Expanding Horizons

By Karen Newell Young

A joint project with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to develop a highly efficient liquid-methanol fuel cell. A conference uniting Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders. A partnership between USC’s art history department and the Getty Research Institute. These are a few of the collaborations that are extending the reach of USC College and expanding its horizons.

Although relatively small in size, the College has large ambitions. Its competitors have a greater number of faculty and academic programs. According to College Dean Joseph Aoun, the College must overcome its limitations by maximizing its resources.

“Forging partnerships both on and off campus will be an increasingly important strategy in the coming years,” Aoun says. “As we aspire to academic prominence, it behooves us to make maximum use of all of the assets of the College and the university. Partnering with others provides a multiplier effect, giving us resources we wouldn’t otherwise have.”

College partnerships take many forms, ranging from simple collaborations involving a few professors in two departments, to comprehensive regional centers that bring together dozens of universities and institutions.

Broader, deeper use of such affiliations will be a hallmark of the College as it secures its position among the top 10 colleges in the country. In addition to creating powerful synergies for teaching and learning within the College, collaborations enable the College to use its research capacity to advance the work of partners at USC and throughout the larger community.

Institutions such as USC’s own university libraries, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, for example, are great storehouses of information, artifacts and art. Area universities and colleges are also worthy present and future partners.

University Partnerships
Collaborations provide the backbone for universitywide doctoral programs. The Neuroscience Graduate Program and the Program in Biomedical and Biological Sciences (PIBBS) encompass the efforts of hundreds of USC faculty, primarily in the College, the School of Engineering, the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and the Keck School of Medicine of USC, but also the schools of dentistry and pharmacy.

Similarly, the College is fostering universitywide Ph.D. programs in the disciplines of history and economics, drawing on faculty resources in the Marshall School of Business, the Law School and other schools to complement its own.

These synergistic arrangements also fuel numerous organized research units. The Center for Law, History and Culture, for example, is devoted to encouraging the study of law as a historical and cultural institution. Drawing on its strong economics expertise, the College also participates in the Center for Law, Economics and Organization (CLEO). Both of these centers are sponsored jointly with the Law School and the Marshall School of Business.

In the same way, vibrant links to the cultural and academic resources of Los Angeles and Southern California enrich the university experience for College undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. Below is a sampling of the College’s many internal and external relationships that help serve the public and enrich its teaching and research capabilities.

Internal Partnerships

• The USC Neuroscience Program, a universitywide Ph.D. program, joins the College with the university’s schools of engineering, gerontology, medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. An entryway into 15 Ph.D. programs in the biomedical and biological sciences at USC, PIBBS provides a rigorous, individually tailored educational experience for outstanding students who wish to become internationally competitive research scientists.
• Housed within the College, the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies includes laboratories and teaching facilities on the University Park Campus and on Catalina Island. The institute takes advantage of Catalina’s proximity to a major urban center and protected status to engage in a broad range of marine and terrestrial investigations. It brings together more than 80 interdisciplinary experts from across the university to study aspects of the environment, ranging from the effects of ocean biology on the global climate to the basic biology contributing to such problems as coastal pollution.

External Partnerships

• Chemists at USC’s Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute collaborated with scientists at JPL to develop zero-emission, methanol-based fuel-cell technology.
• Ken Nealson, professor of earth sciences and Wrigley Chair in Environmental Studies, is working on a partnership with JPL to study detection of life in outer space.
• The Getty Research Institute recently approached the College-based Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) to assist with the project “Sacred Images in the City,” which centered on immigrant communities in Los Angeles and how their sacred images affect communities’ acclimatization to this diverse city.
• Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) has strong affiliations with the College through joint projects with the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life and the CRCC. In addition, the School of Religion offers a Judaic studies emphasis in collaboration with HUC-JIR.
• The USC-Huntington Institute for Early Modern Studies, a collaboration between the College and the Huntington Library, gives scholars at both institutions access to exemplary resources for studying human societies between 1400 and 1850. Institute activities include joint appointments of visiting professors and postdoctoral researchers, graduate courses, and sponsored lectures and conferences.
• “Collecting, Display and the History of Taste,” a project developed by professors of art history Thomas Crow and Nancy Troy, brings the cultures of the museum and academic world closer together by exploring the ways in which works of art historically have been situated in diverse public and private settings. This undertaking has enabled the College to forge new ties with a wide range of Los Angeles-area art institutions, including the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Other examples of partnerships and collaborations can be found throughout this issue. As these relationships grow, so will the reputation and stature of the College. The future holds more success stories on joint ventures, both on and off campus.