Top-Notch Teachers
By Nicole St.Pierre
Annually, USC College presents the Raubenheimer Award to outstanding
faculty members who have excelled in each of the College’s three
disciplinary spheres of teaching, research and service to the
University. This is the College’s highest honor. This year’s recipients
include: Moshe Lazar, Philippa Levine and Curt Wittig. Each received a
$3,000 award. Jefferey Sellers received the Junior Faculty Award and
$1,500 for showing unusual promise in research, teaching and service.
Moshe Lazar, Humanities
Moshe Lazar’s colleagues call him an unrecognized jewel. This professor
of drama and comparative literature has a range of expertise in
European cultural traditions.Lazar came to USC in 1977 on a visiting
appointment from Tel Aviv University, where he founded the School of
Visual and Performing Arts. At USC, Lazar founded the first comparative
literature program, which has since become a College department.
He has produced scholarly work on medieval literature in Old French,
Spanish, and Provençal. He also writes about and for the contemporary
theatre, particularly in French, and translates modern European plays
into Hebrew for the Israeli stage. Since 1960, he has written and
edited more than 40 books.
“As a teacher, Moshe is equally tireless,” says Peggy Kamuf, chair of
the comparative literature department. “His courses sparkle with wit
and knowledge that draw students to his classrooms and office.”
Philippa Levine, Social Sciences
“Philippa Levine has infectious enthusiasm,” says Steven Ross, chair of
the history department. “She has been an important innovator, scholar
and teacher.” In the College, Levine is taking a new look at imperial history. Her
project opens up a once very rigidly defined field to include subjects
such as race, sexuality and the body. She examines issues from the
perspectives of the colonized as well as the colonizer. These interests
are brought together in her new book, “Prostitution, Race and Politics:
Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire, 1860-1861.”
She also teaches a variety of courses in British history, methods and
theory. Never reluctant to learn new things, Levine underwent a
multimedia training program at the USC Institute for Multimedia
Literacy. Within the history department, she oversees the computing
lab. As president of the Academic Senate in 2002-2003, she spearheaded
a number of new initiatives, including sending by email faculty
information about funding opportunities, and a Web site offering
information about housing rentals.
Curt Wittig, Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Curt
Wittig has been credited with creating the Physical Chemistry section
at USC College. He holds the Paul A. Miller Chair in Letters, Arts and
Sciences and is a Professor of Chemistry.
A leading researcher in the field of molecular dynamics, he pioneered
the use of weakly bonded clusters as a new medium for the study of
chemical reactions.
Wittig directs the Center for the Studies of Fast Transient Processes.
Today, the group is one of the major U.S. centers of molecular
dynamics, free radical chemistry and surface science. “All of this has
originated either in Wittig’s lab, through collaborations with Wittig,
or from colleagues attracted to USC by the tireless efforts of Curt as
a recruiter, mentor and collaborator,” says Chemistry Professor Hanna
Reisler.
Wittig’s work restructuring the chemistry department’s graduate student
recruitment program resulted in an increase in both the number and
quality of graduate students. And he teaches the most difficult, and
feared, core course for graduate students: Math Methods for Chemistry
and Physics. His love for teaching is obvious. Coffee is ready in
morning classes and one-on-one tutorials are always available.
Jefferey Sellers, Political Science
Jefferey Sellers, winner of the Junior Faculty Award, loves to teach.
Student evaluations praise him as a “treasure at USC.” Part of that
reason stems from the international perspective he brings to the
studies of cities and countries.
Sellers is the mastermind behind a new subfield called Urban Politics
and Diversity in Global Society. The field was recently introduced in
the Political Science / International Relations joint Ph.D. program to
develop scholarship relevant to Los Angeles and to the international
relations of global cities in the U.S. and abroad. He also coordinates The Pacific Rim Urban Environmental Governance
Study and collaborates with researchers from five Pacific Rim countries
to study urban environmental governance.
“His command of data and analysis from cities across the globe place
him at the forefront of scholars from numerous disciplines who are now
focusing on innovative governance,” says Mark Kann, USC Associates
Endowed Professor of Political Science and Social Science. “He is a
great academic role model for our younger assistant professors.”
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