-risk individuals.” Regardless of their various approaches to tackling Alzheimer’s, the researchers are all on the hunt for the same prize — more lives saved. Together, they may have the right amount of fire power to curb Alzheimer’s disease. “Treating earlier and treating all of these pathologies may not be realistic, but if we can come up with ways to boost brain function, then that will benefit the brain in the face of many other diseases,” Nation said. — E.G. (Data from Alzheimer’s Association, National Institute on Aging and Johns Hopkins Medicine.)
Tribal America
Experts discuss America’s worsening political tribalism and the science behind it.
political or religious — are challenged. The brain is flexible, he said, and people can, through mindfulness, train their minds to be open to other ideas. —E.G.
Carpe Diem
Recent graduate wants to help others as others helped her.
At a recent event at USC, Republican presidential candidate Mark Sanford shared a story about a campaign visit with an Iowa farmer. The farmer wasn’t buying what Sanford was selling, asking him repeatedly, “Are you for or against Trump?” Then, said Sanford, “he turns to me, and he goes, ‘Look, here’s the bottom line. Do I worry about the national debt? Yes … but you know, the president said he’s going to send a manned flight to Mars. I believe that they’re going to discover moon rocks on Mars that are worth more than gold. We will … pay the national debt off with moon rocks from Mars.’” Sanford was at “The Dis-United States: Tribalism in American Politics” conference, hosted by USC Dornsife’s Center for the Political Future in September. Center Director Bob Shrum and Co-director Mike Murphy led the daylong event, inviting experts, journalists and political leaders like Sanford to discuss how tribalism has divided the country. Sanford noted that the farmer may be one extreme case, but tribalism in American politics has reached a “scary point.” “I would argue that tribalism is on steroids now in large part because of economics,” Sanford told Murphy, noting that financial insecurity can prompt people to look for a strong leader — someone like Trump. Political and psychology experts also considered the human tendency toward tribalism, hypothesizing that it could be genetic, but USC Dornsife Professor of Political Science, Anthropology, Public Policy and Law Alison Dundes Renteln said she doesn’t believe so. “And I’m not sure if it matters. What matters is that tribalism is a force now in American politics. We need to think about solutions. We need to talk about the politics of fear and resentment and find ways to bring people together around common values.” Jonas Kaplan, assistant professor (research) of psychology at USC Dornsife’s Brain and Creativity Institute, has been studying how people behave when their beliefs —
Marla Ross ’19 felt like an imposter. The freshman, who is from rural Ohio, was overwhelmed by the chaotic hustle of Los Angeles. Her fellow Trojans all seemed like they lived glamorous lives. She felt like she didn’t belong, despite her stellar academic record. Perhaps it was because she had to pay her own way in college with help from scholarships, loans and a work-study job. She shied away from opportunities like a competitive scholarship for a study abroad program or leadership positions in student groups. But with encouragement from friends and mentors at USC, Ross slowly learned to trust her instincts and abilities. She became co-director of Troy Camp, overseeing the popular student-run philanthropic organization that mentors neighborhood kids. She studied abroad in Chile, teaching English to high school students. She earned Renaissance Scholar honors by studying cognitive science with a minor in Spanish and teaching English to speakers of other languages. And she became a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest honor society. Ross doesn’t feel like an imposter anymore — and she doesn’t want anyone else to, either. “That’s something I feel very strongly about now,” she said. “I want to increase access for students, make resources available and help them feel comfortable and empowered to take on challenges.” A Fulbright scholar, she’s now teaching in Colombia and encouraging students to make the most of opportunities in both education and life. “Seize the day — carpe diem — is for sure the mentality to have,” she said. “USC has been formative in encouraging that.” —E.L.
Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 13
FROM THE HE ART OF USC
Our World STUDENTS Hong Kong/Los Angeles
Compassionate Service
Students travel to Hong Kong for a service exchange program focusing on homelessness.
Becoming a Fisher Fellow felt like a blessing to Fiza Khan, who graduated in 2017 from USC Dornsife with degrees in international relations and Russian language and culture. Coming from a low-income background, she worried about missing out on important experiences at USC. But as a member of the program’s first cohort, Khan received funding to join a 3-week Problems Without Passports course in Iceland, Norway and Finland. There, she studied how climate change is affecting indigenous populations throughout the Arctic region. The Fisher Fellowship also made it possible for Khan to study in Russia. She said the summer class and a study-abroad program she completed in Russia are part of why she will be studying law this fall at Yale Law School. “I believe those experiences were something that stood out to the admissions officers,” said Khan. “I don’t know if I’d be going to Yale right now if I wasn’t able to afford such programs.” —E.L.
R I D G E C R E S T P H O T O B Y K E N N E T H H U D S O N / U C L A ; S P A C E I M A G E C O U R T E S Y O F N A S A / J P L- C A L T E C H
14
This August, attorney and civil rights activist Olu Orange led students enrolled in his Trial Advocacy Program at USC Dornsife on a third trip to South Texas. There, the students learned immigration law and observed human rights and legal abuses and helped train immigration lawyers representing unaccompanied minors seized at the border. “Our first trip, in May 2018, was inspired by seeing the news of children being detained in dog-kennel type cages,” said Orange. “Our second trip, taken in mid-August 2018, was inspired by accounts of parents having their children stripped from them. In both cases, the collective thought process of students in our program was, ‘This is wrong, and we need to go do something about it.’ So, we did.” On their second trip, Orange’s team assisted with locating and identifying the detention status of more than 100 children around the country, many fleeing abuse or gang violence at home. “Now those children may be provided legal representation and services,” Orange said. This summer the group stayed in Harlingen, Texas, traveling to Port Isabel Detention Center in nearby Los Fresnos to observe proceedings involving detainees at the border. Led by Orange, the students provided training and exercises to attorneys from the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) representing detained children and families. ProBAR is a joint project of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The students also volunteered at the Humanitarian Respite Center at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas, providing services, clean clothing, food and toiletries to newly released detainees and helping them gain skills they will need to be successful as they take the next steps on their journey. —S.B.
ALUMNA Russia, Iceland, Norway, Finland
HONG KONG PHOTO BY MORGAN LU; US/ME XICO BORDER PHOTO COURTESY OF OLU OR ANGE; FISCHER FELLOW PHOTO COURTESY OF FIZ A KHAN
USC Dornsife’s Joint Educational Project (JEP) launched its inaugural Service Exchange Program this summer. JEP partnered with Hong Kong Polytechnic (PolyU) for the program, which enabled students to explore issues of homelessness in Los Angeles and Hong Kong. In L.A., students visited Skid Row and served at nonprofits. At the Union Rescue Mission and Midnight Mission, they prepared food and helped homeless clients with computer skills. At School on Wheels, students provided homework support for homeless youth. Students spent time at St. Joseph Center to get a first hand look at a meal program for the homeless, and visited LA Family Housing, to learn about the city’s housing issues. In Hong Kong, students also learned about local housing issues, including substandard housing, and helped deliver meals to the elderly living in public housing. Aidina Tleugabyl of PolyU said gaining deeper insights into causes of homelessness enabled her to empathize with homeless people, rather than blame them for not working or trying hard enough. Now she sees homelessness as a social problem that everyone has a responsibility to help solve. USC Dornsife’s Morgan Lu, a mathematics and economics major, said JEP’s program gave him a greater appreciation of the inequalities that exist within society. He now understands that many homeless people work hard, but struggle to escape their situation. —S.B.
FACULTY/STUDENTS U.S./Mexico Border
FACULTY/STUDENTS Iowa Robert Shrum was just 9 years old in 1952, when he volunteered to call voters for the presidential campaign of Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who lost that year to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. For Shrum, the experience was unforgettable. Democratic campaigns turned into a career. So when Shrum, now director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, was talking with the center’s co-director, Mike Murphy, about a potential summer program, they agreed that the 2020 election cycle in Iowa presented a rich opportunity for USC undergraduates. Together, they launched “Inside Iowa,” a program for a select group of 10 students to work on a political campaign of their choice in Iowa, which hosts the first presidential primary in February. Students, chosen based on their applications, held several roles with their respective campaigns. Many tested their powers of persuasion by telephoning voters. Others aided their candidates at fundraisers, parades and the famous Iowa State Fair. Shrum, Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics and professor of the practice of political science, says the students may return to Iowa in February for a final push for their candidates before the state caucuses. “There is nothing like on-theground experience,” he said. —E.G.
FACULTY Ridgecrest, Central California
For Christine Goulet, tremors are a call of duty. An earthquake researcher and executive director for applied science at the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) at USC Dornsife, Goulet belongs to a statewide group of scientists and engineers who investigate how faults shift after a quake. She went to Ridgecrest after a 6.4 magnitude quake on July Fourth; she was also there a day later, during a 7.1 quake. Goulet and her team look for “ground failure”— signs that the soil amplified the shaking or liquified, causing lateral spread during the quake. They contribute their findings to the California Earthquake Clearinghouse, a statewide databank shared by researchers and state and regional officials. The databank is meant to improve emergency planning and response, and advance research. “From an engineering perspective, we want to not only understand earthquakes for science’s sake, but also to really help build a better, more resilient society,” Goulet says. —E.G.
FACULTY/STUDENTS Jupiter
An Eye on Jupiter
USC Dornsife astronomers provide Earth-bound support for NASA’s pioneering Juno mission to the gas giant. As NASA’s Juno space probe orbits the solar system’s largest planet, USC Dornsife Professor of Astronomy Edward Rhodes stands a mere 400 million miles away, observing. Rhodes peers through the 100-inch telescope at historic Mount Wilson Observatory above Pasadena, California. There, he and several students — doctoral candidate Stephen Pinkerton and undergrads Christopher Lindsay, Trent Herdtner, William Jackson and Aagam Vadecha — have been gathering information that NASA will combine with Juno’s up-close and personal data collection to gain a clearer understanding of Jupiter’s makeup. Juno departed Earth in August 2011 and, after nearly five years of interplanetary travel, entered orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. The probe has since been dutifully mapping the planet’s magnetic and gravitational fields, measuring amounts of atmospheric water and ammonia, and observing the planet’s auroras. Rhodes and his group have taken measure of the higher layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere, while Juno’s sensitive instruments probe deeper, even peering at Jupiter’s center — with surprising results. “It does not appear that Jupiter has a solid core as … I had been teaching in ‘Astronomy 100’ and ‘400’ for years,” Rhodes said. “If there’s anything that’s even partially solid, it’s a more diffuse core than what the original models showed.” The combined data will help scientists understand how Jupiter formed and what role it played in the formation of the solar system as a whole. —D.S.J. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 15
Happiness Across the Life Span: Not a Slippery Slope After All Contrary to popular opinion, when it comes to well-being, our lives do not represent an inevitable decline from the sunny uplands of youth to the valley of death. Instead, the opposite is true — we can confidently look forward to old age as the happiest time of our lives. By Susan Bell
Things they do look awful c-c-cold, I hope I die before I get old. More than 50 years have passed since The Who’s Pete Townshend penned these immortal lines on his 20th birthday, resulting in the band’s iconic ode to rebellious youth, “My Generation.” These days there is no hint that the rock star, now a spritely septuagenarian, is entertaining any regrets that his youthful wish didn’t come true. But as a young man, Townshend certainly wasn’t alone in dreading old age, and while his suggested remedy for avoiding the unavoidable may have been extreme, he also wasn’t alone in wanting to dodge what we tend to believe will be the miseries of aging. So it may come as something of a shock to many of us to learn that the research shows we’ve been dead wrong all this time — not only about growing old, but also about when we’ll experience the happiest days of our lives. No, they won’t happen during our schooldays, as the old adage dictates, or when we’re forging ahead in our careers, or even when we’re raising our children. It may seem counterintuitive, but study after study shows that the happiest days of our lives will occur in old age. U-TURN TO HAPPINESS
In fact, if we were to plot a graph with a line representing our life satisfaction across the life span, it would not, as we might assume, show a steady decline into old age, nor would it hold fast from youth until we reach, say, our 70s, and then fall off a cliff. Instead, research shows it resembles a U-shape, with a pronounced midlife dip in our 40s and early 50s. 16
Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 17
“Emotional well-being looks pretty good as we age, sometimes even better than when we’re young.”
“When we ask people, ‘Are you satisfied with life?’ we consistently find this U-shaped pattern,” says alumna Susan Charles, who earned her Ph.D. in psychology in 1997 and is now professor and chair of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine. While this dip might sound like bad news for those hitting middle age, there’s a silver lining: As Charles explains, “After midlife, life satisfaction goes back up, until you see people who are about 65 looking as happy, as satisfied with life, as younger adults in their 20s.” And that’s not all: A landmark longitudinal study across the adult life span — the first of its kind — by Charles and USC Dornsife Professor of Psychology Margaret Gatz showed that negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, stress and frustration, far from increasing as we get older, actually decrease steadily with age. Positive emotions, such as excitement, pride, calm and elation, remain stable across the life span. Only the very oldest group registered a very slight decline in positive emotions. But despite all the heartening evidence that well-being improves as we age, we still tend to dread growing old, clinging obstinately to the belief that happiness declines as we get older. So while 70-year-olds report higher current happiness than 30-year-olds, both expect that happiness declines with age. That is, at least when thinking about other people — both older and younger adults are optimistic about their own emotional futures but pessimistic about others. So, why are we all getting it so wrong? “For a lot of people, when you say, ‘What does 80 look like?’ the first thing we think of is dementia and nursing homes,” says Charles. That’s a key part of the problem, according to Norbert Schwarz, Provost Professor of Psychology and Marketing at USC Dornsife. Schwarz notes that when we are evaluating our lives, we only pay attention to a few aspects. So, when we imagine old age, we tend to focus on the negative — increasing frailty, declining independence, the inevitable loss of loved ones, and then, eventually, our own death, whether sudden or following a protracted illness. “Of course, none of this is very pleasant, and it leads us to expect that life would be quite miserable,” says Schwarz. However, as he points out, our reasoning about aging is faulty. By omitting many negative aspects of life that we won’t have to deal with any longer when we are old, we’re failing to grasp the big picture. THE POSITIVES OF AGING
So why do people grow happier as they age? Is it an absence of stress, or are they able to focus more on what brings them joy? Schwarz says the answer is actually much simpler and is linked to activity. Research he conducted with USC Dornsife’s Arthur Stone, professor of psychology, economics and health policy and management and director of the USC Dornsife Center for Self- Report Science (CSS), shows that activity is a major determinant of how we feel moment to moment. “For instance, many people don’t have jobs they enjoy that much. When we retire, we have better days as we spend less time on activities that aren’t very enjoyable and cause high levels of stress. We also have more time to spend with others,” Schwarz notes. “All of that lifts our spirits.” Who we spend time with is also key. Studies show that the elderly may be better at avoiding situations and people that 18
make them feel bad; they have more control over how they spend their time and whom they spend it with. It seems that as we age, our brains become increasingly wired to concentrate on the positive. A study by Charles, Mara Mather, professor of gerontology and psychology at USC Dornsife, and Laura Carstensen of Stanford University shows that older people pay more attention to positive stimuli, such as images of babies or athletes celebrating, whereas younger people pay more attention to the negative, such as images of a couple visiting a graveyard or of someone being threatened with a knife or gun. This also affects memory, with older people remembering the positive images more often than younger people, who are more likely to remember the negative. “From what we can tell, older adults are trying to focus more on emotional goals and enhance their well-being, whereas younger adults are devoting resources to other things,” Mather said. Schwarz also debunks another common misconception about aging — that increasing awareness of mortality causes unhappiness. “There are moments of sadness when your first friends are dying, but it’s not the case that people are all very unhappy when suddenly facing their own mortality,” he says. While acknowledging that age does bring inevitable loss, Charles agrees. “People just assume that loss brings decreases in positive affect. So, it’s kind of amazing — kind of wonderful, actually — that with age we don’t see that,” Charles says. “Almost everything else you study in aging often doesn’t end well, but emotional well-being looks pretty good as we age, sometimes even better than when we’re young.” Of course, happiness can look very different depending on the measures we use. Psychologists use three methods to measure subjective well-being. The first, evaluative well-being, measures life satisfaction. The second, hedonic or experiential well-being, measures moment-to-moment mood. And the third, what the ancient Greeks termed eudaimonia — asks, “Is my life meaningful?” The three are different, but related, and interestingly, many people are willing to temporarily sacrifice the first and second to achieve the third. To illustrate this point, Stone cites the example of a student undergoing the brutal rigors of medical school. While her mood may be poor because she’s stressed and sleep-deprived, and her life satisfaction may be low because she isn’t pleased with her lack of ability to see friends and relatives, she may still find great meaning in her life because it’s getting her where she wants to be. “People may subject themselves to lower levels of certain kinds of well-being in order to achieve other things,” notes Stone, who, like Gatz, prefers to avoid the word “happiness” because of the ambiguity between evaluative well-being and mood. “Alternatively, a person might be happy-go-lucky, very good in terms of their satisfaction and mood, but their life may not be particularly meaningful, which on some larger existential basis may be important to them.” A good life, Schwarz argues, probably lies in finding the right mix: accepting temporary misery or discomfort to achieve something meaningful, finding enough pleasant activities to feel good for a significant chunk of the day and accomplishing some things that make you feel satisfied when you step back and evaluate your life. IL L U S T R AT I O N S BY N I C O L E X U F O R U S C D O R N S IF E M AG A Z IN E
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PATTERN RECOGNITION
Psychologists see different patterns emerging when they measure happiness in different ways. When we look at life satisfaction in Western cultures, Schwarz notes, the family life cycle shows that people are very happy shortly before they get married. That settles back down to normal levels once they wed. Then comes the big dip in life satisfaction that we experience in our 40s and early 50s. Does this U-shaped dip correspond to the notorious so-called midlife crisis? Charles says there’s little evidence to support that, with only a meager 7 percent of people attributing a crisis to middle age. “It did happen,” she says, “but a lot less than you’d expect.” Instead, Schwarz suggests two other reasons for the midlife dip. First, this is when people typically strive for success in their career, a period accompanied by higher demands and increased stress. The second reason, he says, is parenthood. “People all say their kids are their greatest source of joy, except their life satisfaction gets much worse the minute the kids are born. “When we do an analysis of how parents feel in everyday situations, then — with the exception of kid-focused activities, such as watching a movie together or playing games, which are usually a source of joy — almost every daily chore feels worse when their kids are present. For instance, grocery shopping isn’t much fun, but going shopping with your toddler is hell. Then the kids go to school and it gets a little bit better, and then they’re out of the house and daily life improves.” This, Schwarz notes, is another reason the elderly are happier — their kids have flown the nest and on a momentto-moment basis, that’s a positive thing. LOOKING AT EMOTION
In a landmark 2010 study Stone published with Nobel laureate and USC Dornsife Presidential Professor of Economics Sir Angus Deaton, the researchers looked at evaluative and experiential well-being in people ranging from 20 to 80 years old, using data from 400,000 participants gathered by the Gallup Organization. “What we found was that in our 20s, we’re at a moderate level of life satisfaction, then it drops down to the lowest levels in our early 50s, and then it starts shooting up through age 80,” Stone says. “So, it’s not exactly a U, but a slanted backwards J.” A different pattern emerged when Stone and his team looked at specific emotions. Reports of anger, frustration, stress and feelings of distress were highest for younger adults and gradually lessened with age, resulting in a linear decline across the life span rather than the U-shaped pattern associated with life satisfaction. The researchers also asked respondents about their stress levels. The results showed that about half of people from age 20 to their late 40s experienced considerable stress. From there, stress levels started dropping off dramatically, almost in a straight line, to age 70, when only about 17 percent reported experiencing significant stress. Stone noted the paradox here, which begs the question, “As health deteriorates with age, what’s going on to make people feel less stressed and more satisfied with their lives as they grow older?” Stone and Deaton struggled to find statistically based answers. “We took variables that we thought might explain the 20
U-shape and drop in stress, and it turns out we couldn’t explain it,” Stone said. “Things we thought would make a difference, didn’t. How much money you made didn’t make a difference, whether or not you’re married, whether you had kids living at home. So, this has been a puzzle.” Seeking answers, Stone has now undertaken a new research study with Joan Broderick, a senior behavioral scientist at the USC Center for Economic and Social Research and associate director of CSS. The study will question 3,500 participants nationwide about life satisfaction and stress, but adds a dozen variables that haven’t been explored thoroughly before, such as social network size and wisdom. OUR SHIFTING PRIORITIES
One possible solution may lie in our perception of how much time we have left to live. Both Stone and Charles point to research by Stanford’s Carstensen that looks at how our growing realization that time is running out shifts our priorities as we age. While younger people concentrate more on acquiring the knowledge and skills that will help them succeed in their careers, older people focus more on emotional goals that make them feel good. Here, the elderly have an advantage. Free from the worries about their future that plague the young, they don’t have to strive to be successful in their career or anguish over whether they’ll find a partner, whether they’ll have children. That’s been decided long ago, and they can afford to live in the moment and focus on emotion. “Older people think, ‘Let’s make the most of the time we have, let’s optimize our emotional experience,’ ” Charles says. “They just don’t sweat the small stuff anymore. “Older adults perceive time left in life as growing more precious. They also have experience from time lived, so they know how to regulate their emotions by controlling their environments and minimizing their exposure to things that will upset them.” So, for example, we know from many studies that older adults will get out of a conversation if it becomes heated or unpleasant. Unlike younger adults, who are more likely to dig in, older adults are more likely to change the subject. The result is that our older selves are able to handle with equanimity experiences that our younger selves would have found deeply upsetting. “It’s a case of ‘been there, done that,’ ” Gatz says. “It’s maturity, and that’s a good thing.” The fact that 30-year-olds aren’t as happy as 70-year-olds isn’t widely accepted, Schwarz says, largely because people struggle to accept it as true. He compares how we view aging with the way we think about health or disability. We believe that if we’re sick or in a wheelchair, life would be miserable, and yet study after study shows that is not the case. What determines our happiness, Schwarz says, is what we pay attention to and what we do. “It’s important to realize that no matter what your illness is, you’re not a patient 24 hours a day. Much of your day is still pleasant. The sun still shines, you spend time with friends, food still tastes good. All of these things are just as enjoyable as before,” he says. And what of Pete Townshend? Schwarz, when asked what he would say if he could go back in time to the moment when the budding rock star committed to paper his desire to die before he reached old age, replied, “Well, I’d tell him, ‘You’d miss one of the best parts of your life!”
“Older adults … know how to regulate their emotions by controlling their environments and minimizing their exposure to things that will upset them.”
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It Was the Best of Times History has no laugh track, so how do we measure our changing conceptions of happiness through the ages? By Stephen Koenig
It seems like every text message now arrives with an emoji. It’s often that grinning yellow face — tilting to and fro, dribbling tears of glee. Could this interminable cheerfulness be genuine? If so many of our friends and relatives were truly rolling on the floor, laughing out loud at any benign amusement, we’d expect some sort of protocol from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But what if this is the happiest time in history? At face value, it sure seems that way. Sculptural masterpieces, such as the Venus de Milo, cast a stoic gaze on the world. President George Washington’s pokerfaced portraits suggest a practiced austerity. And Grant Wood’s famous painting, American Gothic, depicts common rural folks in the early 20th century, a pitchfork-wielding farmer and his daughter looking happy as vampires in the sunlight. Of course, these faces don’t tell the whole story. Historical research provides context through which we can better understand happiness across place and time. Yet, generalizations are difficult when the notion eludes clear definition. From ancient Greece to modern America, philosophers, raconteurs and selfhelp “experts” have tried to pin down the essence of happiness. C.S. Lewis said it’s God; Karl Marx said it’s the abolition of religion. Friedrich Nietzsche said it’s desire; Carl Sandberg said it’s admiring without desiring. Walt Disney said it’s a state of mind; Buddha said it’s the path and Charles Schultz said it’s a warm puppy. And then there’s Genghis Kahn — he said it’s
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“to scatter your enemy and drive him before you.” No doubt, it’s complicated. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
“Call no man happy until he is dead.” Ancient Greek statesman and antiquity’s Oscar the Grouch, Solon had good reason to be pessimistic. The Greeks were constantly at war. Day-to-day pursuits of personal fulfillment were judiciously supplanted by an existential fixation: Don’t get speared. By the 4th century B.C., Athens had lost more than half its population, and people had soured on the perpetual fray. Out of centuries of bloodshed arose a movement toward peace, democracy and contemplation. “Aristotle introduces the idea of intentionality,” said USC Dornsife Professor of Classics Susan Lape. “He posited that there was a purpose to life, something we seek for its own sake. But, if we do not know what that purpose is, we will miss it. The purpose, he contends, is happiness.” The result is eudaimonia, which roughly translates to “human flourishing.” Different from happiness as pleasure or an externally validated status, flourishing, for Aristotle, is achieved by living a life of virtue in pursuit of human excellence. “Aristotle believed we need to prioritize our role as social beings as opposed to just human beings,” Lape said. “This included performing acts of reciprocity, altruism, temperance and valuing your friend as yourself.”
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A similar idea is championed by today’s peppy cohort of social media influencers imploring you to “be your best self.” Whether you’re pulling a crash victim from a flaming car or paying for your friend’s latte, eudaimonia is a habit of mind that chooses the virtuous act in any given moment.
“Character and discipline for the long haul may be making a comeback against personality.” KNOCKIN’ ON HEAVEN’S DOOR
If our understanding of happiness in antiquity is mostly informed by seminal texts, we have to dig a little deeper to explore ideas of well-being in the Middle Ages, an era characterized by a dearth of written records. As a result, we tend to fall back on pop culture’s stock characterization of the period — a millennium of incessant jousting, plague and boats careening off the edge of the planet. But it wasn’t all a Monty Python quest. Happiness in the Middle Ages was found in spiritual activities that stamped one’s ticket to paradise. Pious sacrifice, according to religious leaders, was a condition for entry into an exclusive heaven. And because the Roman Catholic Church pulled the levers of power throughout Europe, sacrifice was built into society. “There are all these rules laid out by clergymen,” says USC Dornsife postdoctoral scholar Kathryn Dickason. A member of USC Dornsife’s Society of Fellows in the Humanities, her expertise is medieval culture. “You can have your moments of bliss, but you have to follow certain regulations.” Thus, some kinds of speech, dancing, food and physical intimacy fell under the auspices of religious canon law. Living under so many constraints may seem counterintuitive to happiness, but if heaven were anything like the way it’s portrayed in the art and culture of medieval times, it was a small price to pay. “Heaven is like one big party,” said Dickason. “There’s dancing, music, and you’re in close proximity to God.” Indeed, stars, orbs and movement common in artwork of the Middle Ages give the promised land a decidedly disco vibe. For example, Sandro Botticelli’s The Mystical Nativity heralds the birth of Christ, as 12 angels perform a choreographed whirl beneath a goldfish-orange aperture in the sky. This ethereal heaven was further illustrated by medieval men and women deemed mystics who entered a state of jubilus — a transcendent rhapsody of joy, triggering sensory overload. Visions often placed mystics in the cosmic presence of Christ or the Virgin Mary. Many of these narratives take a tactile — even erotic — turn fit for paperback romance novels. “They get really, you know, pretty wild,” said Dickason. Happiness in the Middle Ages was largely divorced from mortal life and was focused instead on anticipation of the promised land. Where many people today consider death an endpoint, Dickason says that people in the Middle Ages considered death to be the beginning of a new and better state of being. 24
YOU JUST HAVE TO OWN IT
As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance and its progeny, the Enlightenment, exploration of the seas and the study of nature gave humans new understanding of the world, once thought comprehensible only to the divine. America’s founding fathers, products of the Enlightenment, drew on much of this knowledge and the prevailing ethos that man controls his own destiny when designing their new republic. This was underscored in the inalienable rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” While the first two had long been held as fundamental, the pursuit of happiness was both an ambiguous and a novel idea. Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the document in 1776, provided no definitive context for what composes this patriotic quest. Better treatments for disease and an emphasis on selfreliance meant that people were no longer destined to suffer through life. With more opportunities for leisure and access to creature comforts, seeking pleasure was no longer frowned upon. Was Jefferson, then, referring to a hedonic happiness? Was he promoting the rags-to-riches story central to the American Dream? “It’s not about being happy,” says Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and the Linda and Harlan Martens Director of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute Peter Mancall. “It’s about the right to property — land, material possessions and, unfortunately, slaves.” In colonial times, only those who owned land were allowed to vote. With this in mind, we can interpret the pursuit of happiness as the equal capacity for (almost exclusively white, male) landowners to have a finger in the pie of politics. Rather than an individual right to seek pleasure, it establishes this pursuit as participation in democracy. Given the century and a half of relative success that people in the colonies had found prior to the American Revolution, it becomes clear why this notion would be a popular draw. Not only did the colonists have unprecedented freedom, research indicates that free white people were among the wealthiest per capita in the history of the world, though we should remember that their wealth came at the expense of enslaved people and Native Americans, says Mancall, professor of history and anthropology. Quality homes, fashionable clothing and books were accessible to many. And it’s hard to ignore one particularly abundant recourse for colonial woes: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” quipped Benjamin Franklin. WHILE SUPPLIES LAST
Fast forwarding to the 20th century highlights two converging cultural transformations that redirect our sense of human happiness. First, when the Industrial Revolution took people out of the fields, there was a shift in lifestyle — fewer producers and more consumers. While some think the democratized availability of goods and conveniences put the conception of a happy or fulfilling life up for sale, Professor of Art History and History Vanessa Schwartz says that consumerism isn’t always about immediate satisfaction. “It is about both today and the promise of tomorrow, and it can even help us rewrite the past,” she says. Schwartz, who directs USC Dornsife’s Visual Studies Research Institute, notes the proliferation of magazines in the
early 20th century circulating aspirational images and ideas that prompted not only a desire for instantaneous happiness but a brighter future. She contends that certain photographs and promotional imagery filled an important role in making the bombardment of new technology and experiences familiar and pleasurable rather than frightening. Schwartz’s forthcoming book, Jet Age Aesthestic (Yale University Press) explores the way that travel marketing and imagery in the early jet age, for example, made “the novel experience of hurtling through the atmosphere in a metal tube seem like one of the most glamorous ways to live.” Second, the idea of “personality” took on new life as the key to happiness, for religious and secular Americans alike. Opening the professions to women and moving the center of life outside the home empowered self-discovery and the cultivation of unique personalities. “The fluid smile and the sunny disposition,” says Richard Fox, professor of history, “chipped away at the stolid ideal of ‘character.’ Women joined men in scrambling for happiness through beaming self-assertion.” Following America’s collective bonding during World War II, the increasing choices available — both in products and values — sparked the rise of individualism. Satisfaction was no longer a house, three kids and a dog. It was the success reflected in a Rolex watch or, more recently, the health consciousness reflected in a Bowflex home gym. As people were finding fulfillment by developing their unique personality, they were adopting certain aspects of consumer culture to express themselves. Personal branding had begun.
And then came the rise of social media. Happiness, today, has become more theatre than pursuit. Instead of developing one’s personality, people develop a highlight reel of the most enviable slices of their lives. On the surface it may seem like incessant navel-gazing, yet it’s often the opposite — a highly curated performance for an external audience. It’s a coping mechanism for the new kind of status anxiety that percolates within a hyper-connected culture competing for attention; one that is not just communicating “look at me,” but also “here’s what I can offer you.” But what isn’t captured in these depictions are the calls to action that might have otherwise gone unanswered. Major challenges in the world are inspiring the next generation to look for happiness through collective and intentional endeavors. “I’m struck by how many students today are fired up by the idea of pursuing public goals in addition to private ones,” says Fox. “Yes, they want careers. But climate change, gun violence and inequality have given them pause. Character and discipline for the long haul may be making a comeback against personality.” Could it be that we are redefining eudaimonia for our hyper-connected world? Whereas the virtues that Aristotle suggested enable individuals to flourish in each moment, flourishing in the 21st century might be best accomplished by collaboration. If we accept this idea of modern happiness, then complex social problems could be solved, not by asking, “am I making the most of my talent in this moment?” but rather by demanding, “are we making the most of our talents in this moment?” Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 25
AND NOW,
LIVE FROM NEW
YORK …
Ego Nwodim ’10, now in her second season as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, graduated from USC Dornsife with a degree in biological sciences — never doubting she would succeed as an actor. By Greg Hardesty
Back when she was a student at USC Dornsife majoring in biological sciences, Ego Nwodim wouldn’t be shy about having a little fun in her organic chemistry lab. She often would break into song, startling her fellow pre-med students. “Mainly Britney Spears,” she says with a laugh. “My go-to song was ‘I’m a Slave 4U.’ ” Her classroom cohorts didn’t know it at the time, but Nwodim (pronounced “Woh-dim”; her first name is pronounced “Aye-go”) was dead set on a career as an actor. But she had to make a deal with her mother, a doctor who raised her and her three siblings, and who insisted she go to college while pursuing her dream. Always a good student growing up, Nwodim gave it a go — but knew acting was her destiny. Hence, her classroom song-and-dance escapades. “I wasn’t taking that class too seriously, I think,” says Nwodim, who graduated from USC Dornsife in 2010. “I was doing well, but I was having fun with it at the same time.” Nwodim recently reached a height to which all comedic performers aspire: becoming a cast member of Saturday Night Live, one of the most high-profile stages of all for working comedic actors. Her booking as a featured player on the long-running NBC sketch-comedy show was announced Sept. 21, 2018. Nwodim is the seventh African American female to be hired as an SNL cast member. 26
FROM BIOLOGY TO COMEDY Ego Nwodim graduated from USC Dornsife in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences. Now she’s a cast member on Saturday Night Live.
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KNEW IT AS A KID
Nwodim, who grew up in Baltimore, had known that being on stage was her calling since she was 12. She felt it in her bones. “I used to dance, and I loved performing; I started when I was 7,” she says. “Performing in front of an audience is something I really enjoyed. I also did a play when I was 12 and fell in love with (acting).
LOS ANGELES BOUND
COMEDY AND HAPPINESS
“TO BE ABLE TO MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH IS SUCH A GIFT.”
SCENE STEALER Ego Nwodim has proven to be a highly versatile SNL cast member performing a variety of memorable characters on the show.
PATH TO LAUGHTER
At USC, Nwodim minored in business and sociology, with an emphasis on social welfare. “My interests are kind of all over the place,” she says. She started taking dramatic acting classes off campus when she was a senior. Over the course of a year or two, she got a commercial agent and a manager. Comedy, at first, wasn’t on Nwodim’s radar. 28
Nwodim recalls a professor at USC whose words stuck with her. “She taught a communication class,” Nwodim says. “One day she told me, ‘You’re not cynical.’ And that’s really an important thing to carry through life.’” It’s this positive, can’t-fail mindset that has taken Nwodim far in her successful career as a working actor. And she’s just getting started. “You kind of have to know (you will succeed),” Nwodim says of professional acting. “Some of the people who don’t think they’ll make it do. But for me, I just kind of knew for sure that it was going to work out. “That’s a big part of pursuing it. I just knew that, against all odds, things were going to work out. It was nice knowing I had a college degree, but I can’t imagine a world in which I would have actually gone to medical school.” Nwodim finds a direct link between happiness and being a comedic performer. “It’s really important for me to do work — whatever work I’m doing — that adds real value to society, or impacts people’s lives for the better,” she says. “What I really think is great about comedy, and why I’m so fulfilled by performing comedy, is that it certainly brings joy to people while at the same time illuminating social issues. “And to be able to make people laugh is such a gift,” Nwodim adds. “Having purpose like that, in turn, impacts my happiness. There’s kind of a synergy going on there. I get to make people laugh, and that helps me feel fulfilled because I’m adding something to people’s lives that makes them feel joyful. “Comedy is just a very cool thing.”
P R E V I O U S PAG E: P H O T O BY M A RY E L L E N M AT T H E W S /N B C
Nwodim attended Eastern Technical High School in Essex, Maryland, near Baltimore. By the time she was a junior, she knew she had to get the best grades possible to make it into the university of her choice. And she knew she had to live in or near Los Angeles to become a successful actor. She worked hard to boost her grades during her senior year in high school, which gave her a better shot at being accepted to an L.A. university. And she was. “I kind of made a deal with my family that if they let me go to college across the country, I would go to college and major in biology as a premed student,” Nwodim says. “I remember thinking I wanted to go to UCLA. I went to visit and thought, ‘This campus is huge!’” A college guide noted that USC had out-of-state enrollment of 40 percent. “That appealed to me,” Nwodim says. “Having to move across the country, I wanted to be part of that 40 percent so it would be easier to make friends.” Moving far from home, Nwodim says, made her grow up quickly.
T O P P H O T O BY W IL L H E AT H /N B C ; B O T T O M L E F T P H O T O BY S T E V E N M O L IN A C O N T R E R A S /N B C ; B O T T O M R I G H T P H O T O BY R O S A L IN D O ’C O N N O R /N B C
“I knew I wanted to perform. I found such joy in it. I knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.” Being the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant and a first-generation United States citizen, Nwodim had some convincing to do. “As an immigrant, my mother just wanted her children to be stable and successful,” she says. “And when you say you want to pursue a career in acting, nothing about that sounds stable, and the process of achieving success as an actor is incredibly unlikely.” And yet, Nwodim’s mother was supportive. “Go all out and don’t give up,” Nwodim recalls her mother telling her. “You’ve got this.”
“(My reps) told me, based on my energy, I should consider taking improv classes,” Nwodim says. “They were really popular at the time. But I didn’t really want to because I’m stubborn. I didn’t just want to do something because it was popular. “In fact, I refused to do it for a year and a half. I finally caved and told them I would take Improv 101. But I fell in love with the class, and that’s how I discovered comedy as a viable path for me.” Nwodim knew comedy was her destiny after she made a character reel — a short demo video of her portraying different characters — and showed it to her USC friends, who knew she had come out of the acting closet. “They told me, ‘This is the most ‘you’ thing I’ve ever seen you do,’” Nwodim recalls. “And I thought, this is me. It’s kind of cool to do the thing that’s you.” Deciding to pursue a career in comedy, Nwodim took more classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in L.A. She became a regular cast member and also performed her one-woman show, Great Black Women … and Then There’s Me. Nwodim was named one of the New Faces at the 2016 Just for Laughs festival in Montreal. Supporting roles on television include Law & Order, True Crime: The Menendez Murders, 2 Broke Girls and Living Biblically. She has also made several guest appearances on the podcast Comedy Bang! Bang! And now, Nwodim’s on the big stage at SNL (her acclaimed skits include the racy “Thirsty Cops,” about two female cops hitting on a handsome man played by Seth Meyers.)
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We believe love and money will make our lives happier. But will they? Perhaps we’re
Looking for Happiness in All the Wrong Places By Susan Bell
If only we could win millions on the lottery — or failing that, at least convince our boss to give us a massive raise. And then, if we could just meet the love of our life on that new dating app, we could Instagram our perfect, exotic honeymoon pictures to all our friends and followers and then, maybe, just maybe, we could be truly happy. Scholars who study human happiness might well quibble with those common aspirations. Research shows that additional income, dating apps and social media don’t necessarily bring us the joy we think they will. One of the major misconceptions of happiness is income, notes USC Dornsife’s Norbert Schwarz, Provost Professor of Psychology and Marketing. “Everybody wants higher income and is willing to do quite a bit for that. In reality, income makes much less of a difference than we usually expect,” Schwarz says. “When you are poor, earning more money is very beneficial, but once needs are met, making more and more adds ever less to one’s well-being. “You don’t need a lot of luxury to feel good as you go through your day,” he adds. “And many high-income jobs come with long hours and high stress, which makes the day less enjoyable.” In fact, the relationship between income and life satisfaction, he notes, is relatively minor, with income explaining only about 4 percent of the variation in people’s evaluation of their life as a whole and even less in how they feel moment to moment. SWEET DREAMS
Other variables play a far greater role in improving day-to-day mood. For instance, one big factor in how you’ll feel tomorrow is how well you sleep tonight, Schwarz says. In a 2004 study, Schwarz and USC Dornsife Professor of Psychology, Economics and Health Policy and Management Arthur Stone found that the difference in mood between people who slept six hours or less, versus seven hours or more, was equivalent to earning $30,000 a year versus $90,000 a year. 30
“If you told most people, ‘You can increase your income by $60,000 if you’re willing to drive a bit longer to work, but you’ll have to sleep an hour less,’ most people would leap at the chance,” Schwarz says. “But in terms of how they feel as they go through their day, they would actually be better off getting a good night’s sleep.” HAPPINESS OVER TIME
Indeed, when it comes to income and happiness, it’s a mixed picture, says University Professor Emeritus of Economics Richard Easterlin, creator of the so-called Easterlin Paradox. His paradox states that if we look at any given point of time, on average people who have more income are happier. However, this finding is contradicted by time series data, which follows people’s happiness over a length of time as their income increases. “It’s the time series relationship that’s relevant to questions like, ‘would more money make me happy?’ ” Easterlin notes. “Because you’re thinking what’s going to happen over time as you get more money, will you become happier? And the answer to that is quite consistently ‘no.’ ” A QUESTION OF COMPARISON
This seems counterintuitive, but Easterlin explains that it’s all down to a psychological concept called “social comparison.” To illustrate how this works, he would ask students whether they would prefer their income to increase by $100,000 or by $50,000. Next, Easterlin put two situations to his students. In the first, their income increases by $100,000, but everybody else’s goes up $200,000. In the second option, their income increases by $50,000, but everybody else’s goes up $25,000. “Two thirds of my class, when I used to teach this, would shift to the second option,” Easterlin notes. “They opted for less income for themselves if it was more than others were getting.” When we evaluate our happiness, he explains, we have a comparison or reference level, a benchmark against which we judge the amount of income we get. IL L U S T R AT I O N S BY D E N N I S L A N F O R U S C D O R N S IF E M AG A Z IN E
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“We make judgments about our own income based upon what others are getting, and if others are doing a lot better than us, we tend to be less happy,” Easterlin says. So, while it is true that higher income and greater happiness do go together if we drill down to a specific point in time, once we look at the relationship between income and happiness over a period of time, then we see a very different picture — one in which higher income does not bring more happiness. “Over time, what’s happening is that the incomes of others with whom you compare yourself are going up on average to the same extent as your income goes up. So, you’re no happier,” Easterlin explains. “The increase in your own income by itself will make you happier. The increase in others’ incomes by itself, if yours didn’t change, would make you less happy. But what happens in practice is that, on average, as your income goes up, everybody else’s goes up, and the result is that nobody is happier.”
THE LONELINESS PARADOX
While we may believe that online dating will allow us to banish loneliness once and for all, Albright’s book, Left to Their Own Devices: How Digital Natives are Reshaping the American Dream (Prometheus Books, 2019), argues that online dating can, in fact, do just the opposite, resulting in increased feelings of isolation.
DIMINISHING RETURNS
A 2010 study by Nobel laureate and USC Dornsife Presidential Professor of Economics Sir Angus Deaton, co-authored with psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, found that emotional wellbeing increases with money but only up to an income of about $75,000 per annum — enough to cover the basic necessities. Any amount on top of that won’t make a huge difference to happiness. While more money does appear to increase satisfaction with your life, when it comes to improving day-to-day emotional well-being, money generates diminishing returns. As Deaton and Kahneman wrote in the study, “We conclude that high income buys life satisfaction but not happiness.” Easterlin argues that what we consider to be enough money to live happily changes over time. “What we would like to have increases with what we’re able to have, and what we consider to be the essentials of a decent or good or a happy life is not a fixed amount, it’s variable,” Easterlin notes. Easterlin sums up the problem by citing a favorite quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.” However, Easterlin refutes the idea that we’re necessarily discontented. Most people are happy, he says. “It’s just that where they think that more money will make them even happier, it does not.” LOVE NOT MONEY?
So, if more money isn’t going to make us happier over time, perhaps finding true love could be the answer. While the joy we find in our relationships has always depended on a whole host of variables, the way we are searching for love has undergone a revolution in the last decade as more and more of us are turning to dating apps in the eternal human quest for love and romance. USC Dornsife’s Julie Albright, a sociologist specializing in digital culture and communications, says the ways we now look for love in the eerie digital world of retouched self ies, “breadcrumbing,” “catf ishing” and “ghosting” are affecting us more deeply than we realize, impacting our relationships, our health — and, yes — even our well-being. 32
Dating apps promote the idea that we have endless choice. Why commit, the thinking goes, when someone better might come along? The problem with that approach, Albright argues, is that people who don’t choose will end up lonely because they’re not committing to building a relationship. Traditions like marriage or buying a home, she says, provide a guiding North Star by which people can navigate their lives. Now, young digital natives, hyper-attached to digital technologies and no longer choosing commitment and marriage, are unhooking from traditional social structures and are cast adrift — a process Albright, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology, calls “coming untethered.” A young man couldn’t try to pick up 300 women in one night at a bar, she says, but by using a dating app, he can easily throw out a thousand hooks and get 300 bites. “Taking the endgame out of courtship changes the dynamic of what dating is about. If you’re just dating in a constant churn, there’s no future and no hope on the horizon,” she said. “Instead, it becomes all about experience.” This leads to heightened levels of loneliness or anxiety, as paradoxically, instead of becoming more connected, we become increasingly separated from one another by using our devices. KICKING THE HABIT
Even if we know online dating is making us depressed, it’s not easy to stop, Albright notes. She compares using dating apps to playing one-armed bandits in Las Vegas. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and that’s why you keep going back for more,” she says. And that’s not all. Dating apps and social media also fuel a narcissistic desire for attention, satisfying primitive psychological needs for attention, affirmation and validation. “People can get very hooked on that,” she says. So how do we find true love and happiness in this lonely, addictive digital world? Albright’s advice rings as true as it is simple: Switch off your phone. “Spend time together, get to know each other, look into each other’s eyes and make building that relationship a sacred space,” she says, adding: “Just make sure it’s without the intrusion of a device.” Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 33
Finland, a land of the midnight sun up at the top of the world, is known for its intriguing history, excellent education system, flourishing culinary scene and natural wonders such as the aurora borealis. The Nordic country may be cold and remote, but it is also literally the happiest place on Earth. (Sorry, Disneyland.) The latest World Happiness Report indicates that, among citizens of the 156 countries around the globe queried by Gallup for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Finns were the most satisfied with their income, freedom, trust in their government, health, generosity 34
and social support. Most of Northern Europe was right behind them: Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands, respectively, rounded out the top-five happiest countries. These countries tend to be wealthier, though that factor alone is not what propels them to the top of the list, explains Arie Kapteyn. An economist who directs the Center for Economic and Social Research at USC Dornsife, Kapteyn studies how economic decision-making affects health and well-being. Research findings suggest that rich countries provide things that improve the quality of life, he said. “The people in these countries are healthier.
They’re safer. More educated.” He also notes that their governments are less corrupt and people feel a sense of fairness in how incomes are distributed. In Europe, there are also more social safety nets in place, from universal health care to pensions for the elderly, which play a significant role in life satisfaction. “Evidence shows that these all make a difference,” he said. HAPPINESS, RANKED Why measure happiness, and how exactly do we quantify something so subjective? Think about it like this, says Kapteyn: If we understand what makes people happy — stable
governments, good health, a secure income, a sense of community — we can structure policies that strive for those outcomes. “Happiness is really the most reasonable goal for policy,” he said.
So how do we put a number on something so nebulous? Arthur Stone explains. He directs the Center for Self-Report Science at USC Dornsife and is an expert on subjective well-being — the scientific term for happiness and life satisfaction. The World Happiness Report uses an evaluation called the “Cantril Ladder.” The method asks respondents to think of a numbered ladder, with the best possible life for them being a
10 at the top, and the worst possible life being a zero at the bottom. They then use the ladder to rate the current status of their lives in six different areas: gross domestic product per capita, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom and trust in their government. However, Stone warns that measuring happiness across cultures is not a straightforward endeavor. How people perceive what constitutes happiness, and the language that people use to describe their well-being, vary from culture to culture. “Happiness may not translate in exactly the same way across countries,” he said. A growing body of evidence in
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recent decades has revealed just how emotions can differ from country to country. Authors of a September 2004 study published by the Journal of Happiness Studies examined this very point. Americans value autonomy, so performing well on a test, or making the game-winning touchdown, for example, are considered happy moments. In North America, “happiness may most typically be construed as a state contingent on both personal achievement and positivity of the personal self,” the authors wrote. “In contrast, in East Asia, happiness is likely to be construed as a state that is contingent on social harmony.”
UNITED STATES OF UNHAPPY? Despite its prosperity, the United States ranked No. 19, down one spot from 2018 and five spots down from 2017. What gives? The report postulates that various forms of addiction — from substance abuse to overuse of digital media — play a major factor, as do lack of social connections, worsening health conditions for some of the population and declining trust in the government. But these are assumptions, Stone explains. “It’s hard to pinpoint the exact causes, especially if there isn’t specific causal evidence.”
World happiness has actually fallen in recent years, according to the report, driven by a sustained downward trend in India, which some experts attribute to the swell in its population. There has also been a recent, widespread upward trend in negative emotions such as worry, sadness and anger, particularly in Asia and Africa. Unsurprisingly, the world’s least happy countries tend to be places where citizens face challenges to their health, lack access to education, have unstable governments and face economic challenges. Countries at the bottom of the list are Rwanda, Tanzania,
Afghanistan, Central African Republic and South Sudan, which comes in last. But that doesn’t tell the whole story, says Assistant Professor of International Relations Brett Carter, who studies politics in Central Africa, particularly in countries ruled by nondemocratic governments. “We’re all the same,” Carter said. “We all want to provide for our families and we all feel profound sadness when we watch our loved ones live difficult lives.” He points to a number of stories of resilience in the face of hardship. For instance, a Cameroonian entrepreneur co-founded a mobile health
platform to help mothers and pregnant women access medical advice in remote, rural communities. “One way to think about that is whenever governments fail to provide social safety nets, communities often respond by coming together and compensating for shortcomings,” Carter said. But, where living standards are low, maternal and child mortality rates are high, safety nets are few and far between, and governments focus on their own self-interests over the well-being of citizens, finding happiness will continue to be a challenge. (Additional reporting by Emily Gersema.) Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 35
Legacy
THE SENTENCES
Faculty News MEGAN BECKER, assistant professor (teaching) of international relations, was named a Faculty Fellow at ProjectTIER (Teaching Integrity in Empirical Research). DAVID BOTTJER, professor of Earth sciences, biological sciences and environmental studies, received the 2019 Paleontological Society Medal.
of Paris, and the intellectual heart of the university was this book,” says Professor Jay Rubenstein, who recently joined USC Dornsife’s Department of History and is director of the Center for the Study of the Pre-Modern World. Despite its importance and symbolic value, The Sentences is, Rubenstein notes, “the least read of the great books. “The density of The Sentences is part of what gave the Middle Ages a bad reputation,” he says. “The idea that people
argued about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin comes from just how dull it is to read The Sentences and comment on it.” But Rubenstein nevertheless describes it as an essential manuscript. “I think there’s also kind of a real beauty to the book and its attempt to bring all knowledge together, to systemize it and to encourage people to think and argue about it,” he says. “That’s really the heart of what a university is supposed to do.
Lombard is largely an anonymous figure, but he really set the agenda that we continue to follow as educators.” —S.B.
This late 14th-century copy of The Sentences was acquired by USC in 1928 when prominent philanthropist and Professor and Dean of USC Keck School of Medicine Seeley Greenleaf Mudd, who had purchased it for $250, gifted the medieval manuscript to USC’s Hoose Library of Philosophy.
C O S T E L E W I S P H O T O B Y A M A N D A S C H W E N G E L ; B E R G E R P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F S U S A N N A B E R G E R ; N E L S O N P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F T H E J O H N D. & C AT H E R I N E T. M A C A R T H U R F O U N D AT I O N
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derives its name from the sententiae, or authoritative statements on biblical passages, gathered within its pages by its Italian-born author, Peter Lombard. For such an influential figure, relatively little is known about Lombard, except that he lived and worked in Paris in the 12th century, where he taught at the cathedral school of NotreDame, eventually rising to become Bishop of Paris in 1159. “The university system, as we think of it today, grew out
PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER
Preserved in a vault in the Special Collections of USC’s Feuchtwanger Memorial Library is an iconic symbol of university scholarship: The Four Books of Sentences (Libri Quattuor Sententiarum). This medieval Latin text served as the foundation of theological learning and higher education for 500 years, from the 12th century to the 17th century. Originally written around 1150, the archetypal university text book is a systematic compilation of theology and
ANN CRIGLER, professor of political science and policy, planning and development, received the Walter Wolf Award for Defense of Academic Freedom and Faculty Rights. WILLIAM DEVERELL, professor of history, director of the USC Libraries Initiative for Collection-Focused Research and director of the USC Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, received the Hubert Howe Bancroft Award from the Friends of the Bancroft Library. KARLA HEIDELBERG, professor (teaching) of biological sciences and environmental studies, was named Antarctic organisms and ecosystems program director for the Antarctic Sciences Section of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs. PETER MANCALL, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Linda and Harlan Martens Director of the Early Modern Studies Institute and professor of history and anthropology, was elected Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University for the 2019–20 academic year. KENNETH NEALSON, Wrigley Chair in Environmental Studies and professor of Earth sciences and biological
sciences, received the Jim Tiedje Award from the International Society for Microbial Ecology. VIET THANH NGUYEN, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English, American studies and ethnicity and comparative literature, received an honorary degree from Colgate University. ANN OWENS, associate professor of sociology and management, received a 2019 William T. Grant Scholars award. RHACEL PARREÑAS, professor of sociology and gender studies, was elected vice president of the American Sociological Association. She was also elected a member of the Sociological Research Association. STEPHANIE SCHWARTZ, assistant professor of international relations, received the Global Shifts Emerging Scholars Global Policy Prize from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. VANESSA SCHWARTZ, professor of art history and history, received a 2019 Millard Meiss Publication Fund Award from the College Art Association. KAREN TONGSON, associate professor of English, American studies and ethnicity and gender and sexuality studies, received the Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction from the Lambda Literary Foundation. JOHN WILSON, professor of sociology, civil and environmental engineering, computer science, architecture and preventive medicine and director of the USC Dornsife Spatial Sciences Institute, received the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science’s Education Award.
Alumni News 1940s
PAUL IGNATIUS (B.A., history, ’42) was honored by the U.S. Navy, which named the guided missile destroyer USS Paul Ignatius after him.
1970s
DOROTHY CHEN-MAYNARD (B.S., biological sciences, ’78) will serve three years as president-elect, president and past-president of the California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. DIANE BROOKS DIXON (B.A., political science, ’73) is serving her second term as mayor of Newport Beach, Calif. She was re-elected to the Newport Beach City Council in 2018 and re-elected as mayor by her fellow council members. SALPI GHAZARIAN (B.A., history, ’75) was named Aurora Forum Goodwill Ambassador. CHARLES JOSEPH GREAVES’ (B.A., psychology, ’78) sixth novel, Church of the Graveyard Saints (Torrey House Press, 2019), was selected by six U.S. cities to launch their inaugural “Four Corners/One Book” regional community-wide reading program for 2019–20. PAT NOLAN (B.A., political sciences, ’72; J.D.,’75) received the American Conservative Union’s highest honor, the “Award for Conservative Excellence,” at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The award honored her leadership in building the movement of conservatives committed to reforming the criminal justice system.
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HONORS
Two Writers and an Art Historian Lauded The Guggenheim Foundation and AAAS recognize exceptional USC Dornsife faculty expertise.
Robin Coste Lewis, writer in residence, and Susanna Berger, assistant professor of art history, both of USC Dornsife, have each been awarded 2019 Guggenheim Fellowships. Maggie Nelson, professor of English, is USC Dornsife’s 25th faculty member to be elected to the American Robin Coste Lewis Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). Berger and Lewis were among a diverse group of scholars, artists and scientists selected by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise. Berger will use the fellowship to help her write a book Susanna Berger that will “examine a rich trove of understudied sources, from paintings by Caravaggio’s followers to ophthalmology books to anamorphic frescoes, to uncover how Italian artists, elite collectors and scientists first theorized the notion of visual expertise,” Berger said. Lewis, who is the poet laureate of Los Angeles, will use her Guggenheim Fellowship to finish her next fullMaggie Nelson length poetry collection. “At its crux, the collection is a poetic investigation of the ways in which human beings have resisted state terror, and how that resistance, sometimes, is most powerful when it is quiet — as in the case of poetry and photography,” Lewis wrote in her statement to the Guggenheim Foundation. Nelson, a MacArthur “Genius Grant” awardee and 2010 Guggenheim Fellow, was inducted into the AAAS in October alongside former first lady Michelle Obama. Nelson’s widely lauded work focuses on feminism, queerness, sexual violence, the history of the avant-garde, aesthetic theory and philosophy. — S.B. and L.R. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 37
D O R N S I F E F A M I LY F A C U LT Y C A N O N
American Sutra
Japanese Americans were singled out for internment during World War II because of their Buddhist faith.
THE EMPIRES OF THE NEAR EAST AND INDIA: SOURCE STUDIES OF THE SAFAVID, OTTOMAN, AND MUGHAL LITERATE COMMUNITIES Columbia University Press / Hani Khafipour, assistant professor (teaching) of Iranian studies, edits and compiles a comprehensive sourcebook of newly translated texts from the Safavid, Ottoman and Mughal empires of the 15th through 18th centuries, accompanied by scholarly essays, that aims to provide a new model for the study and teaching of the early modern history of the Near East and India.
TIME’S CONVERT Viking Books / Deborah Harkness, professor (teaching) of history, presents a passionate love story and a fascinating exploration of the power of tradition and the possibilities not just for change but for revolution.
PAST FORWARD: ESSAYS IN KOREAN HISTORY Anthem Press / Kyung Moon Hwang, professor of history and East Asian languages and cultures, introduces core features of Korean history that illuminate current issues and
TWELFTH-CENTURY SCULPTURAL FINDS AT CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL AND THE CULT OF THOMAS BECKET Oxford: Oxbow Books / Carolyn Malone, professor of art history and history, reconstructs 12th-century sculptural and architectural finds, found during the restoration of the Perpendicular Great Cloister of Christ Church, Canterbury, as architectural screens constructed around 1173.
ENRIQUE MARTÍNEZ CELAYA: COLLECTED WRITINGS AND INTERVIEWS, 2010-2017 University of Nebraska Press / Enrique Martínez Celaya, Provost Professor of Humanities and Arts, presents selections of writings that trace the intellectual influences and track the development of one of the more formidable and productive minds in the contemporary art world.
RADICAL BOTANY: PLANTS AND SPECULATIVE FICTION FROM EARLY TO LATE MODERNITY Fordham University Press / Natania Meeker, associate professor of French and comparative literature, and Antónia Szabari, associate professor of French and comparative literature, reveal the centuries-long history by which science and the arts have combined to posit plants as the model for all animate life.
REVISITING MINJUNG: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF 1980s SOUTH KOREA
THE HEARTBEAT OF WOUNDED KNEE: NATIVE AMERICA FROM 1890 TO THE PRESENT Riverhead Books / David Treuer, professor of English, melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing Native American tribes’ distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival.
C AMPBELL PHOTO BY KE VIN SULLIVAN, OR ANGE COUNT Y REGIS TER /SCNG
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THINKING IN THE PAST TENSE: EIGHT CONVERSATIONS University of Chicago Press / Frederic Clark, assistant professor of classics, with co-author Alexander Bevilacqua, presents a collection of conversations with leading scholars from such diverse fields as the history of science, the reception of classical antiquity, book history, global philology, and the study of material culture.
INTERNMENT CAMP PHOTO COURTESY OF DUNCAN WILLIAMS
When 10-year-old California-born Masumi Kimura rushed home to her Japanese parents after the attack on Pearl Harbor, she found her father being beaten by men in suits and her mother sitting at the kitchen table of their Central Valley home, very still, while a man held a shotgun to her head. The men in suits were FBI agents and the little girl’s father had been targeted because of his prominent position in the local Buddhist temple, explains Duncan Williams, a Buddhist priest and professor of religion, East Asian languages and cultures and American studies and ethnicity at USC Dornsife. This revealing incident appears in American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War (Harvard University Press, 2019), Williams’ bestseller. The book explores the role of Buddhism in the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. While most historians have argued it was racial animosity that put Japanese Americans — and not German Americans or Italian Americans — into internment camps, Williams’ research reveals another significant factor. “In addition to race, religion played a major role in the assessment by U.S. government and army officials of this majority Buddhist community as a threat to national security,” Williams said. Williams was inspired to write the book after translating an internment diary written by his mentor’s father. Research for the book turned into a 17-year labor of love. Williams translated many more internment diaries, interviewed more than 100 camp survivors and spent several years in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Two thirds of the Japanese Americans interned were American citizens, Williams notes, yet they were refused foundational American values of due process, judicial equality and religious freedom. “Despite being told they don’t belong,” Williams said, “they persisted in their practice of Buddhism, and ironically, in so doing may manifest a very fundamental American principle about religious freedom.” —S.B.
University of Michigan Press / Sunyoung Park, associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures and gender and sexuality studies, brings new themes, new subjectivities and new theoretical perspectives to the study of the rich ecosystem of 1980s Korean culture. Also by Sunyoung Park: READYMADE BODHISATTVA: THE KAYA ANTHOLOGY OF SOUTH KOREAN SCIENCE FICTION Kaya Press.
pressing concerns, including recent political upheavals, social developments and cultural shifts.
JAPAN’S CARNIVAL WAR: MASS CULTURE ON THE HOME FRONT, 1937–1945 Cambridge University Press / Benjamin Uchiyama, assistant professor of history, introduces readers to five symbolic figures that represent both the suppression and proliferation of cultural life in wartime Japan and demonstrate that “carnival war” coexisted with total war to promote consumerist desire versus sacrifice, fantasy versus nightmare and beauty versus horror.
BEVERLY QUAIL (B.A., history, ’71) has been elected to a three-year term on the board of governors of the American Bar Association representing District 11. She will serve on the board’s finance committee and be a liaison to the association’s Commission on Women in the Profession and Commission on Disability Rights.
awarded the distinction of Fellow of the American Pharmacists Association by the association’s Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management.
1980s
DAVID JONES (B.A., psychology ’84; Ph.D., psychology, ’91) was re-elected president of the Alpha Chi National College Honor Society during the organization’s national convention in April in Cleveland, Ohio.
CECILIA MENJÍVAR (B.A., psychology, ’81) holds the Dorothy L. Meier Endowed Chair and is professor of sociology at UCLA.
PHIL KUBEL (B.A., social sciences and communications, ’96) has been named director of the Hollywood Professional Association.
MAXIMILIAN FUHRMANN (B.A., psychology, ’81; M.A., psychology, ’84; Ph.D., psychology, ’88) started a weekly video and audio show for the aging called Age Well with Dr. Max.
BRIAN THOMAS PALLASCH (B.A., international relations, ’87) has been selected as International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants’ new CEO. FRANK REXACH (B.A., international relations, ’81) joins Asia Society as the new executive director for Southern California, based in Los Angeles. He has also been appointed as a new board member of the USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association. GEORGE SANTA ANNA (B.A., international relations, ’84), an attorney at GMSA Legal, has been appointed a member of the board of directors at the Los Angeles Education Partnership. He is also a current member of the board of directors of the Friends of the Los Angeles Law Library. CRAIG SIMMONS (B.A., political science, ’86) has been appointed new chief of human evolution, more commonly known as chief people officer, at Oh My Green. JOHN YUEN (B.A., psychology, ’84; PharmD, ’88) was
1990s
VICTOR AGADJANIAN (M.S., sociology, ’92; Ph.D., sociology, ’95) is professor of sociology at UCLA.
LAILA LALAMI (M.A., linguistics, ’94; Ph.D., linguistics, ’97) published an excerpt from her book The Other Americans in the Summer 2019 issue of Ploughshares. ARTHUR OCHOA (B.A., history, ’90) was named Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science’s board of trustees chair. He is the first Latino to hold the position. BRANDOM SHAMIM (B.A., political science, ’94; B.A., international relations, ’94) was selected to serve on the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation Board. He also serves on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, manages a business advisory practice and is an adjunct university professor.
2000s
BRADFORD HUGHES (B.A., economics, ’03) has joined Clark Hill LLP as a member of the firm’s Los Angeles office litigation practice. Continued on page 42.
TROJANA LIT Y
California’s youngest ever female mayor
Tara Campbell was elected mayor of her hometown at age 25, two years after earning her political science degree.
Alumna Tara Campbell often finds herself compared with Leslie Knope, the enthusiastic small-town politician played by Amy Poehler on the popular sitcom Parks and Recreation. Campbell, who was elected mayor of Yorba Linda, California, in December 2018, is the youngest female mayor in United States history of a town with a population of more than 30,000 — and California’s youngest ever female mayor. Campbell originally wanted to become a sports journalist. But when a C-SPAN internship fell through, she interned for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit No Labels, which combats partisan dysfunction in government. “I realized if you want to see a change, you’ve got to be part of that change, and so I started getting involved,” she said. Campbell added political science to her major, and in 2014, she was appointed to Yorba Linda’s Parks and Recreation Commission. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science from USC Dornsife and broadcast and digital journalism from USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and an MPA in public administration from USC Price School of Public Policy the following year, she ran successfully for Yorba Linda City Council in 2016. She was 23. Two years later, Campbell’s four colleagues on the council unanimously voted her mayor, a title she holds in conjunction with her job as communications director for County of Orange Supervisor Andrew Do. A Republican, Campbell emphasizes fiscal responsibility, public safety and communication. This year, she launched a program to help high school students learn about city government in a nonpartisan way. Lamenting the current state of national politics, Campbell argues that local government can offer an uplifting alternative. The secret, she says, is respect. “We have a great relationship with our current council because although we don’t always agree, we do respect each other. That makes it possible to … move things forward.” —S.B. Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 39
H A PP Y FA M I L I E S DARBY SAXBE Associate Professor of Psychology Does the family make us happy? It depends. Tolstoy wrote, “Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But happy families are unique, too, and no family ever manages to abide in perpetual happiness or constant despair. Here’s what we know from the research: Families matter to well-being. Stable family relationships protect us from stress and promote health. Married people live longer than single people, and social isolation carries a greater public health toll than smoking, obesity and alcoholism. Stress hormones react less intensely to threat when a partner is nearby. Holding hands with a spouse or parent dampens the brain’s response to electric shock. At the same time, relationship conflict taxes the body. Partners heal more slowly from injuries after arguing with their spouse. Heart attacks spike following a divorce. And bringing home a baby creates greater upheaval in life satisfaction than unemployment or bereavement. The effects of adverse family relationships can be enduring: Children raised in unhappy families show more diabetes, heart disease and mental health problems in late life. In short, the family can serve both as a haven from outside storms and a tempest that rages within its own walls. No two families are the same. One person might name just their partner as “chosen family,” while others live in multigenerational households or families formed and reformed by adoption, divorce and remarriage. However, families typically live together, pool resources, share ties of kinship, obligation and commitment, and coordinate their language, emotions and behaviors. Other social groups also exhibit these characteristics, but rarely with the same intensity or duration. Family members therefore have greater potential to get under each other’s skin, literally and figuratively. For children, the family environment also has primacy; that is, the family typically constitutes the first social environment into which a child emerges and offers a template for the larger world. Trends in migration, housing and social change have shrunk the average household size, meaning fewer extended family members to help care for the elderly and raise the next generation. Most families now consist of two wage earners, but our institutions lag behind: The United States is one of the few industrialized nations without paid family leave or universal child care. Public systems and policies can affect families deeply in sectors ranging from incarceration, immigration, health care and education, making the personal political. USC Dornsife recently awarded seed funding to our faculty working group on the Changing Family to explore these issues and others. Comprising faculty from psychology, sociology, social work, gerontology, medicine, English and law, we trace the impact of stress within a family context on health outcomes that range from obesity to preterm birth to dementia. We use diverse methodological and statistical tools, and our research extends across the life span, from infants to adolescents, newlyweds to retirees. We plan to collaborate on research and public outreach to the media, policymakers and to families themselves, seeking our own answers to the question of when and how families make us happy. Learn more about the USC Center for the Changing Family here: dornsife.usc.edu/labs/usc-ccf/ PORTRAIT BY PETER ZHAOYU ZHOU PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER/HAPPY FAMILY GAME BY MY FAMILY BUILDERS
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D O R N S I F E F A M I LY ALUMNI AND STUDENT CANON (B.A., creative writing and art history, ’06) casts a mythical, lyrical and sweeping tale grounded in true but little-known history that subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West.
DARA PURVIS (B.A., political science, ’03) was selected Penn State Law’s first associate dean for diversity and inclusion in 2018. She became professor of law and associate dean for research and partnerships in 2019.
2010s COLLISIONS AT THE CROSSROADS: HOW PLACE AND MOBILITY MAKE RACE University of California Press / Genevieve Carpio (Ph.D., American studies and ethnicity, ’13) offers a compelling and perceptive analysis of spatial mobility through physical movement and residence.
INTERSECTIONALLIES: WE MAKE ROOM FOR ALL Dottir Press / Chelsea Johnson (Ph.D., sociology, ’19), with USC Dornsife Ph.D. students LaToya Council and Carolyn Choi, pens a children’s book about intersectional feminism that encourages readers to embrace, rather than shy away from, difference.
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THE ARTIST AS ANIMAL IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE Palgrave Macmillan / Claire Nettleton (B.A., French and communication, ’04; Ph.D., French, ’10) traces the evolution of the relationship between artists and animals in fiction from the Second Empire to the fin de siècle, examining visual literature examples inspired by the struggles of artists such as Edouard Manet and Vincent van Gogh.
INLAND: A NOVEL Penguin Random House / Téa Obreht
THE ENLIGHTENED CAPITALISTS: CAUTIONARY TALES OF BUSINESS PIONEERS WHO TRIED TO DO WELL BY DOING GOOD HarperCollins / James O’Toole (B.A., humanities, ’66) analyzes the complicated history of business people who tried to marry the pursuit of profits with virtuous organizational practices — from British industrialist Robert Owen to American retailer John Cash Penney and such modern-day entrepreneurs as Anita Roddick and Tom Chappell.
WEAVING MODERNISM: POSTWAR TAPESTRY BETWEEN PARIS AND NEW YORK Yale University Press / Kay Wells (Ph.D., art history, ’14) presents an unprecedented study that reveals tapestry’s role as a modernist medium and a model for the movement’s discourse on both sides of the Atlantic in the decades following World War II.
SHELLEY JELINEO (B.A., biology, ’14; B.A., health and humanities, ’14) graduated from Case Western Medical School on May 19 and is currently employed as an ophthalmology resident at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio. LIZETTE SALAS (B.A., sociology, ’11), former Kingsmill champ, participated in LPGA’s Drive On campaign. PHILLIP SMITH (B.A., sociology, ’10; EML, ’12) retired from the Los Angeles Police Department as captain and commanding officer of the Rampart Patrol Division after 31 years. He remains on the USC Trojan Baseball Alumni Association board of directors.
Marriages and Births
KRISTEN WONG ABERGAS (B.S., biochemistry, ’06; B.S., dental hygiene, ’11) and ROB ABERGAS (B.S., electrical engineering, ’06) welcomed their second son, Blake Wong Abergas, on June 7, 2019, in Orange, CA. SARAH AGUILAR (B.S., human biology, ’14) and SEAN VREEBURG (DDS, dentistry, ’14) married on June 22, 2019. CERES BOTROS (B.A., art history, ’04) and MICHAEL MIGDAL
Verdes, CA (02/21/2019) at age 92; veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps and of the U.S. Air Force Reserve as first lieutenant; former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
ERIN RICHEY (B.S., exercise science, ’99) welcomed son Thomas James on Sept. 13, 2017.
MARY ELLEN KING (B.A., English, ’47) of Honolulu, HI (02/21/2019) at age 93; first-grade teacher at the Punahou School; volunteer at Castle Hospital and the Library for the Blind; lover of animals.
JASMINE MORA TORRES (B.A., sociology, ’14) married her Trojan sweetheart, CHRISTY MORA (B.A., English, ’13), on July 20, 2019, in Pasadena, CA.
In Memoriam
PETER KLASSEN (M.A., history, ’58; Ph.D., history, ’62) of Fresno, CA (03/25/2019) at age 88; teacher at Fresno Pacific University and dean of social sciences at California State University, Fresno; loved teaching, travel, writing and reading.
MICHAEL TEILHARD BIRTEL (B.A., philosophy, ’92) of New Orleans, LA (03/1/2019) at age 50; producer of documentaries; enjoyed modern art and music. DORA LEE DURST (B.A., international relations, ’53) of Santa Monica, CA (07/16/2019) at age 87; devoted wife and mother; involved in Trojan League, Orphan Guild and Pi Beta Phi sorority; known for her chocolate chip cookies.
WENDY LAPIDUS-SALTZ (M.S., English and linguistics, ’82) of Northbrook, IL (03/25/2019) at age 61; lover of writing and language; advertising creative director; passionate about justice, fairness and equal rights.
DOUGLAS JOSEPH FORD (M.A., international relations, ’69) of Dixon, CA (02/14/2019) at age 87; former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel; Solano County Board of Education trustee and reporter columnist; book collector and lover of nature.
CLIFFORD GOON SHIU LUM (B.A., psychology, ’74) of Garden Grove, CA (02/23/2019) at age 67; high school teacher; worked with the developmentally disabled; involved in Boy Scouts of America, baseball and various social causes.
MATTHEW GASPARICH (B.A., political science, ’04; B.A., history, ’04) of Seattle, WA (2/23/2019) at age 36; legislative aide for Washington State Sen. Reuven Carlyle; president of Fremont Neighborhood Council; president of Maritime Training Services; athlete and journalist. THOMAS PATRICK HODGKISS (B.A., social sciences, ’61) of Los Angeles, CA (03/26/2019) at age 80; avid sports fan; owner and founder of Hendricks-Hodgkiss Insurance Brokers. WILLIAM JOHNSTON (B.A., natural sciences and mathematics, ’49) of Rancho Palos
NICHOLAS MARTIN (B.A., German, ’59) of Pasadena, CA (03/25/2019) at age 87; served as Pasadena City College men’s water polo head coach for 27 seasons; member of the gold medalwinning 1952 and 1956 Hungarian Olympic water polo teams. PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIC APPLEMAN
THE OTHER AMERICANS Pantheon / Laila Lalami (Ph.D., linguistics, ’97) examines the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant in what is at once a family saga, a murder mystery and a love story, all of it informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.
SOLUTIONOMICS: INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR ACHIEVING AMERICA’S ECONOMIC POTENTIAL Post Hill Press / Chris Macke (B.A., political science, ’92) delivers innovative solutions for achieving America’s economic potential based on delivering a better return on investment to the American taxpayer and small business owners.
MAXIM DOBRUSHIN (B.A., creative writing,’12) completed his Ph.D. in literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz in December 2018 and is now serving as the founder and president of Northern California marketing agency Quantum Lógos.
(B.A., biological sciences, ’08) were married on April 26, 2019, at USC’s Little Chapel of Silence on the University Park campus.
PATRICK CHARLES ROARK (B.A., social sciences and communication, ’72) of Boise, ID (9/9/2018) at age 69; admired business associate; semi-professional baseball player; accomplished skier.
RENE BERNARD WATTS (B.A., history, ’47) of Torrance, CA (06/4/2019) at the age of 97; proudly served in the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II; taught physical education, health and math, and coached most of his 38 years at Los Angeles schools.
R EMEMBER ING
KIMBERLY WOEBER (M.S., exercise physiology, ’80; Ph.D., exercise physiology, ’82) of Aiken, SC (03/10/2019) at age 63; created the University of South Carolina, Aiken (USCA) Wellness Center and associated programs; created USCA’s exercise science major; co-developed the Aiken County Cardiac Rehabilitation Program; accomplished in swimming, basketball, tennis and golf. JOY WOODARD (B.A., fine art, ’47) of Eugene, OR (04/03/2019) at age 95; wife, mother and philanthropist; professional watercolor artist; animal lover, seamstress, golfer and world traveler; great cook. ABIGAIL WYMAN (B.A., anthropology, ’57) of Forest Grove, OR (03/21/2019) at age 84; avid historian, gardener and dog lover.
Trailblazing Biochemist
SEND ALUMNI NEWS FOR CONSIDERATION TO USC Dornsife Magazine SCT-2400, Los Angeles, CA 90015 or submit online at dornsife.usc. edu/alumni-news. Information may be edited for space.
Emeritus Professor of Biological Sciences Michael Appleman, a trailblazer in the field of cellular signaling who championed biochemistry and molecular biology at USC Dornsife, died April 10. He was 85. Born in Los Angeles on June 13, 1933, Appleman joined USC Dornsife in 1966. He performed important and highly influential studies on cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases — the enzymes that regulate the molecules that send messages between cells. His findings were important for the pharmacological industry, particularly with respect to heart function. “Mike was a biochemist of the first rank,” said Myron Goodman, professor of biological sciences and chemistry. “His students went on to obtain coveted faculty positions in top-tier research universities and medical schools, including departmental chairs. Mike’s intellectual and creative powers were, in National Institutes of Health parlance, ‘outstanding.’ ” Appleman worked hard to enhance undergraduate education, which he believed was of utmost importance. He served as director of instructional programs for the Department of Biological Sciences and as department chair from 1982–86. Appleman sought to increase science literacy through his work on the TroyBridge program and USCience, a program to engage high school students and teachers. In the late 1980s, Appleman created and co-taught an innovative course on AIDS as a way to engage nonscience majors. Appleman retired in 2001 but continued as an active emeritus professor. Describing his father as “pretty mellow,” Appleman’s son Miguel Appleman said, “As lives go, his was spectacular in terms of happiness.” —S.B.
Listings for the “Alumni News” and “In Memoriam” sections are compiled based on submissions from alumni and USC Dornsife departments as well as published notices from media outlets.
dornsife.usc.edu/alumni-news
Beloved teacher and outstanding biochemist whose career at USC Dornsife spanned more than 35 years, Michael Appleman pioneered research into cellular signaling.
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TROJA N COMM U NIT Y COFFEE AND CONVERSATION And a little breakfast, to boot. USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller welcomed Trojan Family Weekend attendees to a morning reception on Nov. 1 on the University Park campus’ Pardee Lawn. The breakfast kicked off day two of the annual four-day event in which parents and family members immersed themselves in Trojan culture. Attendees heard USC President Carol L. Folt speak, listened to faculty presentations, attended classes, cheered the Trojan football team and, most important, connected with their student.
P H O T O S B Y M I K E G L I E R ; P R E S I D E N T F O LT P H O T O B Y G U S R U E L A S
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President Folt Carol L. Folt was formally inaugurated as USC’s 12th president on Sept. 20.
“Working as Trojans together, there are no limits on the power of change that we have.” Fall 2019 / Winter 2020 | 3
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