Seen and Heard

Beyond Classrooms

Twenty-six students representing seven USC schools received a challenge: split into teams and create a solution to help refugees caught up in the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II. A documentary film crew recorded what happened next.

The students took part in “Innovation in Engineering Design for Global Challenges,” a course at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering that sends graduate and undergraduate students to areas facing global crises. The teams have only two semesters and $6,000 each to improve sanitation, shelters, electricity, mental health, education, security and access to information.

The documentary Lives Not Grades follows students as they head to a camp in Moria, Greece, where they partner with refugees to create portable showers, insulated jackets, water carriers and more. The film, which premiered on PBS in June, offers a candid look at the innovation process, the importance of learning from failure and the role of technology and education in our changing world.

Watch it online at uscne.ws/LivesNotGrades.

THIS CIVILIAN LIFE

The CBS sitcom United States of Al follows two men adjusting to civilian life in America—one is a Marine combat veteran and the other is an interpreter who served with him in Afghanistan. It’s a show with some Trojan flavor. Among the USC connections: David Goetsch, one of the show’s producers and a USC School of Cinematic Arts adjunct professor; and Chase Millsap MPP ’16, a writer and consultant who served three tours in Iraq. Josh Emerson MSW ’21 also lent his expertise to the show’s writing team, giving insight on the struggles that relocated interpreters face. A U.S. Army veteran, Emerson was a case worker with No One Left Behind, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting interpreters who serve with American soldiers. Though the show is fictional, the creative team hopes to both entertain and raise awareness about veterans and relocated interpreters. Says Millsap: “It’s about creating content that matters for people.”

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Friends Forever

The last time Anne Marie Wahrenberg (top) and Ilse Grebenschikoff saw each other, the best friends were 8 years old. It was spring 1939 in Berlin; shortly afterward, their families fled Germany, driven out by the escalating violence of the Nazi regime.

Wahrenberg and her parents departed for Chile. The Grebenschikoffs headed to China. The two girls lost contact until a dedicated archivist at USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History reunited them after 80 years.

The archivist, Ita Gordon, made the connection after hearing Wahrenberg mention a long-lost best friend during an online panel. Inspired, Gordon scoured the foundation’s archives for clues—and eventually located the once-little girl Wahrenberg had never forgotten. The friends met online, with Grebenschikoff calling from New Jersey and Wahrenberg from Santiago, Chile. It only took minutes for them to hit it off again. “Even after all these years,” Wahrenberg says, “it feels like we never stopped talking.” The heartwarming reunion story was featured in The Washington Post, the Tampa Bay Times, Global News and more.