{"id":257,"date":"2023-10-30T10:54:40","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T17:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-usc-dornsife.pantheonsite.io\/sims\/?page_id=257"},"modified":"2023-12-08T13:35:22","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T21:35:22","slug":"about-professor-sims","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/sims\/about-professor-sims\/","title":{"rendered":"About Professor Sims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Deborah Sims is an Associate Professor in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California. She earned her Ph.D. in English, specifically American literature and culture, from the University of California at Riverside where her dissertation traced representations of domesticity, beginning with 17th century Puritan manuscripts and working through 21st century postmodern texts. Her research interests include writing, gender studies, and film and television. At USC, Dr. Sims teaches in the Writing Program in Critical Reasoning (WRIT 150) and Advanced Writing (WRIT 340) courses that are themed around her disciplinary specializations. Dr. Sims loves American poetry and the National Parks and was a contestant on Wheel of Fortune and the kid’s show Fun House.<\/p>\n

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Origins of The Empathy Project<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

This project grew out of my drive to answer the question: How does culture change and is there a role for me in that process?<\/i>\u00a0 Because I do research on gender and feminist issues, much of my work and teaching interrogates violence against women and children. After too many troubling conversations with students and feeling stressed by the global scope of this issue, I began to seek avenues to promote social change through one-to-one connections.\u00a0 Beginning with activities that paired in-class writing with action and relationship building, my intention was for these assignments to foster dyanmic, personal communication that would lead to shifts in attitudes.\u00a0 It seemed to me that empathy had a significant role in achieving this goal.<\/p>\n

My approach centers on this core belief: to be empathetic we must find balance between logic and emotion, rather than subordinating one to the other.\u00a0 In 2017, I presented a paper arguing, in part, that cerebral academic writing is more effective when it is informed by emotional reasoning, and that this is a skill we should seek to master and teach.\u00a0 In time, I grew these ideas into a series of activities that I believed would build empathy in my students and teach them how to deploy it in writing.\u00a0 Their responses shine a bright and hopeful light illuminating an inroad to the cultural change that we seem to be seeking together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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