Trojan Family Magazine Spring 2017

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P ILLARS OF ST RENGT H A generous naming gift for the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work empowers a new generation of social workers.

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scene Samuel Grodin DMA ’16 and his piano “float” on the water of Leavey Library’s reflecting pool in an artsthemed video that runs during USC’s televised athletic events. Watch it at bit.ly/USCartsvideo. (Don’t worry: It’s artistic magic. No pianos were harmed during production.)

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PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

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Each day at The Kahala we are grateful for the opportunity to make your stay unforgettable. The Spirit of Aloha has never been greater at The Kahala. We can’t wait to share it with you.

Time is precious. Spend it graciously.

1.800.367.2525

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Editor’s Note When times get tough, social workers are there.

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President’s Page There’s no stopping Trojans when they embody the “Fight On” spirit.

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Seen and Heard Your take on USC stories from our magazine and the social web.

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News Business students tackle global challenges, surprising science and an architectural puzzler.

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Shaking Up the System

By Joanna Clay A USC Gould professor makes the case for accessible legal help.

inside

Get to know the Trojans in our photo shoot at bit.ly/socialworkstudents.

20 Improving with Age

By Orli Belman USC defensive lineman Stevie Tu’ikolovatu wants to help the elderly age with dignity.

24 The Road to Recovery

By Jamie Wetherbe A Boston Marathon bombing survivor finds a path forward.

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Medicine in Miniature

By Koren Wetmore From reattaching fingers to restoring skin lost to cancer, surgeons are doing what was once unthinkable.

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The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work empowers a new generation of dedicated social workers. By Lynn Lipinski

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COVER AND INSIDE PHOTOS BY CODY PICKENS

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Pillars of Strength Spiritual Journeys For students seeking spiritual answers, USC can be a welcoming place to explore beliefs and build interfaith understanding. By Lisa Butterworth

Alumni News Honoring USC Trustee Rick Caruso ’80, USC Annenberg alumnae in sports broadcasting, and catching up with student body presidents.

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Class Notes Who’s doing what and where?

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Now and Again Air Force ROTC cadets have made their mark at USC since 1947.

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A Century of Service After some 100 years, relations between USC and the nation’s armed forces have never been stronger. By Diane Krieger

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Hands-on History USC Dornsife history students use technology and innovation to breathe new life into the past. By Diane Krieger usc trojan family

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e d i t o r’ s n o t e

The quarterly magazine of the University of Southern California E DI TO R-I N- CHI EF

Alicia Di Rado M ANAGI NG E DI TOR

Elisa Huang SE NI O R E DI TO R

The Social Network Until my early 30s, if you’d asked me what social workers do, my answer would have been simple: They help needy families get on their feet and protect children who are abused.

It wasn’t until I started working at a cancer hospital and research center that I got to know social workers firsthand. They taught me that their field stretches far beyond child welfare. These social workers met regularly with cancer patients and their spouses, parents and children. They listened to patients’ fears and helped them solve everyday problems.

Several of these caring professionals were proud graduates of USC (a fact that became especially evident during football season). That shouldn’t have been a surprise: One of every 20 master’s-level social workers nationwide is a USC graduate. Whatever their specialty area, from family counseling to mental health, USC social work alumni help people find the strength and resources to move forward with their lives.

In this issue of USC Trojan Family Magazine, you’ll get a glimpse at how the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work has advanced social work in a variety of fields. Its graduates reach out to military veterans in need and connect their family members to services. Its students and faculty conduct research on important issues such as homelessness, building data for social programs based on hard evidence. These alumni, professors and students make us all proud to be part of the Trojan Family.

Diane Krieger PRO DUCT I O N M ANAG ER

Mary Modina I NT E RACT I VE CO NT E NT MANAG ER

Patricia Lapadula

ART DI RE CTO R

Sheharazad P. Fleming DE SI GN AND PRO DUCTION

Julie Savasky, Pentagram Design, Austin

CO NT RI BUTO RS

Laurie Bellman James Feigert Tyson Gaskill Judith Lipsett

Russ Ono Susanica Tam Claude Zachary

PUBLI SHE R

Alicia Di Rado Editor-In-Chief, USC Trojan Family Magazine

Minne Ho M ARKE T I NG M ANAG ER

Rod Yabut ADVE RT I SI NG I NQ UIRIES

Kristy Day | kday@lamag.com

USC Trojan Family Magazine 3434 S. Grand Ave., CAL 140 Los Angeles, CA 90089-2818 magazines@usc.edu | (213) 740-2684 USC Trojan Family Magazine (ISSN 8750-7927) is published in March, June, September and December by USC University Communications.

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p r e s i d e n t’ s p a g e

The Trojan Spirit

PHOTO BY JOHN MCGILLEN

b y c. l. m a x n i k i a s At USC, we’re still smelling roses!

The Rose Bowl game in January was a wonderful, thrilling start to our year. Our last-second win against Penn State will no doubt go into the history books as one of college football’s greatest comebacks, capping the Trojans’ triumphant return to one of our nation’s most beloved bowl traditions. What a sweet victory!

And while we take tremendous pride in the win, it wasn’t just the result that mattered, but the manner in which we won. Our Trojans fought hard and never gave up. After a dogged third-quarter rally that gave Penn State a 15-point lead, many had written us off. But the atmosphere among the Trojans was very different.

Niki and I could sense their determination. Head Coach Clay Helton kept his calm, and quarterback Sam Darnold showed his mettle, never once losing that steely focus that would carry us to victory. Two Trojan greats—Marcus Allen and Ronnie Lott ’81— remained confident: “We’ve got this,” they said to me, even when USC was down by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. “We’ve got time.”

It was a special moment: watching the determination of the past generations root for the determination of the present generation. It’s this resolve that defines a Trojan, and this same resolve that makes us all so proud to be a part of the Trojan Family.

Our unsurpassed athletic tradition is the glue that binds our Trojan Family across generations and continents. When we see our team showing such resolve in the toughest of circumstances, we feel doubly proud.

Our pride extends to all our sports, and Lynn Swann ’74, who was appointed athletic director last year, is further strengthening our commitment to our student-athletes—to their academic success, to their dedication to sportsmanship and to their championship goals. Our football team’s spirit this past season has been mirrored by our men’s basketball team, which energized crowds at the Galen Center, and stands poised to build on this momentum. And our women student-athletes had an exceptionally strong year. tfm.usc.edu

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USC proudly earned the Women’s Capital One Cup, which recognizes the finest women’s athletics program in the country. This honor was backed up by a string of national titles among our women’s teams in beach volleyball, water polo and soccer.

And of course, we all still recall the remarkable performances last summer by Trojans at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. What a joy to watch Allyson Felix ’08 float over the track and Katinka Hosszú ’12 cut through the water! We also saw Andre De Grasse assert his place among the world’s elite sprinters, and Murphy Troy dig deep for his teammates on the volleyball court. They showed that Trojans—more than anyone else—embody the Olympic ideal: excellence in body, mind and spirit.

Whenever our Trojans succeed as the nation and even the world watches, we do more than celebrate a victory—we celebrate the indomitable optimism, determination and commitment to excellence that continue to inspire us in all our work.

Fight On!

USC Athletic Director Lynn Swann, left, Coach Clay Helton, Niki C. Nikias and C. L. Max Nikias celebrate USC’s victory at the Rose Bowl in January.

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What’s the Trojan Family talking about?

Share your thoughts with us on social media or drop us an email.

seen and heard Musings about Trojan life and USC Trojan Family Magazine from mail, email and the online world.

FRONT ROW TO HISTORY

1932 Sold newspapers during the Olympic Games 1935 Climbed the 8-foot-high perimeter fence to sneak into football games

Thinking Big Using filmmaking as a tool to highlight social change, Big Data: Biomedicine is a 22-minute film that explores how big data will propel the future of medicine and potentially accelerate discoveries and treatments. Written and produced by Michael Taylor, a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and executive director of the USC Media Institute for Social Change, the film features influential researchers including Arthur Toga, director of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, and David Agus, founding director of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC. The researchers show how big data is becoming a powerful force to treat patients and save lives.

Watch the video on YouTube at bit.ly/BigDataBiomedicine.

STAY

IN

1943 While in the U.S. Navy, marched during football games

After a slow start to the 2016-17 football season, the Trojans finished off the year on a high note. In one of the most exciting games in Rose Bowl history, quarterback Sam Darnold led an 80-yard drive that tied the game with mere minutes left. An interception and field goal later, USC had notched a dramatic win that put fans and sports media into a frenzy.

As ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura put it, “USC’s 52-49 victory over Penn State in the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual will be remembered for a number of reasons, but it might go down as the day Darnold broke through as a national star—if he wasn’t already.”

The triumph in Pasadena may have left quite a few Trojan faithful hoarse the next day. It also prompted a happy alumnus to write in.

What a game! Watched it at the Blake Street Tavern in Denver with about 100 other Trojans. A very good time.

And today I receive a tremendous USC Trojan Family Magazine. ’SC is doing a lot of good things, and f inally a good coach. Fight On! David Ferlic EdD ’88

TOUCH

Like us University of Southern California

Tweet us @TrojanFamilyMag

Email us magazines@usc.edu

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1937 Saw USC Athletics Hall of Famers Earle Meadows ’37 (pictured) and Bill Sefton ’37 break world records for pole vault

Coming up Roses

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Follow us @uscedu

Write us 3434 S. Grand Ave. CAL 140 L.A., CA 90089-2818

#LOVE U S C Looking for Trojan spirit on Instagram? Hundreds of USC fans have proudly shared their cardinal-and-gold devotion by tagging their photos with #LoveUSC. Check out the page at bit.ly/LoveUSC to see what the Trojan Family is up to around the world, and use the hashtag on your own Instagram photos to claim your spot in the family album.

MEADOWS PHOTO COURTESY OF USC ATHLETICS

Trojan WWII veteran Robert W. Ritzel ’45 wrote to us after our Spring 2016 issue asked for readers’ favorite stories about the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (“Now and Again,” pg. 72).

The 93-year-old alum sent a list of his experiences in which the Coliseum played a feature role:

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TROJAN

PHOTO BY SHEHARAZAD FLEMING

SKYWARD It’s not even open yet, but this USC landmark is already getting its share of attention.

USC Village’s clock tower rises 145 feet above the ground and sits atop Leavey Honors Hall, which houses the McCarthy Honors College and the Honors Residence Hall. When the $700 million USC Village residential-retail complex opens on the University Park Campus in August, Leavey Honors Hall will provide a living-learning community for about 600 freshmen.

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trojan news

BUSINESS PLAN: BUILDING FARMS IN ANGOLA INSPIRATION: Suzana Amoes, who was born in Angola, wanted to help her country recover from its civil war. “Any time I went back home to Angola I saw the problems… but I never had the opportunity to pursue a business,” she says.

TAKING ACTION: Amoes and two other USC students created Terra Limpa, a company that acquires land once filled with mines at below-market rates. They hire farmers to work the land and provide tools, seeds and fertilizer. The company generates revenue by selling the goods produced.

BUSINESS PLAN: AN UBER FOR WHEELCHAIRS INSPIRATION: Alex Aldana, a master’s student at the Brittingham Lab, has cerebral palsy. “One of the issues I find for myself and other people with limited mobility is transportation,” Aldana says. He relies on public transit and also uses county services, the latter requiring 24-hour advance booking.

An on-demand transportation service, like Uber, tailored to people with mobility issues would be life-changing, he says.

TAKING ACTION: Aldana hopes that with his app, which is still in the planning phase, people could book rides quickly and easily.

Point of Impact At Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab, students tackle global challenges.

Three years ago, when Adlai Wertman devised the USC Marshall School of Business’ master’s program for social entrepreneurship—a field using business strategies to address social challenges like poverty—he told himself he’d be happy if 15 people applied to it.

He got more than seven times that number. Turns out he was onto something.

Because of its basis in business, the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab is unlike any other social impact program. It’s housed in a business school with a curriculum devoted to using those skills to solve global problems, explains Wertman, a professor of entrepreneurship and the lab’s founding director. Students create business concepts and apply those skills to improve communities from busy metropolises to small villages.

JOANNA CLAY

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BUSINESS PLAN: A WATER FILTER PROGRAM TO SUPPORT ENTREPRENEURSHIP INSPIRATION: When he was 15, Kevin Kassel started a nonprofit that provided water filters to communities in India, Vietnam and other places that lacked access to clean water. At the Brittingham Lab, the undergraduate decided to spin off the charity with a new business called Aqus.

TAKING ACTION: Aqus sells water filters to villagers, who in turn can sell the clean water, turning them into water entrepreneurs. It operates in Nigeria, Pakistan, Ecuador, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Ghana and Sierra Leone.

BUSINESS PLAN: A YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM IN UGANDA INSPIRATION: Before starting the Brittingham master’s program, Charity Prado went to Uganda, where she spent six months overseeing a youth leadership program and helping women learn trades and receive microfinancing.

TAKING ACTION: The experience led to Do Good Journals, Prado’s skill-building program for youth in Kyetume, Uganda. It helps young people sell handmade journals to fund their education.

ILLUSTRATION BY JOE CIARDELLO; PHOTOS BY GUS RUELAS

BUSINESS PLAN: A WEBSITE TO INFORM AND EDUCATE VOTERS INSPIRATION: Michael Lim, an undergraduate majoring in economics and neuroscience, teamed up with four other USC students to improve voter education. Their idea, BallotView, provides nonpartisan information on propositions and candidates, helping voters make informed decisions before heading to the polls.

TAKING ACTION: BallotView signed up 10,000 users in 50 states during the November 2016 election and its creators aim to keep it growing.

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FA C U LT Y

P R O F I L E

G I L L I A N

H A D F I E L D

Shaking Up the System Ready to revamp tradition, a USC Gould professor champions legal accessibility and affordability.

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it’s better suited to today’s demands.

Professionals in a new role—a “legal practitioner”— could provide straightforward legal guidance, and smartphone apps and other digital technologies could help lowincome and vulnerable groups get help at the touch of a button. Hadfield imagines taking a picture of a document, like a landlord-tenant agreement, and getting some basic information about it for as little as $5.

“It’s not rocket science,” she says. “The only thing that stands in the way of doing it is that you can’t form that company.”

In the U.S.—unlike countries in Europe—it’s currently illegal for attorneys to use outside capital to start a company.

For example, a group of USC graduates could not launch a start-up in law unless they fully

funded it themselves. “That’s the kicker,” Hadfield says.

And lawyers can’t simply lobby the legislature to revamp the system. They’re regulated by the courts, which can make changes difficult, she adds.

“Mostly I’m optimistic. But I flip back and forth between saying it will never change to saying it has to change,” she says. She wrote her book to lay out her case and inform more people who aren’t lawyers about the concepts.

Some companies are attempting to bridge that gap, like LegalZoom, which offers access to legal services for about $35 a month. (Hadfield sits on LegalZoom’s advisory council.) The state of Washington recently debuted legal technicians who can counsel residents on issues such as divorce and child custody.

And of course, the best agents of change are often the

next generation of thinkers.

Hadfield teaches the Legal Design Lab at USC Gould, which challenges students to find solutions to the legal system’s accessibility problems. In the lab, students learn about issues seen in practice, from large corporate clients that need to manage complex business relationships to people in developing countries that may have a corrupt or nonexistent legal system. Students develop ideas and eventually propose ways to deliver legal help.

“The real goal of the course is to get students thinking very differently about how they, as members of the legal community, can help change the ways things are done to help more people,” Hadfield says.

PHOTO COURTESY OF USC GOULD SCHOOL OF LAW

The next time you need legal advice to, say, set up a business or learn your rights as an employee, could it be as easy as dropping by a Walmart or downloading an app on your smartphone?

Gillian Hadfield hopes so.

The USC Gould School of Law professor of law and economics has an unconventional take on the American legal system: She envisions a new world in which lots of people and entities—not just lawyers and legal firms—could give people reliable, affordable help online or from convenient locations in their community.

Right now, there’s only one type of lawyer, and these lawyers shouldn’t run the equivalent of an in-and-out pharmacy clinic, Hadfield explains, but maybe someone should. Her book Rules for a Flat World explores ways to reinvent the legal system so

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1. G; 2. F; 3. D; 4. B; 5. C; 6. E; 7. A

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Arches and arcades abound at USC. How well do you know them?

Sometimes elegant design hides in plain sight. So it is with the arch, a simple wonder of architecture. At USC’s University Park Campus, rounded and pointed arches are so common that you can’t blame busy students for walking by them without a second look. But each one has a story to tell about its home and its history. Can you match each pictured arch with the locations listed at right?

(Answer key in upper right.)

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A. Get lost in the stacks of intriguing books at Doheny Memorial Library and you might not want to leave. The L.A. City Council deemed this 1932 building a Historic Cultural Monument.

B. The Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center is one of a new generation of USC buildings created in the Collegiate Gothic style. It was finished in summer 2016.

C. It’s the home of USC Athletics: Heritage Hall.

Renovated and reopened in 2014, it houses everything from locker rooms to an interactive museum.

D. An example of Romanesque Revival, Mudd Hall of Philosophy was completed in 1929. Its stone gargoyles include one of

Diogenes with a lamp, looking for an honest man.

E. Next time you’re on campus, peek at the carvings adorning the Gwynn Wilson Student Union Building, built in 1927.

See if you can spot gnomes, dragons and a football player.

F. Wallis Annenberg Hall serves as the digital heart for the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. It was completed in 2014.

G. The USC School of Cinematic Arts Complex, finished in 2010, offers future film directors, sound editors and video game designers a home base.

PHOTOS BY GUS RUELAS

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trojan news

A USC Rossier student repurposes shipping containers to house homeless vets.

When Donna Gallup took over as the CEO of the nonprofit American Family Housing in 2014, she was tasked with finding a new strategy for housing homeless veterans faster. Gallup, a longtime human services advocate and a doctoral student in organizational leadership at the USC Rossier School of Education, has a reputation for breathing new life into nonprofit organizations.

Her answer was unconventional: recycled shipping containers. She teamed up with GrowthPoint Structures, a Los Angeles manufacturer that converts shipping containers into classrooms, to develop multifamily housing units. “When I realized how quickly the model could be implemented and that it could be an entirely new way of developing affordable housing, I pushed forward,” Gallup says.

Two years later, they’ve unveiled Potter’s Lane, a 16-unit housing project in Midway City, an unincorporated area of Orange County. The energy-efficient, environmentally friendly complex is made from more than 50 shipping containers from the Port of Los Angeles.

“The buildings were designed in a U shape with a center courtyard. Our military servicemen and women are trained to take care of each other, to watch each other’s back,” Gallup says. “We wanted to give them an environment where they could be connected and have their own space, but at the same time, they could be part of a community they can thrive in.”

Potter’s Lane is the first complex of its kind in the country. But for Gallup, championing innovation is nothing new. “I like to break the mold of the way people think about nonprofits,” Gallup says. “We can run like a business. My USC Rossier doctoral program gives me the tools to lead change in this sector.”

RACHEL NG

surprising science USC researchers in diverse disciplines have made some unusual discoveries with potential benefits for human health and society. Read on for some recent fascinating finds.

FISH GET ARTHRITIS, TOO A study revealed that certain zebrafish joints share similarities with those of mammals, showing that arthritis is more widespread in the animal kingdom than previously assumed.

MUSCLES ON A CHIP USC researchers were able to grow mouse muscle fibers on a tiny scaffold, or “chip,” made of special gelatin.

WHY IT MATTERS: USC scientists hope to explore whether the zebrafish can naturally repair its damaged joints. If so, researchers could find leads on how to reverse arthritis in humans.

WHY IT MATTERS: Human muscle chips could provide an inexpensive, accessible way for scientists to study potential treatments for diseases like muscular dystrophy.

FUNGI IN SPACE

SECRETS OF SWARMS

Fungi produce molecules used to develop drugs such as penicillin.

Scientists hope sending fungi into the harsher environment of space triggers changes so that they produce molecules they couldn’t on Earth.

A USC Viterbi PhD student developed algorithms to understand the complexity within naturally occurring swarms (think ants, birds and bacteria).

DONNA G A L LU P CEO of American Family Housing and USC Rossier doctoral student

At Potter’s Lane, repurposed steel shipping containers were converted to energyefficient, sustainable housing units on a formerly vacant lot.

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WHY IT MATTERS: Growing fungi in space could lead to the discovery of new drugs.

WHY IT MATTERS: These algorithms might be used to optimize complex networks in robotics, vehicle traffic or even cancer treatment.

MUSCLE FIBERS PHOTO COURTESY OF A. BETTADAPUR/G. SUH/E. WANG/H. HUBER/A. VISCIO/M. MCCAIN; FUNGI PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS; POTTER’S LANE RENDERING BY SVA ARCHITECTS; CONSTRUCTION PHOTO COURTESY OF AMERICAN FAMILY HOUSING

A Home for Innovation

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With the help of USC Gould students, the Mashamba sisters have found safety and a new home in California.

PHOTO BY BRIAN VAN DER BRUG/LOS ANGELES TIMES

A Legal Lifeline In Tanzania, being born with albinism— the lack of pigment in skin, hair and eyes—can be deadly. Six years ago, two young girls with the condition were brutally hunted down in their tiny African village by bounty trackers seeking the “magic” in their body parts. The sisters had always lived in fear, but on that night, their fears came true: Bibiana Mashamba, then 11, was attacked while sleeping and her right leg and two fingers were hacked off.

Ten-year-old sister Tindi Mashamba was able to hide from the attackers.

Today, they’re safe in Los Angeles, thanks in part to USC Gould School of Law students.

The sisters traveled to L.A. after Bibiana Mashamba received an offer for tfm.usc.edu

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treatment at the Orthopaedic Institute for Children through the advocacy of the African Millennium Foundation. After her recovery, though, the sisters feared what awaited them back home.

Then USC Gould’s Immigration Clinic stepped in to offer legal representation.

“I joined USC’s Immigration Clinic hoping to be an advocate for the people who need it most, and this case gave me that invaluable opportunity,” says Amy Stern ’16, who worked on their case during her final year at USC Gould.

She and Elena Babakhanyan, a secondyear law student, logged more than 150 pro bono hours. Stern put together evidence showing that the girls were targets from a young age due to Tanzania’s trade in albino

parts. Babakhanyan prepared them for their asylum hearing in May. “There are [Tanzanian] government officials who are willing to turn a blind eye to these attacks and killings. We had to prove this, otherwise the girls would have lost their cases,” says Niels Frenzen, director of the immigration clinic.

The girls now attend high school in Ojai, California, and dream of going to law school or becoming doctors.

“We are enjoying a happy ending,” Bibiana Mashamba says.

Adds her sister: “The law has always interested me, and now I want to make sure these kinds of human rights abuses end.”

GILIEN SILSBY

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They’re five accomplished women who are dedicated to improving the lives of others. Now they’ve come together to advance USC. Miriam Adelson, Suzanne Dworak-Peck ’65, MSW ’67, Claude Mann, Carmen Nava ’84 and Dallas Price-Van Breda ’54 recently were elected to the USC Board of Trustees, and each brings her own expertise—from medicine to social work—to the group. LYNN LIPINSKI

Women with Vision Meet the five dynamic leaders who joined USC’s governing board last fall.

MIR I A M A DE L S O N

S U Z A NN E DWO R A K- PEC K

CLAUD E MAN N

CARMEN N AVA

DALLAS PRICEVAN B REDA

Physician Miriam Adelson is a prominent expert in drug addiction. Born in Tel Aviv and raised in Haifa, Adelson moved to the United States in 1986 to become an associate physician and guest investigator at Rockefeller University in New York. She went on to found a substance abuse clinic at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center in 1994 and opened a sister clinic in Las Vegas in 2000.

A social work practitioner and leader, Suzanne Dworak-Peck ’65, MSW ’67 has dedicated her life to working with vulnerable and underserved populations. In 2016, her gift of $60 million endowed and named the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

Elected as a life trustee, Claude Mann is the executive vice president of gifting and development for the Alfred Mann Foundation, the charitable arm of her late husband. Alfred Mann created the foundation in the 1980s to develop medical technologies that could help the public.

Telecommunications executive Carmen Nava ’84 is senior vice president for premium care and customer loyalty for AT&T, where she leads a customer care operation serving AT&T’s consumer mobility, DIRECTV and U-verse customers nationwide.

Dworak-Peck has served as president of the National Association of Social Workers and the organization’s California chapter. She also led the International Federation of Social Workers as its president, representing social workers in more than 100 countries, and she remains its first and only ambassador. In addition, she sits on the board of the California Social Welfare Archives, housed at USC, which maintains one of the most extensive collections of California social welfare history.

Claude Mann was born during World War II in a Berlin concentration camp after her parents became political prisoners. At the end of the war, her parents returned to their native France, and she later studied arts, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne. In 1972, she moved to the U.S. and went into the restaurant business. Her husband, an entrepreneur who founded 17 companies in the aerospace and biomedical technology industries, was a member of the USC Board of Trustees from 1998 until his passing in 2016.

Art collector and benefactor Dallas Price-Van Breda ’54, elected as an honorary trustee, is recognized for her love of contemporary art and her generous support of art and educational institutions. Her donation to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2000 was one of the largest gifts in the museum’s history, and she serves as trustee, founder and president emeritus of the museum. She is also a founder of Oaks Christian School, a private school serving grades 5-12 in Westlake Village, California.

Through her clinics, she treats adults and teens who are grappling with addiction to painkillers and opiates.

She and her husband, Sheldon G. Adelson, focus their philanthropy through two foundations: the Adelson Family Foundation, which primarily supports programs that benefit Israel and the Jewish people; and the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation, which advances research in oncology, neurology and the biology of addictive diseases.

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She serves as chair of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work Board of Councilors, and in 2016 the USC Alumni Association honored her with its Alumni Merit Award.

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Today she serves on the boards of organizations including the Alfred Mann Institute at the Technion— Israel Institute of Technology, the Los Angeles Opera and the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation.

She has served AT&T and its customers for more than 30 years in a variety of executive roles, including in consumer operations, human resources, external affairs and marketing. She began her career as a summer intern with Pacific Bell in California while she was an undergraduate at USC. Nava previously was a member of the USC Alumni Association’s board of governors and currently serves on the corporate advisory board for the USC Latino Alumni Association.

In 2015 and 2016, Latina Style Magazine named her one of its five top Latina executives of the year. In those same two years, Hispanic Professionals in the Information Technology Industry selected her as one of its top 100 most influential and notable members.

Known as a Renaissance woman, Price-Van Breda has diverse interests and talents that extend beyond the arts. She is an experienced pilot and expert climber and has scaled the Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each of the seven continents.

She was previously cocommissioner of basketball for the 1984 Olympic Games and vice president of American Golf Corporation, one of the world’s biggest golf management companies.

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S T U D E N T

P R O F I L E

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Improving with Age A Trojan defensive lineman tackles an issue close to his heart: helping people age with dignity.

ORLI BELMAN

ILLUSTRATION BY JACQUI OAKLEY

Credit Stevie Tu’ikolovatu’s grandfather for inspiring him to become a stalwart of Trojan football.

Family patriarch Sonasi Po’uha instilled in his grandson the importance of practice, whistling from the stands for more drills, more running and more repetitions than any of his coaches.

“I think about him when we have hard practices or hard games and my body is sore,” Tu’ikolovatu says. “The stuff he put me through was much crazier than what we are doing now, so it helps me mentally get through anything.”

The results can be seen in the tackles, blocks and pressure the 6-foot-1, 320-pound Trojan defensive lineman applies to opposing teams. Tu’ikolovatu also earned praise all season for being a mentor and anchor for USC’s defensive line.

Po’uha was also responsible for imparting another practice: respecting elders. He imported it from his native Tonga and passed it down to his children and grandchildren. When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2009, family members moved in with him, roasting pigs in the backyard and bringing sodas to his bedside. Po’uha spent his last months at home, surrounded and celebrated by his loved ones.

“We were able to act as his hospice nurses, and it was a time that my family and I really enjoyed,” says Tu’ikolovatu, who adds that he actually prefers to be around an older crowd. “I like to learn from them. I think they have a lot of wisdom to share.”

Tu’ikolovatu graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Utah in 2016. Still eligible to play football for another year, he chose to transfer to USC. For the football, sure. But also for the opportunity to earn a master’s degree from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, the oldest and largest school devoted to the study of aging across the lifespan.

At USC Davis, he’s learning about social policy and societal trends for the aging population. In one class, he was shocked to hear that falls are the leading cause of death and injury among adults over 65 in the United States.

In another, he was surprised to learn about discrepancies in care provided to seniors.

“I thought people dying in their homes was typical around the whole world because that has always been in our culture,” he says.

“I don’t think anyone would want to die anywhere but home.”

Tu’ikolovatu hopes to head to the NFL after graduation and eventually wants to blend his academic and athletic experience in areas like strength training and nutrition to help people age healthfully. Down the road, he and his wife would like to open care facilities so that older adults can have a better quality of life.

The 25-year-old graduate student’s field of study initially provoked humor from some of his younger teammates, who joked that he was studying aging because he was the oldest person on the team.

But like his grandfather, Tu’ikolovato’s chosen subject has now become a source of inspiration.

“At some point in life, everyone is going to reach the same struggles as they age,” he says. “I tell everyone, the more you know, the better off you’ll be.”

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James hd Brown, Mystery of My Other House, 2014, Oil, pencil, collage and industrial paint on linen, 138 x 262 inches, Collection of the artist

USC Participates in Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles, a new book released in conjunction with PST: LA/LA and edited by Josh Kun, 2016 MacArthur Fellow, USC Professor of Communication.

Musical Interventions: a multi-part musical exhibition, curated by Kun, explores musical networks that move between L.A. and Latin American communities and cultures.

Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A.

James hd Brown: Life and Work in Mexico

Organized by ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, this exhibit maps the intersections and collaborations among a network of queer Chicano artists and their artistic collaborators from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The USC Fisher Museum of Art will highlight Brown’s unique artist press, featuring approximately twenty books and related ephemera. Some of the artists in the Carpe Diem series include Joan Jonas, Graciela Iturbide, Kiki Smith, and Francisco Toledo, as well as a new artist book produced especially for PST: LA/LA.

Crossing Pacific: Cultural Dialogues between Latin American and Chinese Artists The USC Pacific Asia Museum will be the first major exhibition to explore the influence of 20th-century Latin American art and artists on contemporary Chinese art.

Visual Voyages: Images of Latin America Nature from Columbus to Darwin Curated by Daniela Bleichmar, USC Professor of Art History and History, this exhibition at The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens explores the role of images and objects in creating knowledge of the natural world during the first global era. The exhibition features more than 150 rare objects from the Huntington and other collections.

Learn more at: arts.usc.edu/PST

Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, is a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles. Supported by grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA takes place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California, from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, and from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.

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trojan news Start-up Students Today ambitious entrepreneurs in practically any field can launch an app and start their own business. At USC, enterprising undergraduates have garnered attention for apps that bring a new spin to the marketplace. Here are three:

Visionary Dean ENVOY NOW

D RO PS

LU C K Y DAY

HOW IT WORKS Targeted at college students, this app allows users to order late-night munchies delivered by a fellow classmate. Why a classmate? Unlike the neighborhood pizza guy, students have the after-hours access needed to drop off food at secure campus spots.

HOW IT WORKS Shea Rouda, a USC Dornsife senior majoring in East Asian languages and cultures, created an app to make charitable giving easier. It allows consumers to round up their charges for everyday purchases to the next dollar, accruing money over time to donate to partner organizations.

HOW IT WORKS USC Marshall senior Joshua Javaheri landed first place at the 2015 Silicon Beach Fest for his free gaming app that pays users to play simple games like a virtual scratch card or slot machine. Ads are embedded directly into the game; a scratch-off game might reveal an ad for a café as the user plays.

FRESH TAKE USC Marshall senior Anthony Zhang, who created the app with three other USC students, sees it as a service for hungry night owls, as well as for students who want to earn extra money around their own campus.

FRESH TAKE Charities can respond to donors directly, sending updates or pictures and providing a personalized experience so that donors can see how they helped the organization.

FRESH TAKE Upending the traditional advertising model, the app creates interactive ads that can engage users, and then pays players directly from its ad revenue.

As a child, Rohit Varma was fascinated when his uncle, an ophthalmologist, would tell stories about research and surgeries that could preserve and even restore people’s eyesight.

Intrigued by vision and its power to affect everyday life, Varma went on to become an internationally recognized leader in the epidemiology of eye diseases. Now the accomplished physician and scientist has a new challenging role: dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Varma is chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, director of the USC Roski Eye Institute and president of the USC Care Medical Group. He holds the May S. and John Hooval Dean’s Chair in Medicine and the Grace and the Emery Beardsley Chair in Ophthalmology.

An expert on changes in the optic nerve in glaucoma, Varma also is known for his pioneering studies on eye disease among children and aging populations, as well as how vision problems affect specific ethnic groups. He has more than 247 publications in various peer-reviewed journals and has co-authored two books.

Varma earned his medical degree from the University of Delhi, India. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and earned a master of public health from Johns Hopkins University.

The Women of Troy capped a historic season for USC women’s soccer with the ultimate prize: the 2016 national championship. The title—only the second one in the program’s history—was all the more sweet after a slow 0-2 start to the season. The Women of Troy rallied for an unprecedented 10-game winning streak, breaking a school record and eventually defeating No. 1-ranked West Virginia to bring home the NCAA trophy.

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VARMA PHOTO BY STEVE COHN; SOCCER PHOTO BY DENIS CONCORDEL

JUST FOR KICKS

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Patrons of Promise

PHOTO BY STEVE COHN

Widney Society members’ generosity leads to life-changing opportunities for students and faculty.

Ask USC’s most generous benefactors what motivates their gifts to the university, and their answers usually align: They want to further strengthen USC’s excellence in education, research, science, patient care, the arts and more.

At USC, members of the Widney Society are the vanguard of the effort to advance the university through philanthropy. Each member’s lifetime giving to USC stands at $1 million or more and has made an impact on all areas of the university.

About 400 Widney Society members and their guests gathered at a gala outside the Widney Alumni House in November to celebrate the university’s achievements and its promise for the future. During the gala, Widney Society members also celebrated the ongoing success of the historic Campaign for USC. But the event shined its brightest spotlight on students, who performed on stage and spoke about their rich academic experiences.

Among them was junior Jamie Kwong, an international relations major who is working toward her Master of Public Diplomacy while she earns her undergraduate degree.

Kwong has immersed herself in university life, where she serves as president of the Pan-Hellenic Council and vice president of the Student Alumni Society’s leadership board. Kwong’s hard work and enthusiasm both inside and outside the classroom paid off when she was selected as a Schaeffer Government Service Fellow. The program places USC undergrads in hard-to-get internships. The fellowship earned her a slot as a House Foreign Affairs Committee intern in Washington, D.C., which sparked Kwong’s passion for a career in public service. Next up: the Central Intelligence Agency, tfm.usc.edu

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where she’ll serve as the agency’s first “e-intern” in its department dedicated to advanced analytics.

“I give credit for it all to USC and the many unique experiences it has given me,” Kwong said.

Part of what enables student success stories like Kwong’s is the dedication of USC’s faculty. Guests at the gala learned through a video how Andrea Armani, associate professor of electrical engineering, chemical engineering and materials science, helps her enthusiastic students perform research that matters.

Armani’s lab, which has 20 students ranging from undergraduates to postdoctoral fellows working side by side, has developed new ways to detect cancer, diagnose malaria and even make the internet run faster. Armani believes her role as a mentor contributes greatly to the success of the lab—and her career.

“My favorite part about being a professor is I get to interact with students. Students are always posing the questions of ‘what if ?’ and ‘why not?’ It pushes me to be a better engineer and better person,” Armani said.

Generous benefactors, such as members of the Widney Society, help make prized academic experiences and valuable professor-student relationships like this possible.

“Although USC was first envisioned by one man, the dream of a great university was only possible when the entire Trojan Family worked together,” said USC President C. L. Max Nikias during a speech at the gala. “Let us continue to stand side by side as we forge the future of our beloved university.”

ELISA HUANG

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Husband-and-wife pair Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky

The Road to Recovery A USC occupational therapy alumna helps a Boston Marathon bombing survivor feel like herself again.

How do you decide to amputate your leg? That was the impossible question Jessica Kensky faced two years ago at Christmas.

Kensky and her husband, Patrick Downes, lost their left legs below the knee in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The blast, one of two successive detonations at the race’s finish line, also tore off the heel pad and Achilles tendon on Kensky’s right leg.

“My leg was so badly damaged and I was in so much pain, I felt like it was gone in a lot of ways—at least the healthy leg I knew,” says Kensky, a registered nurse who was an avid runner.

In 2014, Kensky and Downes were given special status to become patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a facility that features the latest technology and specialists who treat military blast amputees.

“Jess wanted to return to the life she had before,” says Annemarie Orr ’07, MA ’09, OTD ’15, Kensky’s occupational therapist at Walter Reed Bethesda and a graduate of the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. “She would say, ‘I’m living my life in 20-minute increments.’ She could only tolerate standing for that long.” Even after several surgeries to salvage her leg, Kensky still suffered from debilitating pain.

When Kensky and Downes left Walter Reed for the winter holidays, Orr gave Kensky a binder to track her pain level and dayto-day tasks. “What she did was so personalized. She knew I was a nurse, and I wanted scientific evidence that said I should not keep my leg,” Kensky says. “After charting for a couple of days, I stared at the binder. In my gut, I knew I couldn’t live with this leg.”

Her first amputation happened without warning or consent.

But now Kensky struggled to say goodbye to her remaining leg.

Orr remembered a former patient with a double amputation whose grandmother had porcelain plates of his childhood footprints hanging on her wall. “For him it was difficult but really neat to go back to his grandmother’s house and see that she still had his footprints, because that was all he had left of both of his feet,” she says.

She designed an activity in which Downes and Kensky—along with their service dog, Rescue—painted their right feet and stamped

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their footprints on a page. “That’s not a therapeutic exercise for everyone, but for me, it really was,” Kensky says.

Last year, Downes returned to Boston and became the first Boston bombing amputee to complete the marathon on foot. But Kensky has undergone another 10 surgeries since the voluntary amputation and is still recovering, with Orr’s help. “I wouldn’t know how to get through all these stages without Annemarie at my side,” Kensky says.

She remembers one day when her physical therapist and Orr took her on a surprise shopping trip. “I was depressed, and going to a store was overwhelming because people would stare at me,” she says. “I didn’t know what to wear now that I had these two giant prosthetics.” With their help, Kensky learned how to dress her prosthetics and put on a pair of jeans.

More than keeping up with the latest fashion, Kensky learned to feel like herself again. “Annemarie never said, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘You can’t do that.’ It’s always, show me the mountain, and I’ll tell you how we’re going to climb it.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER

JAMIE WETHERBE

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H E A LT H FILES Women who give birth to their last child after age 35 seem to have a sharper memory when they’re older than other women do, according to a Keck School of Medicine study. It also showed brainpower boosts for those who took birth control pills for 10 years or longer or who started menstruating before age 13.

A M B A S S A D O R S

F O R

H O P E

USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education recently honored noted filmmaker George Lucas ’66, left, and his wife, Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments, center, for their commitment to humanitarian efforts. USC Trustee Steven Spielberg, founder of the foundation, presented them with the Ambassador for Humanity Award at a gala event in Los Angeles in December.

Smoking bans and cigarette taxes can successfully curb smoking by forcing smokers to change their everyday lifestyle. USC Marshall researchers suggest that similar policy tactics are needed for other unhealthy habits like inactivity and eating junk food.

a harmonious partnership After 20 years as the musical director of the celebrated Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), Jeffrey Kahane will soon begin his second act at USC. The renowned conductor and pianist joins the USC Thornton School of Music’s Keyboard Studies department as a full-time professor this year.

A close relationship between USC Thornton and LACO made the decision an easy one. “I have spent so much time in Los Angeles, and I have so many connections both from my work with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, on the faculty at USC and in other places, it just seemed like a natural and wonderful transition that allows me to continue to deepen and broaden my relationships here,” Kahane says.

But he’s only the latest link between USC Thornton and the orchestra, which has been called one of the nation’s best ensembles. Several other members of LACO in addition to Kahane sit on the school’s faculty, including concertmaster Margaret Batjer and principal cellist Andrew Shulman. Composition faculty member Andrew Norman is currently the orchestra’s composer-in-residence.

In January, USC hosted Kahane’s Lift Every Voice festival, which highlights the power of music to promote tolerance. It featured a performance by members of LACO and faculty and students from USC Thornton. Julia Adolphe, a USC Thornton doctoral student in composition, is slated to create a new work for LACO’s Sound Investment orchestral series, which premieres in March.

And to help a new generation of young musicians, the organizations have partnered on educational initiatives such as the LACO-USC Thornton Strings Mentorship Program, which stages mock auditions for students to gain professional performing experience. EVAN HENERSON

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PSA tests and scans, move aside. In men with prostate cancer, doctors may be able to examine cancer cells drawn from blood and bone marrow samples to help determine appropriate therapy and monitor patients’ response to treatment, according to USC Dornsife research.

Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs might offer more benefits beyond cutting heart attacks and strokes.

USC scientists found that people who take statins for two years or more have a lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

AMBASSADORS FOR HOPE PHOTO BY JEFF KRAVITZ; KAHANE PHOTO BY MICHAEL BURKE

A celebrated conductor strengthens ties between USC and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

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THE KECK EFFECT: MORE BIKE RIDES As one of the nation’s top academic health systems, Keck Medicine of USC is leading the way in delivering more medical breakthroughs. Our experts provide health-care excellence through research and clinical trials, while ensuring each patient receives the latest comprehensive, personalized treatments. That’s The Keck Effect — more expertise to get you back to doing what you love, faster.

With locations throughout Southern California, exceptional care is close to you. See how we’re redefining medicine.

Get expert health tips

Text KECK to 313131

KeckMedicine.org (800) USC-CARE

© 2017 Keck Medicine of USC

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trojan health

Medicine in Miniature Doctors use microsurgery to rebuild damaged arms, legs, breasts, faces—and lives. by koren wetmore il lust rat ions by c hr is gash As a machinist, Jose Manzo uses his hands a lot.

When he had a serious accident with a machine press at work—losing three fingers, a thumb and part of his palm—he feared the worst. He had no idea how doctors would ever restore function to his left hand.

Surgeons removed damaged bone and tissue and covered his wound with a skin graft, but the injury left the 33-year-old with only a pinky finger. “With just one finger, I wasn’t able to hold anything, not even a bar of soap or a glass of water,” Manzo says.

He was referred to Keck Medicine of USC microsurgeon Milan Stevanovic, who recommended a surprising solution: transferring the big toe of Manzo’s left foot to his left hand, where it could function like a thumb.

To improve the hand’s appearance, Stevanovic and his team replaced the skin graft with skin and blood vessels taken from Manzo’s thigh. Next, they improved the mobility of his pinky, so he could straighten and curve the finger. Finally, they transplanted the big toe from his left foot to replace his missing thumb.

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between his pinky and his new thumb. His hand looks more natural, too. “Even though I had the surgery done not even two years ago,” he says, “people think my hand was like this since birth.”

Outcomes like Manzo’s were once merely a dream. But today, the field of microsurgery empowers doctors to save limbs, cover large wounds and reconstruct body areas damaged by trauma, burns or cancer. Microsurgery techniques also enable surgeons to restore form and function to those born with bone and muscle defects or missing toes and fingers.

“Fifty years ago it was unthinkable that we could put back a hand or a finger,” says Stevanovic, chief of the Hand Service in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, who is recognized worldwide for his expertise in treating injuries associated with the upper extremity (from the shoulder to the hand), including the nerves. “And no one thought of doing face transplants, which today is probably one of the most difficult and amazing feats that microsurgery can do.”

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dramatic results, microsurgeons remain in short supply. Members of the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery number only about 500. Compare that to, say, the American College of Cardiology, which boasts a membership of more than 52,000.

“There are more microsurgical cases than surgeons available to do them,” says Alex K. Wong, associate professor of surgery at the Keck School of Medicine and associate director of USC’s microsurgery fellowship program. “Certain communities don’t have access to these procedures because there are no microsurgeons, or their microsurgeons are already overloaded.”

That’s why the Keck School of Medicine is committed not only to practicing the discipline, but also to advancing the field. The surgeons perform research and teach microsurgical techniques to others —in the U.S. and abroad—to bring the benefits of microsurgery to more patients.

REPAIR AND REPLACE Microsurgery is a surgical technique that requires the use of a microscope and microsurgical instruments. These specialized microscopes provide up to 40 times magnification and the sutures used are five times thinner than a human hair. Microsurgery allows surgeons to transfer tissues—potentially a combination of skin, muscle and bone and associated nerves and blood vessels—from one area of a patient’s body to another. With this technique, microsurgeons can also repair blood vessels that are up to half a millimeter in diameter.

Some microsurgeons help patients after an emergency. As service chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at LAC+ USC Medical Center and attending surgeon in the center’s burn unit, Joseph Carey MS ’02, MD ’02 applies his microsurgical skills to help trauma and burn patients.

“Gunshot wounds, accidents or any high-energy injury can remove or destroy soft tissue, bone or both, requiring the transfer of muscle and skin to cover the exposed area,” Carey says. “That’s often done in conjunction with orthopedic surgery, because healthy soft tissue is required to help heal the bones.”

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Severe burns, he says, present unique challenges. For example, Carey treated a 27-year-old woman who lost an arm, an ear and all of her scalp in a fiery vehicle crash. She also sustained burns over 65 percent of her body, leaving few options for harvesting tissue to use on her head. So Carey and his team created a flap, transferring skin and fatty tissue from her abdomen and connecting it to vessels in her neck to ensure that vital blood supply reached the cells.

The flap healed, and today the woman is married, has a child and lives free from the pain of a chronic open head wound.

FROM TOP: Joseph Carey, Ketan Patel, Milan Stevanovic and Alex Wong

CANCER CARE PARTNERS Microsurgery also has a role in cancer treatment. When they remove a tumor, cancer surgeons usually have to remove some surrounding healthy tissue along with it. In the case of a soft tissue sarcoma that invades cartilage, muscle or bone in the legs, eradicating large tumors often means massive tissue loss that requires microsurgical treatment to prevent infection or to reconstruct the limb.

“These sarcomas go down to the bone, so when you remove the tumor, you create a large wound with exposed bone, critical vascular structure and nerves. Nothing short of a microsurgical flap can repair that,” says Wong, whose practice includes microsurgery to reconstruct cancer-related damage. “That’s why, historically, patients with these kinds of tumors used to get amputations.”

Microsurgery, he says, allows doctors to provide options that spare limbs.

Breast cancer patients who choose reconstruction following a partial or full mastectomy also benefit from microsurgery. Instead of using implants, a microsurgeon can transfer fatty tissue from the patient’s abdomen, thigh or rear and use it to build a new breast. “We take skin, fat, an artery and a vein and build a breast that looks and feels like a normal one and lasts forever—unlike implants, which sometimes require additional surgeries in the future,” says Keck Medicine surgeon Ketan Patel, who performs these procedures.

To properly assess and treat breast cancer and other tumors, surgeons often must remove and evaluate lymph nodes, which serve as way stations for immune cells and lymph traveling through the body. Removing nodes can create fluid backup, just like a closed freeway section spurs traffic congestion. This results in lymphedema, a painful swelling and fluid buildup in the arms or legs.

Patel is one of a few dozen surgeons in the nation skilled in special techniques to treat the condition. These procedures— known by doctors as lymphovenous bypass and vascularized lymph node transfers—are considered “super microsurgery,” because lymphatic vessels are 10 times smaller than arteries and veins.

Lymphovenous bypass connects a lymph vessel to a nearby vein to reroute the fluid and relieve the congestion. Vascularized lymph node transfers relocate lymph nodes and blood vessels from one part of the body to another congested body area where they can help clear excess fluid.

“It’s like using a sump pump to fix a flooded basement. You place the pump where the fluid is, plug it into a power outlet and it spring 2017

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pumps out the fluid,” Patel says. “We take the lymph nodes, place them in an area with excess fluid, and turn them on by reconnecting the artery and a vein. This allows the nodes to absorb the fluid and transmit it to the veins.”

PUSHING THE FIELD Patel hopes to replicate his expertise. He co-wrote and edited a guide that helps surgeons worldwide to incorporate lymphedema surgery into their practice. He also developed an algorithm that empowers surgeons and patients to collaborate when deciding which treatment option is best for their specific situation.

Wong, too, is helping to advance the field. His flap physiology research strives to improve our understanding of why dangerous blood clots sometimes form and destroy transferred tissue.

Combined with his genetic research to find biomarkers that may identify at-risk patients sooner, he hopes to identify treatments to prevent transferred tissue from dying and improve success rates.

About 3 to 6 percent of cases today involve these complications, he says, and surgeons want to lower that rate.

The Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine offers the year-long Joseph H. Boyes Hand Surgery Fellowship, which helps build the available pool of microsurgeons. Fellows gain experience in a variety of tissue transfers

TOOLS OF THE TRADE S U RGI CA L M I C RO S CO P E It can be positioned where needed and magnifies the surgical field up to 40 times. Sometimes microsurgeons wear special eyeglasses, called loupes, that magnify up to six times.

J E WE L E R ’S FO RC E P S Held in the surgeon’s non-dominant hand, this tool is used to handle tissue and to tie sutures.

VE S S E L DI L ATO R A modified form of the jeweler’s forceps, this tool has a slender, non-tapered tip and is used to open and cut the ends of blood vessels.

DI S S EC T I N G SCISSORS With a gently curved blade and rounded tips, these scissors are used to cut closely along a vessel without putting a hole in it.

SWAGE D N E E DL E A suture needle with no eye, this instrument may be as thin as a human hair.

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and reconstructions and are mentored by USC’s premier faculty and microsurgical staff. The program draws top talent, says Stevanovic, who directs the fellowship, the oldest of its kind in the nation.

The university also has a global impact by training surgeons from other countries and aid organizations in microsurgical techniques at USC and abroad.

Carey recently traveled to Tanzania to help teach more than 100 East African orthopedic surgeons basic tissue transfer skills needed to salvage injured limbs. The country’s dangerous roads, many traumatic injuries and lack of surgeons trained in microsurgical skills made amputations so common, he says, that amputees could be found on nearly every street corner.

“Surgeons in resource-poor environments have the same, if not better, talent as surgeons anywhere, but they are limited by available resources and techniques,” Carey says. Learning the techniques enables these surgeons to save more limbs, potentially saving patients’ livelihoods.

ON THE HORIZON Procedures impossible today because of limits in human eyesight and dexterity might become available in the future, thanks to surgical robots. And figuring out how to better suppress the immune system and encourage the body to accept grafted tissue may allow surgeons to use more tissue from deceased donors rather than flaps from patients. It’s also possible that future surgeons will grow the tissue they need for transplantation.

“A group in China recently made an ear out of cartilage, grew it on the patient’s forearm and then transplanted it to his head. If we can create new organs on people and then transplant them, we wouldn’t have the long-term effects of immunosuppression,” Wong says.

The number of microsurgeons worldwide will likely grow along with technology, as well.

“Microsurgery is the cutting edge of reconstructive surgery and can be applied to many medical disciplines,” Stevanovic says. “No big institution should be without microsurgeons.” usc trojan family

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by lynn lipinski photos by cody pickens

Pillars of Strength A $60 million school-naming gift from Suzanne Dworak-Peck ’65, MSW ’67 empowers a new generation of social workers at USC.

Suzanne Dworak-Peck ’65, MSW ’67 got a glimpse of her future during her senior year as a psychology major at USC. She was on a tour of Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center when she first saw a professional social worker in action. The woman’s training and ethics shone through as she worked with children and families.

Inspired, Dworak-Peck had found her passion.

She made it her mission to make a difference in the world and in the lives of others. Today she’s a dedicated leader in the social work profession.

It wasn’t an obvious path, though. Social work is a field dedicated to helping people overcome some of society’s biggest challenges—such as poverty, homelessness and mental health issues—but at the time, Dworak-Peck says, people weren’t readily encouraged to enter the field as a way to help others, as they were in law or medicine.

Over the years, she realized that most people were simply unaware of the scope and scale of the social work profession. Maybe it was because social workers

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often work in the background, helping others to succeed.

Or maybe it was because social workers didn’t often hold prominent positions of power or influence in national dialogues about societal problems. Even in the fictional world of television dramas, social workers are often relegated to minor or negative roles.

Dworak-Peck wanted to change social work’s image and educate people about the profound impact of the profession on society.

“If we as social workers are going to empower others,” she says, “we must first empower ourselves.”

Last fall, she did just that by donating a historic $60 million to endow and name the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Her gift marked the largest contribution from an individual to a school of its kind.

Dworak-Peck’s donation not only cemented the school’s standing as one of the world’s most innovative institutions within the discipline, but also invested deeply in the school’s and the profession’s future.

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greater awareness and understanding about the profound impact of the social work profession,” Dworak-Peck says.

Her landmark gift isn’t the first time DworakPeck has spotlighted the importance of social workers. In addition to advocating for the profession in the California and U.S. capitols and at the United Nations as president of several social work organizations, she also founded a network to consult with media and entertainment entities to more accurately portray social work in the news and on television shows.

“Suzanne Dworak-Peck is a visionary who has shown extraordinary leadership in her field, almost single-handedly changing how we perceive social workers,” says USC President C. L. Max Nikias. “Her great generosity is matched only by her passion for social justice and her drive to inspire change by reimagining social work so it empowers everyone it touches.”

A CURRICULUM FOR INNOVATION Dworak-Peck’s gift dramatically boosts the school’s efforts to turn social workers into powerful advocates for wellbeing, says Marilyn L. Flynn, the school’s dean for the past 20 years. Flynn oversees the largest social work school in the world and one of the oldest. “Inspired

by Suzanne’s leadership, we will strive to transform the role of the social worker in a way that allows us to influence the work of the public and private sectors to achieve great social good,” she says.

With size and history come authority. The school’s alumni network numbers 15,000, and one of every 20 master’s-level social workers in the nation holds a USC degree.

In recent years, the school has revised its curriculum to focus on the emerging science of social work. Students learn “evidence-based practices,” which build on research findings in areas ranging from neuroscience to psychology. These practices aim to help social workers better prevent problems or intervene to solve problems early.

During Flynn’s watch, the school has established several areas of distinction and innovation.

Among them: offering high-quality online graduate education, developing a focus on veterans and their families and addressing homelessness.

Inventive online programs are one reason that the school’s overall student enrollment has tripled to 3,200 since 2010. These programs allow students across the country to earn their USC Master of tfm.usc.edu

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Social Work, Doctor of Social Work or Master of Science in Nursing degrees.

The online program also makes it easier for students in the armed forces who may be deployed abroad to enroll in the school’s military social work specialization. Launched in 2009, the training prepares social workers to address the unique challenges faced by veterans and military families when they return home from service. The program was the first of its kind at a civilian research university, and veterans make up about 20 percent of its graduates.

Those pursuing the military social work specialization can tap into the research conducted by the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families (CIR), which is housed at the school. The center’s comprehensive studies have identified crucial gaps in support for housing, career development and mental health services, which put many returning veterans at risk for homelessness and long-term unemployment.

“If you want to know about current research studies on veterans, academics know to contact CIR and USC,” says Kimberly Finney, lead professor for the school’s clinical practice course on service members and veterans. “USC has developed a roadmap for how to get veterans reintegrated as productive members of society.”

More than 325,000 veterans call Los Angeles County home, according to the CIR, and USC’s commitment to improving the care and services furnished to them made the university a natural fit for the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at USC. The clinic, which opened in fall 2016, offers free health care to those who served after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and who suffer from posttraumatic stress and other mental health conditions.

Unlike the Department of Veterans Affairs, the clinic welcomes those who served in the National Guard and the Reserves, as well as veterans who did not receive an honorable discharge. Their family members are eligible for care, as well.

The school also draws veterans into its classrooms. “Some veterans come out of the military with a drive to serve or be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to become social workers and give back,” says Finney, who joined the school after 23 years as an Air Force clinical psychologist.

Eric Woolridge of Los Angeles is one of them.

As a Master of Social Work student on campus, the Army vet worked with classmates on a social media project to raise awareness of sexual assault in the military, which is often unreported and has been linked

Suzanne Dworak-Peck L EA D E RSH IP President, National Association of Social Workers (NASW), California and national President, International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), and first and only ambassador President and Chair, NASW Assurance Services Inc. Two-time President, California Council of Psychiatry, Psychology, Social Work and Nursing President and Founding Member, California Coalition for Mental Health Founder, NASW Communications Network Board Member, California Social Work Archives (CSWA) Founding Member, California Social Work Hall of Distinction President and Chair, State of California Board of Behavioral Sciences Chair, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work Board of Councilors USC Trustee HO NORS NASW Social Work Pioneer Social Worker of the Year, NASW California Chapter NASW Foundation International Rhoda G. Sarnat Award for advancing the public image of social work CSWA Nickel Award for Outstanding Professional Services by a Social Worker USC Alumni Merit Award IFSW Andrew Mouravieff-Apostol Medal for outstanding contribution to international social work

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REAL PROBLEMS Homelessness is a national crisis, but in Los Angeles the problem is especially challenging. Los Angeles County claims the largest homeless population in the nation, with nearly 50,000 people sleeping on sidewalks, in cars or in shelters last year. USC leads the national push, along with New York University, to get social work schools to prioritize homelessness. Benjamin Henwood, assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, steers the national Grand Challenge to End Homelessness effort.

Tackling huge problems like homelessness starts with rigorous research to understand the complex underlying issues, says Suzanne Wenzel, the Richard M. and Ann L. Thor Professor in Urban Social Development for the school and one of the nation’s foremost authorities on homelessness. Findings in 2016 from one of Wenzel’s teams in L.A. are disturbing. They showed that nearly half of all women living on the street or in shelters reported being physically or sexually assaulted in the past year, and 90 percent had been assaulted during their lifetime. The groundbreaking study will be used to advocate for additional funding, policy and resources for homeless women.

Students and faculty put their social work passion into practice, too. The Nourished project is an example. It brings together USC

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The Social Change-makers When Barbara Solomon PhD ’66 joined USC’s social work faculty in the 1960s, the nation seemed at a turning point.

In that time of activism, social workers fought against poverty and pushed for civil rights. “The social work profession had begun to define institutional racism,” Solomon says.

Fast forward two decades. When USC leaders wanted to establish a scholarship to encourage more minorities to enter social work, they asked Solomon to consider lending her name to it. Solomon’s reputation as an advocate for underrepresented minority families made her a natural for the honor. She had become the first African-American dean at USC in the 1980s, heading the USC Graduate School.

She ultimately agreed to lend not just her name, but also her support.

She approached others in the community to contribute, and recently pledged $25,000 of her own money to the scholarship fund, serving as an example of social workers who give back to others.

The Barbara Solomon Endowed Scholarship is awarded to AfricanAmerican students pursuing a Master of Social Work at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work with an interest in working within the African-American community. Today, under Dean Marilyn Flynn’s transformational leadership, the school has expanded its focus, building programs serving veterans and their families and introducing an online nursing degree. The school holds a reputation for building social work knowledge and expertise that serves diverse communities.

Says Solomon: “I see the need for African-American social workers, who understand the communities and can communicate with the residents, as even greater now than it has ever been.”

FLYNN AND SOLOMON PHOTO BY STEVE COHN

to an increased likelihood of homelessness and mental disorders.

“As social workers, we are agents of change,” he says. He hopes their effort will help reshape military culture and make it safer for victims to report sexual assault. After graduation this year, he plans to start his own business helping veterans transition to civilian life.

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PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

students with adults who were once homeless. At a permanent supportive housing facility near Koreatown, students stop by once a week to cook healthy recipes and eat with residents, sharing stories.

Volunteers try to change people’s lives in a more substantive way than just handing them a meal, says homeless rights advocate Jack Lahey MSW ’16, co-founder and program manager of Nourished.

“For those who have experienced homelessness, building relationships can change their perspective on their community and help them escape the cycle of chronic homelessness,” he says.

BIG DATA FOR GOOD Social work as a profession began in the early 1900s, when people of goodwill came together to help those less fortunate with shelter, child care, job training and food. While the goal of helping others hasn’t changed, today’s practitioners like DworakPeck are quick to point out how their work has become grounded in science and evidence.

Marleen Wong MSW ’71, clinical professor and senior associate dean of field instruction, helped conduct a series of groundbreaking studies on the prevalence and impact of trauma in Los Angeles schools in the mid-2000s. Researchers found that 90 percent of children living in certain zip codes in L.A. had been exposed to violence in the previous year—witnessing people who have been kicked, punched or threatened with a gun or knife, or experiencing such incidents themselves.

“It was shocking to everyone that the children we studied had higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder than military returning from [war in] the Middle East,” she says.

The studies not only drew attention to the issue, but they also led Wong and her colleagues to develop tools for mental health professionals and teachers to help children exposed to violence and trauma. School administrators worldwide use the program.

Wong’s expertise has long been sought at the scenes of tragedies and crises, including the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing and the shootings at Columbine High and Sandy Hook Elementary schools.

The work underscores the contributions that big data can make in helping vulnerable children and families. Jacquelyn McCroskey, who holds the John Milner Professorship in Child Welfare and is co-director of the Children’s Data Network (CDN), knows that unlocking patterns hidden in data can reveal important insights.

The CDN, which launched in 2014, partners with state and county departments of health, public health, education, child welfare and corrections to integrate records from different data systems to inform policy decisions and improve services for society’s most vulnerable children and families.

The project shows the vast untapped potential in data already collected by public agencies. McCroskey and Emily PutnamHornstein, associate professor and CDN’s co-director, have been working on a pilot project with child care and family services agencies in Southern California’s San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. Their analysis of data from different agencies found that nearly a third of children in subsidized child care were known to child protective services. This information on overlap could improve results for families involved with both kinds of agencies, helping child care providers more effectively support at-risk children and encouraging child welfare workers to consider child care histories and needs of at-risk families.

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Services and Los Angeles County to test whether models that predict risk for child abuse can help child protection workers better evaluate a child’s likelihood of mistreatment or neglect.

For Dworak-Peck, incorporating innovative research into social work practice and policy can counter some of society’s greatest challenges. That requires recruiting the best possible professors and investing in the infrastructure needed to teach the next generation.

“As a society, we can’t afford not to invest in social work education,” Dworak-Peck says. “It is time for us to be more strategic about where we direct our energy and our resources, deriving solutions rather than putting expensive Band-Aids on the problems of the world.”

At USC, her transformational gift aims to do just that. •

A Next-Generation Social Worker At just over 6 feet tall, Lesley Adams Williams usually stands out in a crowd.

Being tall can have an isolating effect during the teen years.

Williams knows that firsthand. She also knows it can be an advantage: Her height and athletic ability earned her a college basketball scholarship. It also drew a troubled student to her, setting her on the path to a social work career.

A few years back, Williams took a counseling assistant job at her high school alma mater in Missouri, where a troubled student (Williams calls her Sadie, though that’s not her real name) started confiding in her. Sadie, like Williams, lived on what they joked was the “tall-girl island,” and their bond deepened quickly.

“Some people write these students off because they don’t look past their behavioral problems,” Williams says. But she loved helping Sadie and others one on one. She quickly saw how giving students a place to discuss conflicts and feelings helped them focus better in the classroom and in their everyday lives. The school’s social worker encouraged Williams to consider social work as a career, and she embraced it.

Now earning her master’s degree at the USC Suzanne DworakPeck School of Social Work, Williams is a student who wants to make a difference. She sees a future where teens have a safe place to go when home isn’t an option. One possibility, she muses: building 24-hour centers where youth in high-crime neighborhoods can leave their weapons at the door, eat, take a shower, relax or sleep.

USC’s online degree program suited Williams, who is on active duty in the Navy. She’ll complete her studies, internship and field work from San Diego, where she works at a Navy training command for helicopter pilots.

She still relishes hearing from Sadie, who recently texted her simply: “I’m finally finding my way.”

Williams hopes she can instill that same confidence in other struggling teens. “I tell them, you may not come from much, or you may not have much, but you have to believe in yourself when no one else does.”

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USC’s Office of Religious Life encourages Trojans to explore avenues of spirituality—and find a deeper faith by doing so.

Spiritual Journeys

BY LISA BUT TERWORTH

One by one, men and women enter the glass-walled room at USC’s University Religious Center on the north side of the University Park Campus. Each grabs a sandwich and finds a seat at tables pieced together into a large U. The white-noise chatter of colleagues catching up permeates the air, but this gathering serves a purpose beyond academic small talk. Those in attendance serve a higher power—or powers, more accurately.

Varun Soni, USC’s dean of religious life, calls the meeting to order.

Recent Diwali festivities honoring the Hindu tradition were a success, Soni tells the crowd. So was Homelessness Awareness Week, presented in part by USC’s Interfaith Council. Next up: a turban-tying meetup held by the USC Sikh Student Association, a performance by USC’s Saved By Grace gospel choir and a conversation with the authors of the book The Internet Is My

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Religion, presented by the USC Secular Student Fellowship.

Attendees scribble notes between bites of lunch. They’re a good percentage of USC’s 60-plus chaplains, who represent many of the 90-plus religious groups on campus—more chaplains and groups, it turns out, than at any other American university.

“We have religious groups representing every faith tradition, including many denominational perspectives,” Soni says after the meeting. “So it’s not just that we have Christians, we have 40 different Christian groups, we have four different Hindu groups, we have five different Jewish groups.” That’s due in part to USC’s population: 42,000 students representing 140 countries and every U.S. state.

The campus’s location helps, too: Los Angeles is one of the most religiously diverse cities in the world. According to

Soni, there are 70 houses of worship within a square mile of campus, and 12,000 in Southern California. He’s about to offer up another fact when a spirited conversation erupts in the hallway. “[They] must be talking football,” he says with a laugh. “That’s the real religion on campus.”

USC’s multifaceted relationship with religion goes back to its beginnings in 1880, when it was founded in affiliation with the Methodist Church by three men: a Protestant, an Irish Catholic and a rabbi. (No, they didn’t walk into a bar—they joined together to donate the land upon which USC was built.) USC became a completely secular school in 1957, but spirituality on campus has deepened. The Office of Religious Life was founded in 1996 “as a way of thinking about how the university can support religious and spiritual life, broadly conceived,” says Soni, who became the office’s dean in 2008.

Soni may have the personable temperament typical of a university chaplain, but he’s quite a departure from many of his counterparts in academia. His scarf—patterned with the Grateful Dead’s Steal Your Face logo—is the first hint. He’s the first Hindu to ever hold a position like this in the U.S., and for a long time, was the only non-Christian to have the job. (Dartmouth hired a rabbi for a similar position in 2016.)

And though he’s a professor of religion who once studied at a Buddhist monastery, he’s not ordained in any tradition. He’s also a lawyer, former radio show host, television consultant and graphic novel producer.

But what differentiates Soni most is the way he runs the office. “You know, the secret is that really, I’m much more interested in what it means to be human than what it means to be divine,” he says.

It’s one of the main reasons that during a time when more and more millennials are eschewing religion, USC’s Office of Religious Life is flourishing.

Reverend Jim Burklo, the office’s white-haired, impressively mustachioed associate dean, has the warmth you’d expect from a progressive Christian pastor. He echoes Soni’s sentiments: “The

PHOTO BY RAUL ALCANTAR

USC students have ample opportunities to better understand others’ faiths. Celebrations such as Holi, a Hindu religious festival, expose students to different practices.

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Located in the University Religious Center, the Fishbowl Chapel is known for its floor-to-ceiling windows that distinguish the multi-faith worship space.

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big change happening on our campus, and many other campuses, is we have more and more students who are not affiliated with any religion and are not even looking to be affiliated with a religion,” he says.

According to the Pew Research Center, 25 percent of American college graduates do not associate with a faith label, the highest percentage in 40 years.

At USC, Soni estimates that 13,000 students, nearly a third of the school’s population, don’t identify with a formal religious tradition. “But they’re totally fascinated with spirituality, matters of the soul, values, all that,” Burklo says. “So we see ourselves more and more aimed at serving that growing population.”

That’s why, at Soni’s monthly meetings, alongside the leaders of groups like the Association of Baha’i Students and the Christian Science Organization, you’ll find Bart Campolo, USC’s humanist chaplain. Though Campolo is part of a small but growing group of secular chaplains at American universities, he’s the first in the country to be formally brought into the fold of a school’s office of religious life.

It’s not hard to imagine Campolo, a

dynamic guy with an easy smile shored by deep dimples, in his former life as an Evangelical pastor. “About five or six years ago, I came to the place where I was still committed to social justice, loving relationships, community, all these good values, but lost my ability to believe in that central core narrative of God and Jesus,” Campolo says.

“So I wandered around trying to figure out what you do if you’re a minister who doesn’t believe in God.” For Campolo, the answer was secular humanism, and Harvard’s humanist chaplain suggested he get in touch with Soni, who invited him to come to USC. “Dean Soni told me, ‘There’s nobody nurturing our secular students’ spirituality in the way you’re talking about,’” Campolo says.

It’s just one of the ways students are being “met where they are.” In 2014 the Office of Religious Life launched the popular Mindful USC initiative, bringing secular-style meditation practices to campus. The office also supports groups and programming for a student body hungry for diversity: The Interfaith Council includes students of all faiths. They get together weekly for pizza and discourse, spring 2017

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Religious Spaces

PHOTOS BY NOAH WEBB

Little Chapel of Silence Built in 1935, the chapel is one of USC’s most intimate spaces. Sit on one of six pews to reflect, then drop an invocation in the prayer box.

while organized “Souljourn” trips take students to different places of worship around Los Angeles.

Last semester the office helped promote “Race, Faith, and Violence,” a series of lectures with three scholars-in-residence: a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian. Students, Soni says, “are more and more interested in personal experience, service, interfaith engagement, and reflection and community.

That’s why we want to build the office of tomorrow, not the office of yesterday, because we’ll be irrelevant if we don’t.”

Petra Reyes, a junior majoring in political science, is just the kind of student Soni is referring to. Reyes grew up in a Reform Jewish community in the Bay Area and wasn’t too concerned about how she would continue her religious observance once she was at school.

“You don’t realize how important spirituality and a religious community is until you’re separated from the one that you’re most familiar with,” Reyes says. “I had gone into USC thinking, OK, great, I’ll be able to find a Jewish community that I vibe with.” But her idea of what it means to be religious has shifted. “To me my spirituality is not davening and praying consistently. Most of my religion while in college has been through social activism and through organizations that put my Jewish values into action, whether it’s [addressing] the conflict in Israel and Palestine, or pushing propositions in California. I think the beauty of Judaism is that it’s what you make it.”

Re-examining one’s relationship to faith is a common challenge for incoming students. Junior Mary Cate Hickman, who was born and raised as a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrestled with the internal struggle last year. “At church we call it the ‘trial of your faith,’” says the double major in film critical studies and religion. “Of course it’s easy to grow up in a family that’s Mormon and have the only religious input being what you already believe. I was going to Interfaith Council and I was in a religion class learning about tfm.usc.edu

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the rise of the three great monotheistic religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity.”

It made her take a hard look at Mormonism and ask, “Do I actually believe this?”

“You have one of two options: You turn away from your faith and try to figure it out on your own, or you actually learn what the word faith means and you press forward,” says Hickman, who’s now president of the Interfaith Council and also active with USC’s LDS ward. “That’s what I did.

I pressed forward. I continued to be challenged by my religion classes and Interfaith meetings, but I just had to work that much harder on my own faith to learn what was true for me.”

For sophomore Briana Trujillo, a journalism and international relations double major, it wasn’t a crisis that deepened her faith, but rather taking religious practice into her own hands after moving 3,000 miles from her Miami home. “My family is Catholic. It was always just a part of our life and our identity,” she says. She attended “Mass on the Grass” hosted by Our Savior Parish as a freshman (an event she also brought her Muslim now-boyfriend to) and has since become a regular at the USC Caruso Catholic Center. How has her faith changed since coming to USC?

Our Savior Parish/ USC Caruso Catholic Center Opened in 2012, the church can seat 350 worshippers at its masses. The adjacent center includes a café, library, office space and courtyard.

A 9 p.m. Sunday mass gives night owls an opportunity for reverence.

Muslim Prayer Space On the second floor of the University Religious Center is a large room for prayer and wudu facilities in nearby restrooms for ritual cleansing.

United University Church A Romanesque building on the north side of campus, the Presbyterian and United Methodist church is home to a progressive and inclusive congregation.

Fishbowl Chapel Named for its windowed walls, the small multi-faith space is open on weekdays for worship and contemplation.

Thomas J. Kilgore Chapel of the Cross A space for Christian clubs, it’s named for the late Baptist pastor and L.A. civil rights leader.

Varun Soni is the first Hindu to serve as a university dean of religious life in the U.S.

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The United University Church (below) was completed in 1931.

USC Spiritual Celebrations Opportunities for the USC community to experience, learn and celebrate different faiths can be found practically any time of the year. Here are just a few: FALL Meditation for the International Day of Peace Presented by the Office of Religious Life, this secular, mass meditation invites students to gather and meditate for inner and world peace in Alumni Park on the International Day of Peace in September.

Blessing of the Animals Sponsored by progressive Christians at USC, this ceremony gives thanks for pets and the joy they bring. It’s held on the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

Diwali Celebrations Food, performances and high-spirited fun mark the annual festival of lights, presented by USC’s Hindu Student Organization. The holiday celebrates one of the religion’s most joyous events, signifying hope and the victory of light over darkness.

WINTER Divaan Night USC’s Sikh Student Association puts on this annual event that involves kirtan (spiritual music and chanting), Rehraas Sahib (the Sikh evening prayer), and langar (in which food is served to all, regardless of religious background), for anyone who wants a better understanding of these practices.

Prayer Burning Ceremony Prayers gathered from the prayer box at USC’s non-denominational Little Chapel of Silence are read aloud and burned at this reverent, twice-yearly ceremony hosted by USC’s Interfaith Council.

SPRING Alternative Spring Break: Conocimiento or “Becoming Aware” At this weeklong service-learning experience and interfaith spiritual retreat, students gather in Tucson, Arizona with faith-based groups working in immigration reform and experience a range of worship in the process.

What Matters to Me and Why An ongoing lunchtime event features USC faculty members who speak informally about the ways their intellectual life intersects with personal and spiritual beliefs.

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“I want to say that it’s stronger,” she says.

“Because I’m on my own, I have to decide to go to mass. I have to decide to go to Bible study.”

But Catholicism isn’t the only religious tradition Trujillo sought out as a new USC student. “I dipped into the front office of the University Religious Center and I was like, ‘Hi! I think religion is really beautiful, and I want a space to explore that,’” she says. It’s this ability to experience the inherent diversity of college that many religious students find so refreshing.

“I grew up with a lot of my friends being Jewish because I was really involved in my community. It’s not because they were Jewish, it’s because they believed in the same things that I did. They cared about the world,” Reyes says. “The fun thing about college is that you can find people like that and they’re not specifically in your religious community.”

That’s something that also appeals to freshman Noor Alwani, a psychology major minoring in international relations who was raised Muslim in a D.C. suburb.

“I don’t like to limit myself to befriending only people of my faith tradition; I feel like that would be a strange life,” she says with a laugh.

Alwani is on the executive board of USC’s Ansar Service Partnership, a community service organization based on Islamic values, and has also found comfort in the school’s interfaith community, which, she admits, presents its own challenges. “It’s harder because if you were to forget to pray for a day, you don’t have much of a support system to hold you accountable, especially as a college student living among non-Muslims. If I were to eat on a day I was

supposed to be fasting, no one would know,” she says. “But I think it strengthens your personal connection with God.” Fostering interfaith dialogue is clearly a crucial element of USC’s religious life, and, according to Soni, a powerful one. “I think the most important work we do is what very few people will actually see,” he says. “And that’s the interpersonal transformation that’s happening when students from different perspectives meet each other.” It may not be quantifiable, but it can certainly be seen.

“We did a vigil for our Muslim students,” Soni says, recounting the aftermath of the 2015 shooting of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

“Bart [Campolo] was there, he offered a secular prayer, and our Evangelical pastors were there and they offered a Christian prayer, and a Sikh leader showed up and she offered a Sikh prayer. It’s not that we had a vigil and tried to make it interfaith-y.

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PHOTOS BY NOAH WEBB

We had a vigil and when our community showed up they were representing different faiths and felt very comfortable mourning with our Muslim students. It wasn’t gimmicky, it was organic.”

Of course, there’s always more work to be done. Alwani mentions that she doesn’t wear a headscarf because it can make her feel unsafe, especially in the nation’s current political climate. But if there’s one place she does feel protected, it’s the University Religious Center, or URC. As Burklo says of the URC, “the joint jumps.”

On any given night, you might hear Evangelical Chinese students singing praise songs in Mandarin, Buddhists chanting the Lotus Sutra, the Bhakti Club playing Hindu devotional music or Muslims saying their daily prayers. “It’s like a symphony of world religions,” Burklo says.

“It’s such a peaceful place,” Alwani adds, “where people value tolerance and they value freedom of expression. I wish that would translate to the rest of our … country, really.”

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courtyard around a barbecue, stoking a small fire in preparation for the twiceyearly prayer-burning ceremony.

For the past few months, Burklo had been collecting the scrawled-upon pieces of paper in a prayer box at the non-denominational Little Chapel of Silence. That night, Hickman took the thick stack, and passed the prayers out—to a Catholic, a Baptist, several secular humanists, a Russian Orthodox, a progressive Christian and a Confucian, among others. The students took turns reading prayers before dropping them into the flames. Many were addressed to God, some to Allah, and one lighthearted prayer to “my dude.”

They are prayers for healing, strength and peace. One student held up several prayers and asked if anyone could read Korean or Arabic. No one gathered there could, but it didn’t matter. The prayers were dropped on the fire with the same measure of reverence, the paper curling and burning, the smoke rising into the air. •

The opening of Our Savior Church (above) and the USC Caruso Catholic Center in 2012 marked a new chapter for USC’s Catholic community.

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Thousands of military officers have gotten their start as ROTC cadets at USC.

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BY DIANE KRIEGER

A Century of Service

PHOTO BY STEVE COHN

USC and the U.S. military celebrate a 100-year-old partnership.

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100 YE A R S O F F IG H T IN G O N

AN ARMO RY OF RESO URCES USC offers resources for student-veterans and the wider military community.

A sampling: USC’s Veterans Appreciation Week includes a career fair for vets, with recruiters from major companies, law enforcement and school districts.

USC partners with the WarriorScholar Project on a weeklong academic boot camp to prepare veterans for college life.

The Los Angeles Veterans Collaborative, housed in the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families, is a network of more than 400 organizations that address issues faced by local military members.

The goal: make L.A. the most veteran-friendly community in the country.

A LONG LEGACY A month after the United States entered the Great War in 1917, USC placed all of its campus resources at the disposal of the federal government. By the following year, 600 students had left for the service, an ROTC program opened on campus, gym classes morphed into training courses, and faculty formed a military company of their own. As the war continued, some 1,000 students pitched tents on Bovard Field, lived under Army regulations and attended classes in uniform.

With the return to peace, USC’s ROTC training unit was disbanded. But as World War II dawned, USC served as a naval preparatory flight school and hosted training programs for the Army, Marine Corps and Navy. The Naval ROTC program began in 1940, followed

by Air Force and Army programs, establishing a relationship that continues today. And USC became a major

TROJANS BID WWII FAREWELL Alumna Peggy Kalpakian Johnson’s recollections of USC during World War II remain vivid even seven decades later. Johnson enrolled at USC in 1942 as the nation mobilized for war. Young men studied at USC while training to become officers in the Army, Navy or Marines. In 1943 and 1944, hundreds of students in the enlisted reserves and officer training corps would suddenly be called to active duty, many before graduating. Johnson, 95, shared memories of one mass departure with USC Trojan Family Magazine: I shall never forget that day; it remains as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday. Buses were parked along University Avenue and the men slowly entered them, single file.

Seemingly every person on campus—student, professor, secretary, custodian, gardener—stood by and watched in absolute silence. There were no brass bands, no patriotic speeches, no flag waving. These young men entered the buses and left for war with no guarantees to return. After the buses pulled away, no one could move, and only slowly did we, one by one, somberly return to our tasks. World War II changed the entire world, but on a very personal level it changed the lives of everyone who stood there in the sunshine at USC bidding silent farewell.

1914–18

1940

1946-51

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1972

USC becomes a training school for U.S. Army officers during World War I.

Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) is established at USC. Since then, more than 4,300 USC ROTC officers have been commissioned across all military branches.

Returning veterans under the G.I. Bill swell undergraduate enrollment from pre-war levels, peaking at 24,000 in 1948.

The first aviation program at a major research university, the Aviation Safety & Security Program, opens at USC. Today, it offers more than 20 courses, including drone piloting safety and aircraft accident photography.

The Information Sciences Institute (ISI) is created. Sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, ISI would advance computing, information processing and communications crucial to the evolution of the internet.

USC has a long legacy with the military, including these selected highlights:

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veterans succeed, both by providing access to a worldclass education and through research and care that ensures their well-being and place in society.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF LAURA KALPAKIAN

In what the German kaiser called a “dark day and dark hour,” Europe in 1914 plunged into war. The United States declared itself neutral in what would come to be known as World War I, and in Los Angeles, USC President George Finley Bovard ’84—one of USC’s earliest graduates—cautioned the university’s young men not to abandon their studies to seek excitement, but to be prepared for duty if called upon. “If the time comes, we will all go—I’ll go myself and lead the whole college,” said the 58-year-old Methodist minister.

While the U.S. eventually entered the conflict, Bovard’s declaration never came to pass. But when USC began training Army officers in 1914, it laid the underpinnings for a long relationship between the university and the military.

Today these ties are more robust than ever. Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) programs at USC prepare future leaders. USC faculty members teach veterans who are pursuing their degrees on campus or online.

Researchers rigorously study the complex health needs of war veterans and their families, while other scientists and engineers partner with the military to develop technology in virtual reality, telemedicine and beyond.

Just last year, the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at USC opened, giving L.A. County’s more than 325,000 veterans and their families access to free mental health services. Operating in partnership with the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the clinic is funded by a $15.7 million grant from the Cohen Veterans Network.

In 2016, USC also saw the launch of Army Research Laboratory West, the largest U.S. Army-sponsored university research outpost in the nation. Based at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies in L.A.’s Playa Vista neighborhood, ARL West is pioneering an opencampus model for closer collaboration among military, academic and industry experts in science and technology.

And when the Military Times released its 2016 picks for the best colleges for veterans, USC was one of only a few private research universities on the list.

“USC’s commitment to our military members has been forged for decades,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias says. “Our university is committed to helping

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“USC’s commitment to our military members has been forged for decades. Our university is committed to helping veterans succeed, both by providing access to a world-class education and through research and care that ensures their well-being and place in society.” us c pr e si dent c. l. max ni k i as

In this ca. 1944 photo (top), a crowd at the Old College sends off USC students as they leave for active duty. Military barracks (bottom left) once stood on what’s now Trousdale Parkway. USC’s Air Force ROTC program began after World War II (bottom right). Its students took courses in aircraft engineering, air operations and more.

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1950

PHOTOS COURTESY OF USC UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

1918

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“Those who have served and are preparing to serve merit our tremendous gratitude. They are welcome and embraced in our Trojan Family, as it is our role as a major research university to provide education, research and care that supports our shared mission.” usc pr e si dent c. l . m ax n ikias

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(Clockwise from top left) Women joined USC’s Naval ROTC program in 1973; retired Gen. David Petraeus is a Judge Widney Professor at USC; retired Gen. James N. Mattis, now U.S. secretary of defense, at a 2016 banquet with students; selected U.S. Military Academy cadets spend the summer at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies shaping virtual reality and game-based training tools.

2013

NROTC PHOTO COURTESY OF USC UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES; PETRAEUS AND ICT PHOTOS BY GUS RUELAS; MATTIS PHOTO BY STEVE COHN

2016

2016

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training center for managers who would run technical operations in the emerging defense industry.

World War II saw student enrollment decrease by 15 percent, and 75 faculty members marched off to war, along with more than 2,600 alumni. By 1945, 75 percent of the male student body was in uniform. Female students served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, donated blood and made other contributions on the home front.

After the war, veterans arriving under the G.I. bill swelled USC classrooms. Unlike other institutions, USC put no limit on veteran admissions. The result: Between 1945 and 1948, enrollment of daytime and evening students doubled from 11,800 to 24,000. The surge in veterans subsided in the 1950s, and during the Cold War, the university’s links to national defense shifted from manpower to research and technology. USC won a succession of bids for research centers such as the Information Sciences Institute, which supports the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Today, USC ranks No. 4 among private research universities in Department of Defense-sponsored research expenditures, with more than $200 million in active research funding.

USC AND THE MODERN MILITARY The relationship between USC and the military wasn’t always smooth. In the 1970s, the Vietnam War spurred protests at colleges nationwide. At USC, student protestors at least twice tried to take over a building that housed the Air Force ROTC detachment, calling for an end to military training at the university. But ROTC continued.

The pace of military and veteran activity at USC kicked into high gear decades later, after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. A newly formed U.S. Department of Homeland Security established its first national research center at USC, the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, in 2004. The center brings together policy experts and engineers to study the costs and consequences of terrorism.

And, responding to the growing need for mental health workers equipped to counsel combat veterans and their families, the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work pioneered the military social work concentration in its Master of Social Work program. The first program of its kind in a civilian institution, it has

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Number of USC alumni who have attained the rank of general officer or admiral

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USC’s rank among U.S. private research universities in Department of Defense-sponsored research expenditures

600

Roughly the number of members of the USC Alumni Veterans Network, a community for Trojan vets through the USC Alumni Association

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Veterans who have graduated with a military social work concentration from USC’s Master of Social Work program

graduated more than 1,500 students since 2008. The school also houses the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families, where researchers study the long-term health of service members, veterans and their families—covering issues from posttraumatic stress disorder to sexual assault in the military.

New academic programs also have sprung up to meet the educational needs of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2012, the USC Marshall School of Business rolled out its Master of Business for Veterans degree, enabling veterans to build on the management and leadership experience gained during service.

Then there’s the Yellow Ribbon Program, which has helped countless veterans attend USC and other universities. Under the initiative, the university and the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department partner to pay for any tuition that remains after veterans reach their G.I. Bill maximum benefit. USC offers unlimited slots for academically qualified veterans, and it’s one of only nine top private research universities that ensure them full undergraduate tuition funding.

Meanwhile, more than 170 service members studying business and engineering have gotten a boost through the Schoen Family Scholarship Program for Veterans. The $16 million endowment fund was established in 1986 by Marine veteran and USC Trustee William J. Schoen ’60, MBA ’63 and his wife, Sharon, to help vets attend USC. USC programs support the families of military members, too, like Audrey Daly. With her family stationed at a base in Germany when she was in high school, Daly had no easy way to tour U.S. colleges. But thanks to the Provost’s Pre-College Summer Scholarship for children of military members, she visited USC. The scholarship covered all expenses associated with her four-week summer stay in 2014, which immersed her in campus life. Today, she’s a USC sophomore majoring in theatre. “It was such a fantastic experience and really helped me shape my goals and my future,” Daly says.

Military ties are woven deeply throughout USC, and Nikias views the relationship with gravity.

“Those who have served and are preparing to serve merit our tremendous gratitude,” Nikias says. “They are welcome and embraced in our Trojan Family, as it is our role as a major research university to provide education, research and care that supports our shared mission.” •

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2002

2008

2014

2015

2016

The Department of Defense-sponsored USC Institute for Creative Technologies launches. The institute draws on USC expertise to create technologies for use in areas such as military training and the treatment of combat stress.

The Navy Trauma Training Center, which prepares medics for combat deployment, opens at LAC+USC Medical Center’s emergency medicine department.

USC pioneers a military concentration in its Master of Social Work program. The next year, the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families opens.

USC’s new Veterans Resource Center provides a campus home and advising to USC’s roughly 1,000 student-veterans and their dependents.

USC hosts the first West Coast-based WarriorScholar Project, an academic boot camp that prepares service members and veterans to study at top colleges.

The Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at USC opens, offering free mental health services to L.A. County’s more than 325,000 veterans and their family members.

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Students in USCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Department of History are encouraged to seek out original documents and other evidence for study. This note, carefully preserved in USC Librariesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; special collections, contains words and a few bars of music hastily scribbled byusc 19th-century composer Richard Wagner. trojanGerman family

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BY DIANE KRIEGER

Hands-On History

PHOTOS BY PAULA GOLDMAN AND PROVIDED COURTESY OF USC LIBRARY ARCHIVES

Students dig into historical records to create their own nuanced accounts of our past.

Anthony Garciano started crying.

Surrounded by old letters, documents and dusty clippings stashed in the archives of the Philippine Science High School in Quezon City, the USC history major felt an unexpected connection to Filipino history. Garciano’s family had left the Philippines when he was a child, and now, years later, he had returned there as a scholar to research the origins of Filipino nationalism.

What the USC senior wasn’t prepared for was the wave of emotions that hit him as he read a student’s letter published in an old school newspaper. Writing to herself, the schoolgirl recounted her life in 1965.

“She had been taken her from her home, placed in this school and asked to be a scientist,” remembers Garciano, who grew up in Independence, Missouri.

“Reading how eloquently she wrote about her feelings touched me.” And to Garciano, reading the penned words while he was within the school that provoked them gave the letter even greater weight.

Many college students study history second hand, with classroom time spent discussing ideas and explanations crafted by established historians about wars, tfm.usc.edu

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revolutions and cultural upheavals. But USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ history program prides itself on a more hands-on approach to give motivated students the tools to become historical detectives and develop their own, informed interpretations of the past. USC students sort through libraries’ special collections and government archives and hunt down data in the seemingly limitless holdings of digital repositories. They scatter from China to Chile on fact-finding trips and go on geospatial explorations that enable them to virtually leapfrog across centuries or millennia.

At USC, undergrads have the chance to find history’s untold stories and use their own voices to bring them to light.

MATERIAL WEIGHT Archival research remains the gold standard for historians. There’s something about concrete objects—“their materiality,” says USC Dornsife’s Nathan Perl-Rosenthal—that draws people who analyze the past.

“I’ve held letters in my hand that were written by Abraham Lincoln,” adds Philip Ethington, chair of the history department.

“It makes a difference.”

Especially for millennials born into a quasi-paperless world.

Perl-Rosenthal, who teaches history, remembers the excitement of a student who was working with letters written in the 17th century. Touching the parchment —absorbing its texture, shape and size, holding it up to the light to study an ink blot or the residue from sealing wax—yields unexpected insights and moments of clarity.

Perl-Rosenthal knows this firsthand: His own scholarship on the 18th-century political and cultural life of Europeans and Americans leans heavily on epistolary primary sources.

For USC history major Madeline Adams, hearing the recorded voices of World War II-era Maori women talking about their lives made the racial and gender bias they had faced more real than reading interview transcripts ever could. “The tone and fluctuations in their vocal patterns made all the difference when analyzing the interviews,” says Adams, who traveled nearly 7,000 miles to New Zealand to access 1940s-era oral histories preserved on audiocassettes. Her thesis focused on the societal costs of being both indigenous and a woman in 20th-century New Zealand. usc trojan family

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Student Standouts USC’s history honors thesis students have brought new scholarship and insight into our not-so-recent past.

Here are just a few standouts: William Orr ’16 Orr won a 2016 Discovery Scholar prize for his work “From Condemnation to Celebration: Changing American Representations of the Bombing of Cities and Civilians in East Asia, 1937-1945,” a research project that revealed a double standard in World War II-era attitudes toward bombings of civilian population centers in East Asia.

Katherine McCormick A senior, McCormick was named a Discovery Scholar for her historical study of how depictions of the rake through British popular culture changed. McCormick traced the 17th-century stock character’s evolution into the present day, shedding new light on changing views of male and female sexuality.

Thomas Armstrong ’15 Armstrong was awarded a USC Global Scholar prize in recognition of his travels in China and Belgium. His honors thesis explored why the geopolitical maneuverings of Franklin Roosevelt and Chiang Kai-shek failed to produce postwar cooperative security between their two nations.

Jasneet Aulakh ’13 Aulakh’s honors thesis addressed India’s anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984; then she turned her attention to the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1993, which mandated that village governments reserve one-third of seats for women.

The Fulbright scholar’s research revealed that in most cases, an elected woman is a front for her husband’s proxy vote.

Vivian Yan ’14 Yan spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Hong Kong documenting how British and Chinese rule shaped the racial discourse between residents and South Asian immigrants and foreign domestic workers.

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Adams is enrolled in History 492, the intensive scholarly writing class at the heart of the Department of History’s highly regarded honors thesis track. Taught last fall by Perl-Rosenthal, it consisted of six students. By graduation in May, each will have completed a capstone project of publishable quality and length, constituting an original contribution to the field of history.

And based on the program’s track record, at least one of these projects will earn its author $10,000 from USC. “We really love and are very proud of our senior thesis program,” Ethington says.

“Its success is evident in the prizes these people are winning. Several have won the $10,000 Discovery Scholar prize, including my own advisees.” The coveted Discovery prize recognizes outstanding USC seniors for original scholarship that makes a significant contribution to their field.

TIME TRAVELERS It’s a Wednesday afternoon on the University Park Campus and six honors thesis writers are sitting around a table in the basement of the Social Sciences Building.

Perl-Rosenthal has a few suggestions for them about how to create a strong thesis introduction.

“You’ve read a ton of literature, thought about it, developed your own interpretation,” he tells them. “This is the moment to say: ‘There is a thing I know that other historians don’t know.’ You should feel confident about your argument, and I will continue to push you to express yourself in a confident way.”

The emotional, intellectual and writing help comes on the heels of significant financial support. Half the class traveled to far-flung places last summer thanks to the history department: USC history students can receive travel grants of as much as $5,000 through an endowment created by history alumna Roberta Persinger Foulke ’36, MA ’36. That’s enough to cover transportation, lodgings and living expenses while sifting through archives abroad.

“It’s hard to do serious historical research without doing archival research at some stage of the project, so having travel funds is a condition of possibility for doing serious work,” Perl-Rosenthal says. “In that regard, we are on par with Ivy League schools.

The kind of funding our senior thesis writers get is at the same level.”

Some students’ academic curiosity kept them close to home. Krystal Cervantes, for one, has focused on how Chicano youth

borrowed from the Civil Rights movement during the 1968 East Los Angeles Walkouts, which protested unequal educational opportunities for Mexican-American youth in L.A. classrooms. For her research, Cervantes camped out in the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Library—the first in the U.S. to focus on people of Mexican descent—poring through box after box filled with hidden history: dusty periodicals, original prints, videos, slides and Englishand Spanish-language newspapers. She grew giddy with excitement, “like a kid in a candy store,” says the senior from Whittier, California. “You just open a box. You have no idea what you’re going to find!”

Classmate Zachary Larkin didn’t need to leave campus to study World War II-era Jewish resistance to fascism in Budapest.

He found an abundance of primary-source materials through the extensive genocide survivor testimonies housed at USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education. Founded by USC Trustee Steven Spielberg, the archive has been housed at USC since 2013 and has more than 54,000 audiovisual eyewitness testimonies catalogued online and accessible from anywhere in the world.

Bethany Balchunas wanted to study race and French colonial policy in West Africa. Her honors thesis contrasts official records of the tirailleurs—more than 100,000 indigenous African infantrymen who fought for France during World War I—with fictional representations from period novels. So Balchunas traveled to Paris to consult colonial administrative records in the labyrinthine archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale, the national library of France.

“Having access to the documents was so exciting,” she says, “and the archival staff were so kind. They searched through a billion different rooms to hunt down a document I needed on microfiche.”

As for Anthony Garciano, he is a recipient of a McNair Scholarship, which provides support to promising first-generation and traditionally underrepresented minorities preparing for doctoral education.

For his thesis, he wanted to study the formation of Filipino national identity viewed through the eyes of gifted teenagers attending the Philippine Science High School.

Launched in 1964, this government-run boarding school brought together gifted youth from across the newly independent Philippines. Far from their homes and families, the teenagers formed an academic spring 2017

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History students pore over letters, journals and other firsthand accounts to gain insight into everyday life and extraordinary events of the past. This piece from USC Librariesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; special collections documents the conversion of Henrique Gilte, who gave up the Protestant faith of his parents for Roman Catholicism at Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mission Santa Clara in 1839.usc trojan family

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Some of the most dramatic and heartfelt documents studied by historians may stem from the horrors of war. This Civil War-era sketch was penned by Edward A. Fox, a soldier serving in the Union Army in northern Virginia. Fox included it in one of the 33 letters he wrote to his mother in 186263 that are housed in USC Libraries’ special collections.

community that, Garciano believed, could serve as a microcosm for his investigation into how an archipelago of 7,500 islands with 19 distinct languages became a unified nation. Learning history in the students’ own voices remains a powerful experience.

“I completely felt what they were feeling,” Garciano recalls.

Major Change College humanities programs across the nation have seen declining enrollments as students gravitate toward what they perceive as more marketable degrees during a time of economic uncertainty and escalating personal debt. The American Historical Association has published several recent articles exploring why fewer students are pursuing history.

But USC’s history program has evolved by offering interdisciplinary tracks. In addition to its roughly 100 traditional history majors, the department has 100 students in its Law, History and Culture program, a collaboration with USC Dornsife’s English department and the USC Gould School of Law. Another interdisciplinary major, History and Social Science Education, appeals to aspiring secondary school teachers. A new option is the Contemporary Latino and Latin American Studies major, bridging Chicano culture studies with the historian’s rigorous training in social science theory and research methods.

“History has always been on the boundary between humanities and social sciences,” says Philip Ethington, chair of the Department of History. “You have to be entrepreneurial.”

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BEYOND THE BOOK A cartographer and spatial scientist, Ethington delights in seeing students use interdisciplinary tools to explore history, like visual and map-based research.

He spearheaded Scalar, a free open-access digital platform that’s changing how information-rich scholarship gets created and published. Through Scalar, scholars tell a historical story online using images, videos, maps, timelines and other visuals, and they can collaborate on the project even if they’re thousands of miles apart.

It’s no surprise, then, that instead of a term paper, the final project for Ethington’s History 240 “History of California” course is an assignment he calls “Los Angeles: The Movie.” Small teams of students build film treatments that span 1,000 years of regional history, from pre-Columbian time to the present day. Ethington’s own sprawling multi-genre history of the Southland, Ghost Metropolis: Los Angeles from Clovis to Nixon, is slated to be published this year in web and print formats.

Brett Sheehan, professor of history and East Asian languages and cultures, also has developed new technology tools to enhance his undergraduates’ learning experience.

His freshman seminar “Gaming Chinese Historical Capitalism” uses an online role-play game to take students on a journey through 200 years of Chinese economic and social upheaval. It took Sheehan a year to create the game China Times, with help from two USC game

design majors. Dense scholarly readings come alive through gameplay, as students assume the identities of Chinese peasants belonging to six families. The goal: to grow the family’s wealth and social status over time as succeeding generations adapt from the rule of the last dynasty to republicanism, Maoism and today’s experiments with global market capitalism. Each financial decision players make has ripple effects over time. Should the family buy land, start a business, invest in a cash crop like tea, cotton or silk? Even personal choices—to seek an education, take a government job, make a marriage proposal—have economic consequences for the family.

History faculty don’t necessarily need to develop new software to be innovative teachers, however. They can use technology and resources already readily shared by researchers in the digital universe.

Ethington speaks glowingly of the wealth of such resources available through USC Libraries, and cites ProQuest as an example. This massive digital content collection available to students and scholars through the library system includes almost every newspaper, dissertation, journal article and government record published in the last 600 years—all sortable, word-searchable and downloadable from students’ laptops.

ProQuest allows students to research information from primary sources quickly and thoroughly without having to flip through documents by hand.

For History 201, “Approaches to History,” Ethington recently challenged his spring 2017

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students to document a potential American war crime—the firebombing of German and Japanese civilians during World War II. ProQuest searches in the Office of War Information archives indicate that the Pentagon knew these were criminal acts, Ethington says. Students then learned how to present such controversial information to the public in the form of reasoned, objective and documented argumentation.

While digital archives are hardly new, it’s only in the last five years that they’ve become user friendly.

USC’s Lon Kurashige remembers that as a graduate student in the 1980s, he needed a whole semester to access U.S. Census data stored on magnetic tape. “What took me a semester then, I could now do in 5 minutes,” says Kurashige, a professor of history and spatial sciences.

Adds Ethington: “It’s a wonderful time to be a historian.”

VISITING THE PAST Massive digitization efforts by Western governments and cultural institutions have put a blizzard of primary sources within a keystroke’s reach. Physically being in Los Angeles, however, gives USC’s history students and faculty an advantage when it comes to sophisticated digital resources.

“The institutional ecology of L.A. is really rich,” Ethington explains, and USC’s history faculty play an outsized role in it.

They direct a cluster of important institutes and research centers, including two with the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens and another in conjunction with USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education.

USC history majors also benefit from a demographic advantage that students at many other big universities will never experience. “The entire world lives here,” Ethington explains. “Every major ethnic group has a big colony in Los Angeles.”

A professor who teaches Latin American history at USC, for example, can easily get students together with Bolivians, Peruvians or people from any other Latin American country. The same can’t be said of faculty teaching the course in a lessdiverse community.

Faculty members have another way to introduce students to living history: Ethington routinely takes his classes— including general education courses like History 100—on extended downtown Los tfm.usc.edu

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Angeles walking tours. A 15-minute ride on the Metro train from USC’s University Park Campus carries students to the heart of downtown L.A. Ethington points out early movie houses and nickelodeons in what is today a working-class immigrant neighborhood, before taking the students to Bunker Hill, the Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels and La Placita Olvera. “By the time we’re done, they’ve seen a lot of history,” he says.

Sometimes the trips are more extensive. For the third year in a row, Kurashige, who is an expert on Asian-American history and transpacific history, plans to take a dozen students to Tokyo, Lake Yamanaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima in June for the course “Foreigner and Gaijin,” which explores what it means to be a foreigner in Japan. In Sheehan’s “Global Consumer Culture and China” course, students travel to megacities Beijing and Shanghai and provincial cities such as Zhengzhou and Hebi to study the uneven impact of globalization on consumption patterns in China. Assistant Professor Lindsay O’Neill’s travel course, “Sex and the City: Constructing Gender in London, 17001900,” focuses on such gender-specific 18th-century British spaces as tearooms, boarding schools and gentlemen’s clubs.

In this unprecedented age of travel and digital information, learning and sharing history has increasingly grown beyond the bounds of the traditional book and the ordinary classroom. When passionate students are challenged to analyze historical evidence and spin arguments in original ways, they learn to view the world with a historian’s critical eye. They also grow a lifelong passion for the subject—as well as sharpen critical thinking skills that can serve them wherever they go. •

Career Moves History majors go into many fields. Law is a time-honored path, as are journalism, business and education. But some make their mark in less-obvious niches. Lon Kurashige points to a former research assistant, Katie Gibelyou ’08, who is now at The Walt Disney Co. The Seattle native worked her way up the ladder from receptionist to contributing to the 2012 design overhaul of the company’s core website and the 2014 rollout of its StarWars.com site.

Gibelyou, who double-majored in critical studies in the USC School of Cinematic Arts, has no formal training in information technology or programming. Last October, she returned to USC to give the talk “What I Did With a B.A. in History.”

The history degree “taught me how to take a question or challenge, break it down, do the research, figure out the building blocks necessary to make a decision, and find a solution,” Gibelyou says. “It also gave me the ability to think critically about my world and translate that into coherent writing.”

Her advice to history majors entering the workforce: “Hone and practice your critical thinking, writing and research skills. In the real world, you will find that not many people can write effectively.

Pair those skills with a solid work ethic and your curiosity, and you’ll find success.”

By creating their own interpretations of history from photographs, text, interviews and other primary evidence—as well as considering ideas from other historians—USC students sharpen their critical-thinking and research skills.

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Stunning Landscapes.

Superb Company.

Journey with us to the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most beautiful places Visit TrojanTravel.usc.edu today

ALUMNI.USC.EDU | ALUMNI@USC.EDU | TEL: 213 740 2300

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FA M I LY

PHOTO BY XIMO MICHAVILA/GETTY IMAGES

GREAT HEIGHTS During his influential career, celebrated architect Frank Gehry ’54 has transformed buildings into daring artistic statements. In Los Angeles, the sweeping curves of Walt Disney Concert Hall (pictured) have become iconic. The USC School of Architecture alumnus’ work was recently honored when he received the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

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Learn more about the 2017 USC Alumni Awards gala at alumni.usc.edu/awards.

family news

Blueprint for Success by lynn lipinski

Construction of Palisades Village in West Los Angeles started only a few months ago, but Rick Caruso ’80 is already walking through the site of the future retail, dining and residential property. Dubbed a retail mastermind by the Wall Street Journal, Caruso is credited for reinventing the mall as an entertainment destination and community gathering place. He is hands-on and likes walking the grounds of all of his developments as they take shape.

“My earliest memories are of wanting to build and construct things,” Caruso says.

“It’s how I’m wired.”

Today, the USC trustee and alumnus has earned a place among the country’s highest-profile real estate developers. His company’s flagship shopping mecca in Los Angeles, The Grove, is ranked second on Fortune’s top 10 list of highest salesgenerating shopping centers.

In recognition of Caruso’s leadership in business and beyond, the USC Alumni Association will present him with this year’s Asa V. Call Alumni Achievement Award, the university’s greatest honor for an alumnus.

When he’s recognized at the 84th Annual USC Alumni Awards on April 22 in Los Angeles, he’ll join the ranks of previous recipients including astronaut Neil Armstrong ’70 and opera singer Marilyn Horne ’53.

Caruso earned his bachelor’s degree from the USC Marshall School of Business and his law degree from Pepperdine University. Six years as an attorney convinced him that he belonged in business.

He started his own real estate firm in 1992, growing it into one of the nation’s largest privately held real estate companies.

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But real estate is far from his only passion. He and his wife, Tina, founded the Caruso Family Foundation to support education and health care causes. And his three decades of civic leadership include serving as the youngest commissioner of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and president of the Los Angeles Police Commission.

The Carusos’ involvement with USC spans nearly four decades. Their $25 million gift named the USC Tina and Rick Caruso Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery and funded research on hearing loss and related diseases. A previous gift of $10 million established the USC Caruso Catholic Center and Our Savior Parish Church.

“Rick Caruso stands among this university’s most passionate supporters and

USC Trustee Rick Caruso will receive the 2017 Asa V. Call Award, the university’s highest recognition for alumni.

plays a tremendous leadership role in our community,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias says.

The Carusos’ generosity reflects their deep connections to both USC and its hometown.

“USC is changing the lives of not just its students, but also of its patients at Keck Medicine of USC and residents of the surrounding community,” Caruso says.

“It’s making a huge positive influence and impact on the city of Los Angeles which I love.”

Caruso admits he was surprised—and humbled—when Nikias called to inform him of the Asa V. Call Award recognition.

His gratitude for the honor goes straight back to the university that has given him a lifetime of memories. “USC helped shape the person I am today,” he says.

PHOTO BY STEVE COHN

The USC Alumni Association recognizes USC trustee and visionary real estate developer Rick Caruso ’80.

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getting in the game

BY B E K A H W R I G H T

For many Trojans, an undying love for USC sports starts during their college years and lasts the rest of their lives. Then there are the lucky few who made that love the perfect launching pad for their careers.

Meet two USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism alumnae who made the jump into the world of sports broadcasting.

TAYLOR FELIX ’13

KELLI TENNANT ’09

Felix was first introduced to USC sports during kindergarten carpools. With Trojan Marching Band music playing in the background, her father, Michael Felix ’83, regaled her with stories about USC football. She took those stories to heart, eventually picking USC as her dream school and becoming a Song Girl.

Of her time on the squad, the Orange County native says, “They were the best two years of my entire life.”

She enrolled at USC Annenberg as a communications major and added a business administration minor. When graduation rolled around, she decided to pursue a career in finance.

Fate had different plans, though.

Felix’s Song Girl adviser contacted her about an opportunity with FOX Sports West: They needed a social media personality to report on games for the Los Angeles Clippers and Kings, as well as the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Of the 600 hopefuls who applied, Felix landed the job.

“Working primarily with men forced me not to be nervous or intimidated, but to find my confidence,” says Felix about the sports broadcasting field. “I put myself in uncomfortable positions, did research, set goals and always went with my gut.”

Today, Felix (below, left) works in sports digital media for affiliates of the Los Angeles Rams, Anaheim Ducks, NHL and Fangirl Sports Network. What’s her gut telling her these days? “I never expected a job in sports would be my dream career, but this feels right.”

It wasn’t just a volleyball scholarship that drew the 6-foot-1-inch Tennant from Temecula, California, to USC. She knew USC Annenberg could put her on the path to a childhood dream: becoming a television sports anchor.

Starting her freshman year, Tennant dove in with a string of internships, including working on the websites for FOX Sports West and USC Athletics and serving as a sports analyst for USC men’s and women’s volleyball matches. “This business is competitive, so on-camera experience and networking is imperative,” Tennant says.

After graduation, Tennant was snapped up as a volleyball analyst for ESPN. Similar roles followed with the Longhorn and Pac-12 Networks. Currently, she’s a host for Spectrum SportsNet and SportsNet LA and sideline reporter for the Los Angeles Lakers, Galaxy, Sparks and Dodgers.

Tennant strives to go beyond sound bites when interviewing athletes. Her own struggle with fibromyalgia and its impact on her volleyball career spawned a book, The Transition: Every Athlete’s Guide to Life After Sports. “The public puts athletes on pedestals for their achievements and cuts them down for one mistake,” she says. “What often isn’t seen are the struggles they encounter—family deaths, alcoholism, suicide—that they have to perform through. To me, the best part of my job is creating relationships with these men and women, breaking down those barriers and having real conversations.”

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family news

Student body presidents from different decades reflect on their leadership experiences.

Taking the Lead

BY BEKAH WRIGHT

They served at different times, but three former presidents of USC Undergraduate Student Government and Student Senate shared the same passion: making USC’s student experience richer and more rewarding.

They look back on how the experience changed them.

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When Pauline Ng Lee ’86 ran for undergraduate president in the mid-80s, the student government saw a growing divide between undergraduate and graduate students. “A lot of the graduates wanted to break off,” she recalls. “I saw the wisdom the graduate students brought with them as an asset, though.” Keeping the groups together became a top priority for her campaign.

Lee won her election, becoming USC’s first female AsianAmerican president. There were many life-changing moments during that year. Among them: introducing social rights activist and bishop Desmond Tutu, who had come to speak on campus. “Here was this man who devoted his life to causes that were beyond him,” she says. Lee, an accounting major, was so inspired by Tutu that after graduation she declined job offers and chose to attend Duke University School of Law with the goal of working in public policy.

In law school, Lee ran for president of the Duke Bar Association, beating out two male classmates to become the first Asian-American to serve in the role.

Now a lawyer living in Nevada, Lee continues her involvement in politics. In 2016, she was a poll watcher for the Clark County Republican Party. Her son, a college senior, worked with the Republican National Committee in Las Vegas over the summer and she offered him the same advice she gives to anyone considering working in politics: “To truly understand various viewpoints and exercise critical thinking skills, it’s important to go outside of the familiar comfort zones found within socioeconomic and ethnic groups and strike a dialogue with people who have different perspectives.” spring 2017

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Politics has always held an allure for Harold L. Mann Jr. ’05, who started in student government in high school. By his junior year at USC, he was student body president. “Leadership roles have always been a passionate desire of mine, as has contributing to the communities I serve,” Mann says.

The public policy, management and planning major dove right into student government and found other like-minded leaders working toward the same goals of improving academic, athletic and student experiences.

During his term, Mann represented the student voice during community hearings about Galen Center construction. He also served on the Student Services Committee of the USC Board of Trustees. “It was great to advocate for the needs of the students with the movers and shakers of the university,” Mann says.

Another opportunity saw Mann working with Graduate Student Government and Senate. “A shared issue was housing, something we collaborated over,” he says. “More than a decade later, it’s amazing to see the new USC Village [residential-retail complex] opening up.”

Today, Mann remains active in the USC community. He founded the USC Alumni Club of Beverly Hills/Hollywood and co-chaired the first Young Alumni Reunion—now a USC homecoming tradition—and his 10-year reunion. In 2010, Mann was presented with the USC Alumni Association’s President’s Award.

And his career? He’s Delta Air Lines’ London-based manager of UK joint venture sales operations, a position in which he still finds himself returning to lessons learned at USC. “My leadership roles at USC definitely grounded me as I developed my leadership style and mindset for working within the professional sector,” Mann says. The wisdom he’s acquired? “Leaders need to be humble and spend more time listening than speaking.” tfm.usc.edu

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THEN AND NOW: Pauline Ng Lee, Harold Mann Jr. and Dave Gabler during their USC days

Business major Dave Gabler ’97 never considered running for student body president until his friends suggested it. “The position felt like a great platform to continue doing a lot of the things I was already doing, but would have even more impact on the people around me,” says Gabler, who served as a resident adviser and was also on USC’s men’s rowing team and Student Conduct Board.

During his term, Gabler was determined to establish a unified student voice. At the time, a similar organization, USC Residential Student Community (URSC), existed for students who lived on campus. “The ability to use either platform to its full effect was muddled,” he says of the two groups. Together, Gabler and URSC President Jeff Foster ’96 and URSC Vice President Adina Israel ’97 set out to find a solution. “We succeeded by keeping both organizations intact, yet working toward the same goals in a cohesive manner, bringing the full strength of the student body to bear on various issues.”

After graduation, Gabler worked as a management consultant and then was director for a technology startup, but after the Sept. 11 attacks, he felt the call to serve. He joined the Air Force, where he flew F-16s for a tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.

The outlook he gained while serving as Undergraduate Student Government president served him well.

“It’s easy to have a very organization-centric perspective on the world,” says Gabler, who is working toward a master’s degree in public policy at Stanford. “As student body president, understanding the needs and goals of a diverse group—both the student body and administration—expanded my way of thinking. It’s a process not afforded to many, and one from which I definitely grew.” usc trojan family

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The USC Alumni Association proudly presents the

84TH ANNUAL

USC ALUMNI AWARDS Saturday, April 22, 2017 | Westin Bonaventure Hotel | Downtown Los Angeles

ASA V. CALL ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RICK CARUSO ’80 USC Trustee; founder and CEO, Caruso, and founder, the Caruso Family Foundation

ALUMNI MERIT AWARDS WA N DA M . AU S T I N P h D ’ 8 8 USC Trustee; aerospace executive, STEMinist and author GRANT GERSHON ’85 Artistic director, Los Angeles Master Chorale, and resident conductor, LA Opera

WILFRED STEVEN UY TENGSU ’83 President and CEO, Alaska Milk Corp.

YOUNG ALUMNI MERIT AWARD A L LY S O N F E L I X ’0 8 Nine-time Olympic medalist

ALUMNI SERVICE AWARDS DA N C A S S I DY ’ 5 9 Past president, Half Century Trojans Board of Directors, and longtime university volunteer V I C K I M c C L U G G AG E ’ 7 7 Past president, Trojan League of Los Angeles, and longtime university volunteer

ALUMNI.USC.EDU | ALUMNI@USC.EDU | TEL: 213 740 2300

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Do you have news to share? Send it along with your name, school and class year to classnotes@ usc.edu and it may appear in a future issue.

family class notes

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Robert Annis MM ’74 (MUS), dean of Westminster Choir College of Rider University from 1992-2014, was honored with the naming of the school’s Robert L. Annis Playhouse.

Miles Stover ’74 (BUS), president of Turnaround Inc., in Gig Harbor, Washington, is general receiver of Christensen Shipyards LTD, a builder of yachts. He is also a sponsored associate member of the U.S. Navy UDT-SEAL Association’s Pacific Northwest Chapter, and a full member of the Combat Veterans Association.

Wendy Naiditch Brickman ’78 (SCJ) launched her own television program, The Brickman Banter, on AMP Community Television in Monterey, California, and streamed online at ampmedia.org.

Nancy Tallerino MSW ’78 (SSW) is president and CEO of Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services. Founded in Los Angeles in 1908, Vista Del Mar is considered one of the nation’s leading nonsectarian child welfare and mental health agencies.

Gary Ginsburg MS ’79 (ENG) served 32 years in the U.S. Army. Currently he volunteers for several organizations in New York, including the Veterans Outreach Center in Rochester and the Fort Drum Retiree Soldier Council in Fort Drum.

LEE PHOTO COURTESY OF USC ATHLETICS

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Tim Dang ’80 (DRA) completed 36 years at East West Players, 23 of them as the producing artistic director. He recently directed East West Players’ production of La Cage Aux Folles. The Los Angeles City Council declared June 14 Tim Dang Day. Michael Schroeder ’80 (SCJ) purchased the Block Island Times, where he now serves as publisher of the Rhode Island weekly paper and BlockIsland.com. He is also owner and publisher of the New Britain Herald and The Bristol Press dailies in Connecticut. tfm.usc.edu

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Tim Koprowski MS ’81 (ENG) retired after working as a hospital administrator in the U.S. Air Force and later as the CEO of HealthWare Management Company, a software business that services the health care industry. He recently published Managing Through the Entrepreneurial Fog. Kevin Wolley ’81 (ENG) served in the nuclear power field as reactor electrical division officer for the U.S. Navy. After discharge, he served as headquarters operations officer for the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He has been a pilot with FedEx for the past 21 years.

Albert Pergande MS ’82 (ENG) published a book, The Playwrighting Talks.

This primer for playwrights summarizes several years’ worth of notes from his work with the Playwrights’ Round Table reading workshops.

Douglas A. Thiessen ’83 (ENG) is the managing director of engineering for the Port of Long Beach in California. Recently he presented a paper he co-authored, “Owner, Operator, Engineer: A Joint Approach for the Design, Construction, and Start-Up of the Long Beach Middle Harbor Automated Container Terminal,” at the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Ports 2016 conference in New Orleans.

Edmund C. Blash MS ’83 (ENG) retired from the United States military after 34 years of service and resides in Tampa, Florida. He has written three novels: Satan’s Pitchfork, Two-faced and Agent Provocateur.

Bill Foltz ’84 (BUS) is chief financial officer of the Anaheim Ducks. He also serves as CFO for the Honda Center and H&S Ventures. He previously was CFO of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Jeffrey D. Leonard ’87 (BUS) is partner and principal of Paragon Services Janitorial LLC, a leading provider of janitorial solutions in Southern California.

T R O J A N

T R I B U T E

Samuel “Sammy” Lee A gold medalist in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics, Samuel “Sammy” Lee MD ’47 (MED) was the first man to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in platform diving and the oldest diver to win an Olympic gold medal.

Setting his sights on twin goals of winning an Olympic gold medal and becoming a doctor, Lee began training while attending Franklin High School in Los Angeles, learning how to do somersaults from a diving board into a sandpit in his coach’s backyard. He quit high school football to concentrate on diving, and won his first national diving championship in 1942, only to put his sport on hold to enroll in USC’s medical school. He returned to competition in 1946 and again won the national championship in the platform event.

As a member of the U.S. Army Medical Corps in Korea, he rarely competed in the four years after the 1948 Olympics. Still, he qualified for the 1952 Olympic team and won two gold medals in Helsinki. He retired from the sport in 1953, the same year he won the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award as outstanding U.S. amateur athlete.

His list of accomplishments, awards and honors is long and impressive. His name adorns the International Swimming Hall of Fame, the Anaheim/Orange County Walk of Stars and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) High School Sports Hall of Fame, among others. In 2013, the LAUSD named the Dr. Sammy Lee Medical and Health Sciences Magnet Elementary School in his honor. He also has a square named for him in Los Angeles’ Koreatown.

Lee died on Dec. 2, 2016, at the age of 96.

He is survived by his wife Roz, daughter Pamela, son Sammy II and three grandchildren.

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family class notes

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University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies.

lates innovation, encourages collaboration and strengthens economic opportunity.

John Banks MS ’90 (LAS) is the director of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center at California State University, Monterey Bay.

Mark Motonaga ’91 (ARC) was promoted to principal at Rios Clementi Hale Studios, which was honored as one of Architectural Digest’s 100 most preeminent tastemakers and thought leaders in the world in 2016.

Lauren Birney EdD ’98 (EDU) is the principal investigator on the Curriculum + Community Enterprise for Restoration Science project, which received a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Her research team at SmartStart Education & Research is headed

by Erica Watson-Currie MA ’97, MA ’00, PhD ’04 (SCJ) and includes Jelilat Oladayo Majekodunmi MPH ’15 (MED), Previn Chula Witana MPP ’15 (SPP) and Bryan Tomio Maekawa MPP ’15 (SPP).

Greg Guedel ’91 (BUS), chair of the Native American practice for the law firm of Foster Pepper PLLC, completed a PhD for his research on Native American political economy, the first doctoral degree awarded in the 107-year history of the

T R O J A N

T R I B U T E

Michael R. Herron ’92 (SCA) was named managing director, head of insurance, for First Republic Bank.

Morgan Christen ’93 (BUS) launched Spinnaker Investment Group LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor in Newport Beach, California. He is CEO and chief investment officer of the firm.

Jacqueline Ashley ’94 (SCA), MSW ’11 (SSW), a clinical therapist/behavioral health consultant for Riverside University Health System, leads the development of a pilot program to integrate behavioral health and primary care for the Riverside County clinics. She also runs WorkLifeHealth.

Design, a consulting practice.

Joe Hower MS ’95 (ENG) is co-chair of the Los Angeles County Business Federation’s energy and environment committee and the BizFed Coalition.

T R O J A N

T R I B U T E

John “Jack” Beckner NCAA All-American gymnast John “Jack” Beckner ’53, MS ’61 (EDU) helped the U.S. to top-eight finishes in the Olympics in 1952, 1956 and 1960. He was seventh in the horizontal bars and vault events at the 1956 Olympics.

Beckner coached the USC men’s gymnastics team for 24 years, from 1958 until it was disbanded after the 1981 season. In 1962, he guided Troy to its only NCAA gymnastics crown. His Trojan gymnasts won 14 national individual titles. Beckner also served as coach of the U.S. team at the 1968 Olympics and as a physical education teacher in Los Angeles public schools.

He was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1976 and the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.

Beckner died on Nov. 16, 2016. He is survived by his wife, Barbara, and his three children: John ’82 (a USC gymnast from 1978-81), Michael ’86 and Maria ’88. Ten grandchildren, including three who are current USC students, also survive him.

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Derek Hyde ’95 (ENG) is chief technology officer for TrustedChoice.com in Minneapolis. Now with than more than 20 years experience, he started his career as a consultant for the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Zhengming Yang PhD ’95 (ENG) received the 2016 Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award for the Western North America regional section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Sandra Field MBA ’96 (BUS) is the founder of Asset Planning Inc., one of the top 500 “Registered Investment Advisors” of 2016, as ranked by Financial Advisor Magazine.

Bryan J. Barnhouse ’98 (LAS), MPA ’00 (SPP) is vice president of the Arkansas Research Alliance, a public-private partnership that invests in scientific research that stimu-

John Drdek ’98 (SCA) received his law degree from Stanford Law School and joined the law firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton in Del Mar, California.

Sanjay Krishnan MS ’98 (ENG) works at Google on OS platforms, hardware and machine learning.

Matthew Mescall IV ’98 (ENG) is vice president of technical operations at CoreSite, which delivers high-performance data center solutions in eight U.S. markets.

Ken Gibbs EdD ’99 (EDU) was appointed superintendent of the Porterville Unified School District in California.

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Erin Carufel ’00 (DRA) launched her own production company, Irish Rose Entertainment. She has appeared in popular TV shows and films including The Lincoln Lawyer and Untraceable.

Elyze Iriarte JD ’01 (LAW) was nominated to the Superior Court bench in Guam

by Gov. Eddie Baza Calvo.

In private practice for 15 years, she served as an associate and partner of Carlsmith Ball LLP and as founding partner of Iriarte Camacho Calvo Law Group LLC. Currently, she is secretary to the Guam Solid Waste Board of Directors and a board member of Invest$Smart, a

BECKNER PHOTO COURTESY OF EL RODEO

Do you have news to share? Send it along with your name, school and class year to classnotes@ usc.edu and it may appear in a future issue.

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A LU M N I

P R O F I L E

A M Y

T R A S K

J D

’8 5

A Trojan Raider

PHOTO BY PETER READ MILLER

A USC Gould alumna looks back at her 30-year career with the NFL. It was during her first year at USC Gould School of Law that Amy Trask JD ’85 landed at her dream company. The football fan made a cold call to her favorite team, the Los Angeles Raiders, to ask about internships. The person who picked up said, “What’s an internship?”

Thinking fast, the Brentwood, California native explained, “I work for you, and you don’t pay me.”

The response: “C’mon down.”

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. It was also an opportunity to make history. Trask steadily rose through the Raiders’ ranks, eventually becoming CEO in 1997. The first woman to hold the position, Trask left in 2013—30 years after starting as

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an intern—and later joined CBS Sports as a football analyst.

Last September, Trask published You Negotiate Like a Girl: Reflections on a Career in the National Football League.

In the book, she shares stories and reflections as a woman in a male-dominated industry.

The Trojan alumna spoke with writer Bekah Wright about her career and why her work, not her gender, is what counts.

Why the Raiders? I fell in love with the game of football in junior high school and, while an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, with the Raiders when the team was in Oakland.

Did you have a vision about your future career path at the

Raiders when you made that fateful call? Nope. In fact, I’ve had no vision or plan at any time during my career. I was thrilled to be part of the organization, and while I certainly advanced within it, I would have been delighted to serve in any number of roles.

Why did you decide to attend USC Gould instead of other schools? I was attracted to what the dean of students described to me as USC’s “economic approach” to the law. Although I chose to attend law school, I did so with the expressly stated intent to never practice law. I believed that a legal education would be of great value in business, and it was.

Has someone at USC served as a source of inspiration?

My greatest relationship was forged there—it’s where I met my husband, Rob [Trask JD ’84]. He was in his second year at USC Gould when I began.

What do you think has contributed to your success with the Raiders? I did anything and everything I was asked to do. I also tried to do things that I anticipated would be of value to the organization, even if I wasn’t asked to. I worked as hard as I could. Then, when I thought I couldn’t work any harder, I worked some more.

Hard work matters.

It’s been said you changed the “culture of the scene” at the Raiders. I never entered a room, participated in a meeting or did any aspect of my job thinking about my gender.

Were there moments when my gender was an issue? Sure, there may have been, but I wouldn’t have comported myself any differently if there were.

I’m often asked if I believe I was tested because I was a woman.

Maybe I was. I didn’t care.

People are tested for different reasons all the time. What’s the best response when one is tested? Pass the test.

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Together, We Can Do Great Things Make May 4 your day to give.

Each year, on the USC Day of SCupport, USC alumni, parents and friends come together to demonstrate the power and generosity of the Trojan Family.

On May 4, 2017, we invite you to join us by making a gift of any size to the USC school, program or initiative most meaningful to you. Remember, every gift counts.

dayofSCupport.usc.edu | (213) 740-7500

ALUMNI.USC.EDU | ALUMNI@USC.EDU | TEL: 213 740 2300

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A LU M N I

P R O F I L E

J U S T I N

C H A N G ’0 4

Critical Thinker

PHOTO BY EARL GIBSON III/GETTY IMAGES FOR AFI

A USC Annenberg alumnus earns high marks for his film reviews in the Los Angeles Times and commentary on NPR. Believe it or not, Justin Chang ’04 traces the dawn of his film criticism career back to Titanic.

“The year 1997 is kind of funny,” he says. “There was [Atom Egoyan’s] The Sweet Hereafter, and then there was Titanic. Here was a small, low-budget, intimate art film and this massive commercial behemoth—and I liked both movies. I still do. But it was an interesting thing to wrap my head around: What makes both of them good? You come to realize that there’s a huge plurality of opinions out there, and arguing is a lot of the fun.”

Chang, 33, grew up in Orange County. His mom was a medical technologist for LAC+USC Medical Center, and his late father—an aerospace engineer—passed down a passion for movies.

“He just really loved Old Hollywood,” Chang says. “He told me about what a great movie The Bicycle Thief was, when I was probably too young to even appreciate it.”

Chang’s first love was writing, and he enrolled in USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s print journalism program. He logged hours at the Daily Trojan, and in the USC School of Cinematic Arts took a course in film criticism from his future colleague Kenneth Turan.

“Every week we’d write a film review, and it was usually whatever Kenny was reviewing that week,” Chang says. “I grew up reading the Los Angeles Times, and Kenny was one of the first critics I ever read. I feel like he was a mentor, just in terms of my reading him and just loving his work and his eye.”

Chang published his first film review during college (of Lars von Trier’s Dogville, which he gave a thumbs up) as a freelancer for the Orange County Register. A week after graduation, he started an internship at Variety and within six months he was hired as an editorial assistant. He moved up to chief film critic, earning honors with the inaugural Roger Ebert Award for diversity in film journalism from the African American Film Critics Association.

Last year, he migrated to the Los Angeles Times to review films—alongside Turan—for a broader audience. He also contributes to NPR’s “Fresh Air Weekend” and “FilmWeek.”

Chang credits USC’s InterVarsity Trojan Christian Fellowship for sparking an interest in the complex issues that shape our society and culture. (The group is also where Chang met his wife, Lameese Elqura Chang ’04, with whom he has a daughter.)

“InterVarsity focused on things that I think are really important right now,” he says, “in terms of justice issues, poverty, racism. When I was viewing those side by side [with film reviews] at the time, I don’t think I saw how those things intersected until, frankly, maybe even a few years ago.

But insofar as movies are absolutely a screen onto which we project what’s going on in the culture ... movies are just a portal to writing about everything else.”

TIM GREIVING

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What Will Your Trojan Legacy Be? Amy King Dundon-Berchtold ’72 made a gift through her estate, and from donations of real estate holdings, toward the endowment of the University Club of USC—which was renamed in her honor. Amy’s gift was especially meaningful because the historic Trojan meeting place is located in the building named for her late mother, Joyce King Stoops EdD ’66, and late stepfather, Emery Stoops PhD ’41.

“I’m proud to follow in my mother’s tradition of giving back to USC.” amy king dundonberchtold, with her husband, jim berchtold

To create your Trojan legacy, contact the USC Office of Gift Planning at (213) 740-2682 or giftplanning@usc.edu and visit us online at www.usc.edu/giftplanning.

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winter 2016

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Do you have news to share? Send it along with your name, school and class year to classnotes@ usc.edu and it may appear in a future issue.

nonprofit organization focused on financial literacy. A member of the Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce and the Guam Chamber of Commerce, she has been involved in several community organizations, and in 2014 she was named as one of Guam Business Magazine’s “Top 40 Under 40.”

John Wolfkill MS ’01 (EDU) is executive director of the Community College of Aurora Foundation in Aurora, Colorado.

Alex Grager ’01 (LAS), JD ’04 (LAW) returned to Feinberg, Mindel, Brandt and Klein LLP as senior counsel. A certified family law specialist, he represents clients in all stages of family law proceedings.

George Shaw ’04 (MUS) was commissioned to compose for Through the Glass Ceiling, a contemporary ballet project, and the theme song and score to Escape the Night, a YouTube Red Original series.

Anna Walther ’04 (LAS) works with the Guatemalan government after being selected for a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship for 2016-17.

Kimberly White-Smith EdD ’04 (EDU) is dean of the University of La Verne’s LaFetra College of Education.

Gary Baum ’05 (SCJ), a senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter, was awarded the Print Journalist of the Year honor by the Los Angeles Press Club at its 58th annual Southern California Journalism Awards.

Stefanie Phillips EdD ’05 (EDU) is superintendent of the Santa Ana Unified School District, the seventh-largest school district in California.

GONZALES PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

Kaily Smith ’05 (DRA) appeared on the AOL BUILD series to discuss the second season of her pilots festival, SeriesFest.

Duncan Thum ’06, GCRT ’13 (MUS) was nominated for his second consecutive Primetime Emmy Award in the category of “Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score)” for his work on Chef ’s Table.

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family class notes

Brandon Bell ’07 (DRA), MAT ’08 (EDU) reprises his role as Troy for the Netflix series Dear White People, a drama that premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2014.

Ronald L. Olson Jr. MFA ’12 (SCA) is a production coordinator at Universal Cable Productions and worked on Mr. Robot, which won two Emmy Awards in 2016.

Charles Drotts ’07 (ENG) was promoted to director of preconstruction at ROEM Development Corp., located in Santa Clara, California.

Michelle Rodriguez EdD ’12 (EDU) is superintendent of Pajaro Valley Unified School District in Watsonville, California.

Jennifer L. Smith ’07 (LAS), a public health nurse, was named Outstanding Nurse of the Year for 2015 by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.

Grant Toups MA ’07 (SCJ) is managing partner of PulsePoint Group, overseeing the strategic vision and operations of the digital and management consulting firm.

Tracey L. Chenoweth JD ’08 (LAW) was promoted to counsel in banking at Skadden.

Ashley Fairon ’09 (BUS) is vice president for Silicon Valley Bank’s Los Angeles growth team. In 2013, she received the Rising Star Award from the California Independent Bankers Association.

Alyson Parker JD ’09 (LAW) accepted a position with the California Office of the Attorney General in the Health, Education and Welfare Division. She was an attorney with Quinn Emanuel, seconded in-house counsel with Sumitomo Chemical Co. in Tokyo and, most recently, an associate with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.

2 0 1 0 s

Molly McGraw ’10 (DRA), a stage manager, is one of American Theatre magazine’s “Six Theatre Workers You Should Know.”

Timothy Johnson ’11 (LAS/MUS) was appointed to the U.S. Foreign Service and serves as a public diplomacy officer with the U.S. Department of State.

Robert M. McCall MCG ’10 (SCJ) is transit community engagement coordinator for the city of Santa Monica in California.

T R O J A N

T R I B U T E

Alfonso Gonzales When he finished his bachelor’s degree in zoology in May 2016 at age 96, Alfonso Gonzales ’16 (LAS) made news for becoming the oldest graduate in USC history.

For more than six decades, Gonzales thought that he had graduated from what’s now called the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Then he discovered a surprise: He was one credit short of his bachelor’s.

USC administrators crafted a one-credit independent study course focusing on autobiographies, and throughout spring 2016, Gonzales attended class weekly. USC Dornsife no longer offers a program of study in zoology, but the major was reopened in May 2016 so Gonzales could receive his degree from his original program.

A World War II veteran, Gonzales was the first member of his family to go to college, attending Compton Junior College (now El Camino College Compton Center) before transferring to USC in 1947. He began studying zoology in hopes of entering the medical field, but in 1953 he decided to go into the soil business and started his own company. He led the business until his retirement in 2008 at age 88.

Gonzales died on Dec. 27, 2016 at his home in Hermosa Beach, California. He was 96. He is survived by four generations of nieces and nephews.

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P R O F I L E

VA L E R I E

B U R D I C K

An American in the Abbey A USC Marshall alumna helps visitors experience the history of one of the world’s famed Gothic churches.

When Westminster Abbey— London’s storied burial place of kings and queens, statesmen, scientists, warriors, writers and musicians—decided to finance its first structural addition in 271 years, the perfect candidate to direct the fundraising effort turned out to be a Trojan.

Valerie Burdick Humphrey ’82 is the director of development for Westminster Abbey, where she leads a $30 million campaign to fund improvements to the sacred setting of every coronation since William the Conqueror in 1066. The Gothic church has been the venue for 16 royal weddings, including the most recent uniting

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Prince William and Catherine Middleton, Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

How does a kid from Southern California end up in London, in a role steeped in tradition and protocol?

Humphrey points to the opportunity for overseas travel that USC offered her.

Although her father wanted her to join the family business, she had her sights set abroad from the start, beginning with living in the international dorm her freshman year.

“USC makes you think globally,” she says. “And I have always loved things international.

Always studied languages. I

H U M P H R E Y ’8 2

first went to London at 17. I wanted to live abroad. It was just too exciting.”

In her last year at USC Marshall School of Business, she took an internship in Los Angeles with the Department of Commerce in its International Trade Administration.

Thanks to that job, she left for a yearlong internship at the American Embassy in Paris after graduation. Trojan connections made there led to work at Rockwell International in Orange County. While on a short-term assignment in London in 1989, she met her future husband and stayed.

Since then, her career includes a portfolio of international experiences, including fundraising for the World Wildlife Foundation and the National Trust in England, and three years in Italy as director of communications and development for Italy’s largest heritage organization.

Humphrey returned to USC in 2015 for the first time in 10 years to attend the Homecoming game and reunite with the

Trojan Marching Band, in which she played the mellophone.

“I’ve never had more fun,” she says of the reunion.

Since starting at the Abbey eight years ago, Humphrey has led fundraising efforts on several projects aimed at improving the visitor experience of one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions.

Her current focus is creating a new exhibition space for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries—in an area of the Abbey that has never been open to the public and has not been used for anything but storage since its creation in the Middle Ages.

“The most amazing part of the project is that we’ll be building a new tower, which is the first physical addition to the Abbey since its main towers were completed in 1745,” Humphrey says. “It’s about once in 10 generations that something like this takes place, and we’re the generation that’s actually doing it.”

PHOTO BY DAN PIANESI/WESTMINSTER ABBEY

A LU M N I

JULIE TILSNER

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Obituaries of members of the Trojan Family appear online at tfm.usc.edu/trojantributes.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter MSW ’12 (SSW), a New York Times and international bestselling author and speaker, established the Foundation for Sustainable Families, a nonprofit with a focus on child welfare, human rights and community public health.

Navid Shahrestani ’12 (BUS) is vice president of early-stage banking for Silicon Valley Bank. In 2015, he launched a social network, Young Venture Capital Los Angeles, a monthly gathering for the young angel and venture community.

Stephanie Wang MS ’12 (ENG), MS ’16 (BUS) completed a master’s degree in business analytics from the USC Marshall School of Business.

Berfin Ataman ’13 (DRA) was assistant costume designer for the 2016 film Max Steel.

Vasu Jain MS ’13 (ENG), who has been working in the nonprofit field for more than two years, received a President’s Volunteer Service Award at the silver level in 2016.

Jason Sabino ’13 (MUS) is the artistic director of the Oregon Chorale.

Brandon Baer ’14 (DRA) directed the pilot episode of Life on Mars and the play Private Eyes at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica, California.

Roland Buck III ’15 (DRA) was seen in a Toyota Camry commercial starring Buffalo Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor. He can also be seen in the second-season premiere of Chicago Med and the 2016 film Sleight.

Parag Chaudhari MS ’14 (ENG) works for Amazon Web Services in Palo Alto, California.

Carlos Cisneros MPA ’14 (SPP) was promoted to name partner at his law firm in Mexico City.

Amber Coney ’14 (DRA) stars as Carolina “Cricket” Diaz in Freeform’s TV series Dead of Summer. She also wrote the teleplay for and acted in the remake of Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? for Lifetime.

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family class notes Jeremy Fusco MSW ’14 (SSW) is a readjustment counseling therapist for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Dallas. He provides individual and group therapy to war zone veterans, veterans who have experienced military sexual trauma, and veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. He is a liaison to the Veterans Courts for Dallas, Collin, Rockwall and Grayson counties.

Anthony Greene JD ’14 (LAW) joined Alston & Bird in New York. Previously, he was law clerk to the Honorable Catherine E. Bauer in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Jason Manviller MPA ’14 (SPP) is the principal of Dixie Elementary School in San Rafael, California.

Colin Woodell ’14 (DRA) co-stars in the Netflix original film XOXO. Taylor Dearden ’15 (DRA) stars as Ophelia in the MTV show Sweet/Vicious, which also features Dylan McTee ’15 (DRA) as Nate.

Logan Heley ’15 (LAS/SCJ) ran in the election for the 21st Kansas State Senate District after completing an internship at the White House Press Office.

Sumo (Susie) Liu MS ’15 (ENG) was promoted after six months at Benchmark Analytics & Consulting Inc. Ramiro Rubalcaba EdD ’15 (EDU) is the assistant superintendent of human resources for the Azusa Unified School District in California.

Kathleen Siswanto ’15 (BUS/LAS), who majored in finance and biology, joined Citi’s investment banking division in its San Francisco office. She is the daughter of Edwin Siswanto MS ’96, MBA ’96 (BUS) and his wife, Anne.

Conner Wagenseller ’15 (ENG) finished his first year working for Northrop Grumman Corp.

T R O J A N

T R I B U T E

Toshiaki Ogasawara A USC life trustee and publisher and former chairman of The Japan Times, Toshiaki Ogasawara was a leading advocate of international cooperation in trade, science and the arts.

Ogasawara served on USC’s Board of Trustees for 21 years, playing a crucial role in the university’s efforts to build enduring partnerships in the Pacific Rim, particularly in his native Japan. Founded in 1897, The Japan Times is Japan’s oldest English-language newspaper. He was named chairman of the board of the paper’s publisher, Japan Times Ltd., in 1985, and served as the company’s president from 1983 to 2006. He stepped down from his role as chairman in 2016.

After graduating from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1966, he became the founding president of Nifco Inc., now a leading manufacturer of industrial plastic components for the automobile and electronics industries. He became Nifco’s chairman in 2001. He served as chairman of Simmons Co. Ltd., the Asian arm of Simmons Bedding Co., and as adviser to Bank of America, Avon Products, General Electric, Prudential and Nike, among others.

He was a member of the board of governors of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

A member of the USC Board of Trustees since 1995, he played an instrumental role in organizing USC’s Global Conferences, which are held about every two years in various locations in Asia. The conferences bring together academic and business experts from both sides of the Pacific to forge relationships, renew connections and exchange ideas.

Ogasawara died on Nov. 30, 2016, at the age of 85. He is survived by his son Mitsutaka, daughter Yukiko, brother Kiyoteru, grandson Sanshiro and granddaughter Nanako.

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family class notes Megan Guthrie-Wedemeyer ’16 (DRA) is on the costume team for the Starz drama Outlander. She also helped mount “The Artistry of Outlander” exhibit at The Paley Center for Media.

Francis Mulford MSW ’16 (SSW), a drug court counselor and residential counselor at Family Counseling Center Behavioral Health in West Plains, Missouri, co-authored a book on parenting skills for those recovering from co-occurring disorders.

Carolyn Seaton EdD ’16 (EDU) was named superintendent of Orinda Union School District in California.

T R O J A N

T R I B U T E

Walter C. Foster LLB ’50 (LAW) of Rancho Palos Verdes, California; July 15, 2016, at the age of 93.

Matt Higgins Doran ’50, DMA ’54 (MUS) of Hazel Dell, Washington; Aug. 3, 2016, at the age of 94.

William S. Coleman ’54 (ENG) of Sun Lakes, Arizona; June 12, 2016, at the age of 83.

Judith Love Cohen ’57, MS ’62 (ENG) of Culver City, California; July 25, 2016, at the age of 82.

L E G E N D M A R R I A G E S

Bosco Tjan

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LAS

Jake Saroyan ’10 (BUS) and Katherine Koehler ’13 (LAS/SCJ).

Brandon Craig ’13 MPA (SPP) and Kelsey McQuaid ’14 MPA (SPP).

B I R T H S

Gwen (Huling) Lopez Ozieblo ’96 (BUS) and Rob Lopez Ozieblo, a daughter, Gemma Snow.

Jonathan Langford ’08 (BUS) and Lara Baker Langford ’09 (BUS), a daughter, Lily Anne.

I N

M E M O R I A M

A L U M N I Lavinia Reynolds Johnson Carroll ’39 (LAS) of San Luis Obispo, California; on Sept. 9, 2016, at the age of 100.

Carlin Matson DDS ’43 (DEN) of Carlsbad, California; Aug. 1, 2016, at the age of 104.

E. William Haskell DDS ’47 (DEN) of Newport Beach, California; Oct. 15, 2016, at the age of 93.

ACC ARC BUS SCA SCJ

USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences USC Leventhal School of Accounting USC School of Architecture USC Marshall School of Business USC School of Cinematic Arts USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

DNC DEN DRA EDU ENG ART GRN LAW MED MUS OST

USC Kaufman School of Dance Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC USC School of Dramatic Arts USC Rossier School of Education USC Viterbi School of Engineering USC Roski School of Art and Design USC Davis School of Gerontology USC Gould School of Law Keck School of Medicine of USC USC Thornton School of Music USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy

PHM BPT

USC School of Pharmacy Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy

SPP SSW

USC Price School of Public Policy USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

Matt DeGrushe, Michelle Dumas, James Feigert, Harmony Frederick, Wendy Gragg, Katherine Griffiths, Deanne Grimes, Elizabeth Hedrick, Leticia Lozoya, Maya Meinert, Mike McNulty, James Morse, Jane Ong, Kristi Patton, Stacey Wang Rizzo, Nicole Stark and Deann Webb contributed to this section.

TJAN PHOTO BY PETER ZHAOYU ZHOU

A professor of psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Bosco Tjan was a world-renowned expert on vision, particularly in how the brain recognizes shapes and scenes.

He moved to the United States alone from Beijing, China, at age 18 to attend college.

After earning an undergraduate honors degree in computer science at the University of Kansas, he went to the University of Minnesota and worked as a research assistant in the departments of psychology and computer science before earning his PhD in computer and information science in 1997. At both institutions, he was active in the Hong Kong Student Association, helping many students adjust to American life.

After obtaining his doctorate, he spent a year in Tübingen, Germany, as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. There his research focused on behavioral and computational studies of 3-D object recognition, symmetry perception, scene recognition, haptic perception and virtual environments. He returned to the U.S. in 1998 and worked as a research associate at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, until 2000. He joined USC Dornsife the following year and became co-director of the Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center in 2011.

At USC, he and a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health had recently received a $4 million grant to study how blindness changes the brain. His ongoing research projects included image enhancement for people with impaired vision, indoor navigation aid for the blind and the visually impaired, and perception of visual speech.

Tjan died on Dec. 2, 2016, at the age of 50.

He is survived by his wife Carissa Pang, son Daniel Tjan, brother Kokie Tjan and mother Thee-Niang Huang.

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her degree from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Other detachment members have included the late NFL great and sportscaster Frank Gifford ’52 and Olympic gold medalist Parry O’Brien ’56.

In 1986 and 1997, the group was honored with the “Right of Line” award, which recognizes the nation’s best Air Force detachments. These days, Air Force ROTC Detachment 060 includes students from USC and other local colleges and universities as well. Students take courses on management and leadership through the Department of Aerospace Studies in the USC Price School of Public Policy.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Ever wonder what it takes to get just the right shot for the “Now and Again” column in USC Trojan Family Magazine?

Find out by watching an exclusive video of a shoot at bit.ly/TFMNowAndAgain.

PHOTO BY DUSTIN SNIPES

The U.S. Air Force may be the youngest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, but it’s still rich with tradition. In the undated inset photo, Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) cadets at USC line up with drill rifles in front of the Bovard Administration Building. They’re flanked by members of present-day Air Force ROTC Detachment 060 standing at rest.

USC’s Air Force ROTC program was established in 1947, the same year the U.S. Air Force became its own branch of the military. Since then, more than 1,600 Air Force lieutenants have come from the USC program. Its prominent graduates include Lt. Gen. Stayce Harris ’81, the Air Force’s first female African-American lieutenant general, who earned

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