Co-sponsor: USC Center for Excellence in Teaching

“We strive constantly for excellence in teaching knowledge and skills to our students, while at the same time helping them to acquire wisdom and insight, love of truth and beauty, moral discernment, understanding of self, and respect and appreciation of others.”---USC Mission Statement

How can USC achieve these goals in meaningful and appropriate ways? How does one teach wisdom and respect?

USC faculty and student body are invited to engage these questions in this lunch-hour roundtable and workshop.

Moderator: Edward Finegan, Professor of Linguistics and Law, Director of USC Center for Excellence in Teaching

Panelists:

• Alex Capron, University Professor; Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs; Scott H. Bice Chair in Healthcare Law, Policy and Ethics (USC Gould School of Law); Professor of Law and Medicine (Keck School of Medicine); Co-Director, Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics
• Pat Haden, USC Athletic Director; Former Chairman of the Academic and Student Affairs Committees, USC Board of Trustees
• Darline Robles, Professor of Clinical Education, USC Rossier School of Education, Former Superintendent of Los Angeles County Office of Education and of the Salt Lake City and Montebello School Districts

Co-sponsor: USC Office of Religious Life

Priya Jaikumar is Associate Professor at the Department of Critical Studies in USC's School of Cinematic Arts. She came to the US in 1991, with a background in Indian broadcasting and print journalism. Priya studies the media (particularly cinema) in relation to the colonial pasts and global presents of India and Britian. She teaches courses at the graduate and undergraduate level on international sound cinema, historical genre films, global media space and cinema, and Bollywood, to name a few topics. Her writings include the book, Cinema at the End of Empire (Duke, 2006), and various essays on film policies, transnational feminism, and postcolonia cinema in various publications. Currently, she is working on a book on location cinematograhy and places that become visual icons, called Where Histories Reside: Filming India as Location.

Co-sponsor: USC School of Cinematic Arts

On a whim, Mija enrolls in a poetry class at the local cultural center and begins a personal quest to find the perfect words to describe her feelings. When her world is turned upside down by the discovery of a monstrous crime, it is Mija’s unique and touching poetry that allows her to defy the weight of shame and distance herself from a painful proximity to violence.

“With an understated visual style and perfectly paced narrative, [writer-director Lee Chang-dong’s] Poetry has created a portrait of a woman who has, by the end, become an extraordinary vision of human empathy.”

            —Manohla Dargis, New York Times

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Co-sponsors: Blackstonians Pre-Law Honor Society, Dornsife Political Science Department, Dornsife School of International Relations, USC Center for Law and Philosophy

USC Levan/Carnegie Global Ethics Network Event

The rule of law is one of the most cherished governmental principles in dozens of countries around the world. What factors are necessary to help bring the rule of law to places that don’t have it? How can accountability be instituted and impunity ended in states that don’t have it? What powers do judicial officials require in order for their rulings and orders to be impactful?

Moderator:  Lyn Boyd-Judson, Director, Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, USC Dornsife and Carnegie Global Ethics Fellow

Panelists:

• Richard Dekmejian, Professor and Director, Political Science, USC Dornsife
• Naama Haviv, Assistant Director, Jewish World Watch
• David Ritchie, Associate Professor of Law and Philosophy, Mercer University and Carnegie Global Ethics Fellow
• Cheyney Ryan, Professor of Philosophy and Law, University of Oregon; Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and Carnegie Global Ethics Fellow
• Edwin Smith, Leon Benwell Professor of Law, International Relations and Political Science, USC Gould School of Law

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Co-sponsor: USC Office of Religious Life

Veronica Terriquez received her Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA. Her research focuses on educational inequality, immigrant integration, and organized labor. Her work is linked to education justice and immigrant rights organizing efforts in Los Angeles. Dr. Terriquez has also worked as a community organizer on school reform and other grassroots campaigns.

She is currently working on a study of parental engagement in Los Angeles County. Drawing on survey and semi-structured interview data, she seeks to understand how individual parents acquire the confidence, cultural capital, and problem-solving skills to actively participate in school affairs. She is particularly interested in examining how labor and community organizations support various forms of school-based civic participation among Latino immigrants and other racially diverse parents. Dr. Terriquez is also the principal investigator of the California Young Adult Study (CYAS), a mixed-methods investigation of youths' access to postsecondary education, employment, and civic engagement opportunities.

Recent research in neuroscience suggests that political preferences reflect differences in the very structure of the brain. How does this affect our ability to defend our political affiliations on rational grounds?

A Levan Coffeehouse Conversation

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The Ethics Essay Contest aims to recognize the best-written works on ethics by undergraduates across the curriculum. Papers may consist of a discussion of a current ethical issue or a critical case analysis of recent ethics violations in a professional field (engineering, business, health sciences, law, politics, etc.). The contest will award a cash prize to an overall winner, as well as winners in the following categories: Organizational Ethics, Ethics Across Borders, Professional Ethics and Social Justice.

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