The Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics

Founded in 2015 by Levan Undergraduate Fellows, the mission of the former Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics—to bring humanities and ethics to the Dornsife and USC undergraduate community—was accomplished largely through this cohort. More information about the continuation of the Levan Scholars Program will be announced soon. Please email Isabella Carr at carrir@usc.edu with questions.

The Levan Undergraduate Fellows serve as ambassadors for the Institute and work closely with associated staff and faculty on conceptualizing projects in line with the Institute’s mission. The program offers students the opportunity to integrate their academic interests with an interdisciplinary cohort as well as Dornsife programming and events.

2019-2020 Fellows:

Sydney Ahmed, Dornsife ’20
Lucine Beylerian, Dornsife ’20
Fedja Celebic, Dornsife ’20
Gloria Cheng, Dornsife ’20
Helen Jin, Dornsife ’20
Megan Lacsamana, Dornsife ’21
Julianne Lewis, Dornsife ’20
Aris Mangasarian, Dornsife ’20
Garrett Nance, Dornsife ’20
Tianyu Wang, Dornsife ’21
Lauren Yen, Dornsife ’21

Past Levan Undergraduate Fellows

Co-Directed by Kate Levin and Nik De Dominic. As part of the Public Humanities Program, USC’s Prison Education and Exchange Program (PEP) creates the opportunity for USC and incarcerated students to learn from each other in a rigorous and collaborative learning environment across a variety of academic disciplines. USC students design, teach, and take classes with inmates of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation System. Following the launch of the new Levan Institute for the Humanitites, the Prison Education Project is now under Dornsife’s Office for Experiencial and Applied Learning. For more information about the Prison Education Program, please contact Nik De Dominic at dedomini@usc.edu or Kate Levin at klevin@usc.edu.

Underground Trojans is a student-founded and run organization that leads a human rights movement behind prison and post-prison education. For more information about the Prison Education Program, please visit the website or contact founder Aris Mangasarian at arism@usc.edu

The Social Justice Review offered a forum for undergraduates and graduate students worldwide who engage—utilizing the written word—with issues of ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, religion, or other social issues or inequalities.

The Healing Process is a bi-annual magazine that explores health and well-being through art and literature. Visit www.uschealingprocess.com to learn more. Questions can be directed to uschealingprocess@gmail.com

This minor, orginated at the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, is intended for students who wish to understand the challenges associated with healthcare as an ethical issue in the international context. The minor is no longer associated with the Levan Institute for the Humanities, but will continue to be offered. For more information, contact Arshia Malekzadeh at malekzad@usc.edu.

In 2017, Dr. Lyn Boyd-Judson, former director of the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics from 2007-2019, was named USC-UNESCO Chair of Global Humanities and Ethics Education. During that time she and a group of students founded the USC-UNESCO Journal for Global Humanities, Science & Ethical Inquiry, which features the final products of a year-long research fellowship for undergraduate students. Both the UNESCO Chair and its publication are no longer housed at USC. A digital copy of the 2017-18 USC-UNESCO Journal is available here. The 2018-19 issue is available here.

The Shaukat Initiative (SI), founded Spring 2018 by Levan Fellow Mazen Loan, aims to create a space where the children of USC’s staff members and other high school students can further develop their intellectual interests and explore new disciplines in an intimate academic setting. SI will operate as a student organization moving forward. Please visit the website or contact uscshaukatinitiative@gmail.com with any questions.

Sharon Lloyd, a Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Political Science, founded the Coffeehouse Conversations series in 2009 and served as moderator and director. The multidisciplinary themes and wide range of panelists reached across the professional schools, the humanities, the social sciences and sciences.

Salon: A Meeting of the Minds was a discussion series facilitated by Levan Undergraduate Fellows dedicated to examining ambiguous ethical and philosophical questions in society. Discussions were framed around articles or topics that looked at these ethical debates in modern culture.

What Matters to Me and Why is a series of talks that encourage reflection about values, beliefs, and motivations. It aims to help students and others better understand the lives and inspirations of those who shape the university. Presenters are encouraged to talk about choices made, difficulties encountered, and commitments solidified. They are also free to choose any other topic that fits their definition of “what matters to me and why.” This event series is now sponsored by the Office of Religious Life.

Virtues and Vices roundtable discussions give students an opportunity to contemplate virtues, vices, and their role in everyday life. They are moderated by Lucas Herchenroeder of Dornsife Classics department. This event series is now sponsored by Thematic Option.

Through engagement with the works of scholars and artists in medicine and the humanities, students and faculty are encouraged to explore ethical decision-making, cultural differences, and the complexities of the interpretive act—the “multiple ways of knowing”—that are essential to the effective practice of the healing arts. The events aim to develop further insight into the human condition, the nature of suffering and our responsibility to each other. The event series is organized by Pamela Schaff (Pediatrics and Family Medicine), Lyn Boyd-Judson (Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics), Alexander Capron (Law and Medicine), Lynn Kysh (USC Libraries), and Berislav Zlokovic (Physiology and Biophysics), and co-sponsored by the Keck School of Medicine’s Program in Medical Humanities, Arts, and Ethics, the USC Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics, and the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics. Previous co-organizers of the series include Erin Quinn (Family Medicine and Dornsife Science and Health) and Suraiya Rahman (Pediatrics).

zygo / ˈzʌɪgəʊ, ˈzɪgəʊ / pref. relating to union or joining. Formally a joint project and now housed solely at the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, Zygo is a lecture series organized by USC students in health and medicine. The series aims to generate a dialogue between students and USC faculty across disciplines in order to increase the integration of ethical themes into their curriculum. The events involve a panel of faculty members speaking on a current events theme, and they are moderated by the Zygo Student Director.