A Message From the Dean
Mining the Visual
USC College is stronger today than at anytime in our institution’s
history. Despite increased competition in academe, our stature and
reputation continue to ascend. We attribute this to our pioneering of
new academic fields, our building of innovative programs and our focus
on new scholarly and educational paradigms. The most successful
colleges of the 21st century will be those who can adapt to rapid
change — and USC College will be among them.
Consider the burgeoning field of visual studies. It is pervasive, transforming how people think, learn, remember and create.
Take the field of history. Traditionally, historical and cultural
information, and artistic expression, were recorded through the written
and spoken word, or in static images. While this was once sufficient,
historical research is now incorporating a new dimension into its
sphere: the digital visual record.
The birth of new technologies and media, such as moving images, cinema
and television presented new and exciting opportunities in the 20th
century. As these once exclusive technologies become accessible to a
wider audience, the time is ripe for universities to embrace the
dynamic possibilities they provide. Clearly, our approaches to
gathering, recording, storing, accessing and sharing information will
need to be different from the scholarly work of 50, or even five, years
ago.
Early this year, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History
and Education became part of USC College. The Shoah Foundation
Institute holds the world’s most extensive visual history archive in
the world — and one of the most important testimonials in modern
history. Such an arrangement is unique in higher education. Through the
Institute, USC College will pursue the mission of overcoming prejudice
and intolerance, while providing the foundation on which to build new
and innovative approaches to the study of visual history and culture.
With such significant opportunities comes the knowledge that there is
still far to go. Incorporating technologies and visual materials into
our scholarly work raises a complex set of challenges, perhaps some not
even yet identified. For example, we must find ways to mine information
efficiently from the abundance of visual media. With written materials
such as books, indices were developed to help retrieve information. As
visual media becomes more fully incorporated into our scholarly
enterprise, how can we develop corollary search tools? Society will
look to academic institutions to help answer questions such as this.
All of the elements are in place for the College to emerge as a leader
in visual studies. College faculty are top scholars in this field of
study and adept at crossing traditional academic boundaries. The
diversity of our programs and emphasis on building collaborations with
USC professional schools and external institutions, enable us to bring
together people with various perspectives and expertise. For example,
the College’s Literary, Visual and Material Culture Initiative joins
faculty from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and the
professional schools. Together they are uncovering new insights by
examining text, artifacts and images in relation to the larger cultures
that produced them.
The result of such synergistic arrangements will allow the College to
explore new frontiers and exploit the full potential of visual media.
We will not only keep pace with these changes, we will position
ourselves at the forefront. The College’s unique academic strengths,
combined with the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s leadership, will
enable us to pioneer new uses for this new media, and bring greater
depth to visual studies.
Joseph Aoun
Dean of USC College
Anna H. Bing Professor
|
