USC Times December 2014

USCTIMESDECEMBER 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.11

Experiential Living

Maxcy residents talk fun, food and world travel,

page 10

Cotton Road

Filmmaker Laura Kissel’s new documentary unfolds the fabric of the global supply chain,

page 6

IMBA at 40The Moore School’s top graduate programs celebrate four decades,

page 14

IT’S INTERNATIONAL

CRAIG BRANDHORST MANAGING EDITOR

A FAITHFUL INDEXIf you’ve ever stopped to look at the historical marker on Sumter Street, right outside the Horse-shoe gates, you’ve read the description of the University of South Carolina as “a faithful index to the ambitions and fortunes of the state.”

Attributed to the Columbia Sesquicentennial Commission of 1938, that fanciful phrase contains an irrefutable truth, that our efforts here on campus are directly linked to the wellbeing and success of South Carolina. That’s a pretty good way to think about the role of the state’s flagship institution of higher education, even 76 years later.

But that’s also not enough, not anymore. These days, our faculty travel far and wide, our students come from six of the seven continents and our research, in many cases, affects the entire planet. Our efforts on campus are now directly linked to the world at large, which is why we put together this special international issue of USC Times.

This month’s cover story, for example, is about filmmaker and media arts professor Laura Kissel’s provocative new documentary “Cotton Road.” Kissel lived in Shanghai for seven months and shot more than 150 hours of film as she traced the production of the world’s most popular textile from the farmlands of South Carolina to China and then back, and you can pick up the stitch on page 6.

We also asked several student residents of the International House at Maxcy College to share their thoughts on food, friendship and travel in the lighthearted roundtable discussion “Experiential Living,” which starts on page 10.

Elsewhere we offer a photo essay of International Education Week shot by Office of Communi-cations photo intern Ambyr Goff (page 2), a chance to eavesdrop on Carolina’s conversation partners program (page 13), a tribute to the Moore School’s IMBA program on the 40th anniversary of its inception (page 14) and a profile of USC Spanish professor and Freedom University volunteer Raul Diego Rivera Hernandez (page 16) .

Sounds like we covered a lot of ground, doesn’t it. Well, what else would you expect? Un indicateur fiable des aspirations et succès de l’État…um índice fiel às ambições e fortunas do estado…một biện pháp thực sự của tham vọng và sự thành công của nhà nước — we’re still a faithful index, alright; we’ve just greatly expanded our horizons.

Stamp the passport,

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WOUND UP? WIND DOWNThe holidays can be a stressful time, with year-end deadlines, travel and visiting relatives, not to mention all that together time with the kids. Deer Oaks EAP administers the university’s employee assistance program with a wide range of free counseling services, plus legal and financial planning advice. Call 866-EAP-2400; for TTY/TDD access: 800-735-2989. Visit DeerOaks.com for additional resources, user ID and password: USC.

If it’s work that gets you wound up, check out Wind Down Wednesdays when you return to campus after the holidays. No reservations or experience needed, just drop by Russell House room 309 on designated Wednesdays at 12:15 p.m. Visit the Campus Wellness website at http://www.sa.sc.edu/shs/cw/meditation/ for details.

TWO WHEELS, FIVE RULESMopeds and other motorized two-wheeled vehicles are becoming increasingly popular on campus as a way to avoid traffic, find better parking or save on gas. But there are some rules of the road you need to know before you bring your scooter to campus. Here are five:

1. Scooters have engines greater than 50 CC and must be identified with a motorcycle license plate while mopeds have engines less than 50 CC and are identified with a moped tag.

2. All mopeds and scooters must be registered with Parking Services and can only be parked in designated spaces. Do not lock your moped or scooter to bike racks, buildings, gates or trashcans.

3. Moped and scooter riders must obey the same traffic laws as cars. Vehicles are not allowed on sidewalks or inside any university building.

4. Mopeds are meant to carry just one person and should not exceed a speed of 25 mph by state law.

5. Riders younger than 21 must wear a helmet.

HOLIDAY MAILOutgoing mail will not be accepted during winter break. There will be one mail delivery/pick up between 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 22. For departments that may be open during the holiday break, the campus postal service will be open 9-10 a.m. on Dec. 23, 29 and 30. Departments can pick up their mail during this time. Mail will be distributed in whole-department bundles to staff presenting a valid university ID.

Departments needing to send special or large mailings Dec. 9-22 should call the campus postal service at 777-2158 or 777-3168. Outgoing mail will be accepted until 2 p.m. on Dec. 22

MARK YOUR CALENDARSDecember calendars tend to fill up quickly. Here are some key dates for the Carolina community: The last day of classes is Dec. 5, with exam week running Dec. 8-15. Commencement is Dec. 15 and the university is closed Dec. 23-Jan. 1. Spring classes begin Jan. 12.

VOL. 25, NO.11 1

TIMES FIVE

2 USCTIMES / DECEMBER 2014

POINT&CLICK

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION WEEKUSC’s International Student Services hosted International Education Week Nov. 17 – 21. Festivities included a Friday morning parade through campus and a lunchtime cultural bazaar on Davis Field. USC Times was there to capture the global spirit in pictures.

VOL. 25, NO.11 3


VOL. 25, NO.11 5

COTTON ROAD Li Zhen and Laura Kissel at Yangshan Deepwater Port


COTTON ROAD FILMMAKER AND USC MEDIA ARTS PROFESSOR LAURA KISSEL’S NEW DOCUMENTARY, “COTTON ROAD,” FOLLOWS THE JOURNEY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COTTON TO TEXTILE FACTORIES IN CHINA AND THEN BACK TO THE U. S. AS CLOTHING.

Along the way, Kissel weaves the personal narratives of farmers, truck drivers, gin opera-tors, commodities brokers and Chinese factory and warehouse workers into a feature-length documentary that’s now generating buzz on the independent film festival circuit.

“It’s a global phenomenon that I feel hadn’t been fully explored in film,” Kissel explains.

The idea started in rural Georgia while Kissel was working on another film about

VOL. 25, NO.11 7

BY GLENN HARE

a cotton farmer. Fascinated by the industry, she learned that the majority of all cotton grown in America — 75 percent, in fact — is shipped to China. She also began to learn how many pitfalls the industry presents for the people who depend on cotton for their livelihoods.

“It’s a worrisome crop,” South Carolina grower Carl Brown tells the camera at one point. “You worry about it from the time you plant it. You worry about it when you’re getting ready to pick it. You worry about it when you get it picked. The blasted thing will teach you something every year. And most of the time it teaches you something you didn’t want to know.”

Those lessons continue overseas, where workers like 19-year-old Liu Chengfeng work long hours for low wages in garment factories to help their families make ends meet.

“My mother said we must repair the roof right away, otherwise the house will flood when it rains,” Chengfeng says. “When I saw they repaired our house, I realized my schooling was over.”

Chengfeng’s story isn’t unusual. Rather, she and other young women who leave China’s rural provinces for work in the cities are part of the largest migration of people in human history. An estimated 160 to 230 million people in China now live and work away from their homes.

But the film also tells us something about ourselves as consumers. Indeed, the complicated supply chain story follows the finished products of Chinese labor back to the U.S., where they are sold to us at prices that belie the long and troublesome odyssey.

“I wanted to implicate the consumer in some way, to bring the consumer into the story,” Kissel says. “The best way to really do that was to think of the life cycle of the clothing we buy, which we are so quick to discard. It’s the consumer’s responsibility to be aware that our consumption habits have negative impacts on the environment and human condition.”


CAMPUS THREADSFilmmaker Laura Kissel shot over 150 hours of footage while making “Cotton Road”— it is clearly her vision — but filmmaking is a highly collaborative process and USC is an equally collaborative place. In ad-dition to the assistance of her producer in China, Kissel received help and advice from nearly a dozen members of the Carolina community.

“I talked with a number of faculty about the project as I was working on it, sought advice, feedback on content and also some translation help,” says Kissel. “Fang Man, a composer in the School of Music, composed the score, and it is stunning. It adds a vital, emotional resonance to the story.”

Kissel also worked with faculty in USC’s Darla Moore School of Business, the Asian studies program and the anthropology program. USC Times reached out to a couple of Kissel’s campus collaborators who assisted with subtitle translations for their responses following their first viewings of the finished film.

JIE GUO ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE LITERATURES AND CULTURES

What are the interdependencies between a cotton farmer in South Carolina and a woman working in the Chinese

textile and clothing industry? How is it possible that their lives are intertwined even though they have never met? Does the farmer ever wonder how many hands will handle the cotton from his farm before it

reaches the east coast of China and how many more will work on it until it morphs into clothes? Has the

Chinese clothing worker wondered which countries the clothes she makes will travel to and who will wear them? Has it ever occurred to her that some of the clothing she spends hours making and cannot afford herself will eventually end up in a recycling bin or even in dumpsters?

In “Cotton Road,” Laura Kissel answers these questions, showing how two apparently different worlds at either end of the cotton road are intimately linked, how, along the route, seemingly disparate lives are interwoven, and how, different as they appear, these worlds bear similarities and the people along the route share similar anxieties and aspirations.

Without using a voiceover, the film lets workers along the cotton road tell their stories. As limited as each speaker’s perspective may seem,

when brought together, their words paint a powerful picture that cap-tures the effects of globalization through the personal, the intimate,

the seemingly trivial. With her stunningly beautiful shots — be they close-ups of bundles of cotton and fabrics, long shots of cotton fields under the piercing summer sun of rural South Carolina or containers

waiting to be unloaded in smoggy Shanghai — Kissel also comments on the material aspects and effects of globalization and on the human striving and suffering that result from globalization.

MICHAEL HILL

DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR ASIAN STUDIES AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CHINESE

I first learned about “Cotton Road” from colleagues in Asian Studies who were excited about the project when I moved to USC in 2007. About a year and a half ago, I had the good fortune to get a chance to play a tiny role in its making when I spent part of a morning with the director, Laura Kissel, going over some of the Chinese subtitles. The effort professor Kissel put into the project — and the final version of “Cotton Road” — is nothing short of inspiring.

The scenes filmed in the cotton fields of South Carolina were the most striking to me, maybe because they stand apart from the images of smoke-belching factories that many people associate with China today. “Cotton Road” shows that the rural South is still a place of large-scale production: in this case, the finely calibrated, thorough-ly industrialized production of cotton plants. With only a handful of people (and plenty of equipment and chemicals), farmers can produce tons of the cotton that “Cotton Road” follows across the Pacific Ocean.

Although the disappearance of manufacturing from the American South has gained more attention, this transformation in agriculture is equally important for life in rural areas across the United States. By linking this set of circumstances with the lives of factory owners in China — people who had been pushed out of state-owned enterprises and into private manufacturing — “Cotton Road” brings the conse-quences of worldwide economic transformations into sharp focus. Viewers from all backgrounds will benefit from watching the film, and I look forward to showing it to my students soon.

VOL. 25, NO.11 9

Other than its tropical summer heat, Columbia might not seem, at first glance, to have much of a cosmopolitan flavor. But USC does its part to leaven the loaf, welcoming students from as many as 100 countries, many of whom call the International House at Maxcy College their home away from home.

Formerly the Honors College freshman residence hall, Maxcy houses 150 students, half of them internationals, and has become the place to be for students interested in different cultures.

“This year many of our internationals are from Australia and Hong Kong, but we have students from all over,” says Meg Southern, assistant to the faculty principal at Maxcy. “And there’s always something going on here.”

A study abroad office in Maxcy offers workshops to encourage American students to travel, and every Friday the Columbia Council for Internationals serves a free lunch to dorm residents and other students who want to rub elbows. A demonstration kitchen allows students to show off their native cuisines.

“Chilean students cooked up some of their specialty dishes as part of the celebration of Chile’s independence back in September, and we have a Native American chef coming in for a cooking demonstration this semester,” Southern says.

Five Maxcy residents, four from abroad and one American, chatted with USC Times about the international flavor at Carolina.

EXPERIENTIAL LIVING

RESIDENTS OF MAXCY COLLEGE HAIL FROM AS FAR AWAY AS HONG KONG, AUSTRALIA AND SPAIN, AND AS NEAR AS, WELL, COLUMBIA, S.C.

BY CHRIS HORN


YOLANDAThe community feel has been the most surprising thing here at USC. Back in England everyone comes together at the pub, whereas here we have to find other things to do, which I find very refreshing.

MIGUEL Yeah, that’s basically what college students do in Europe — we drink. Here, most people are not allowed [because of age], but back in Spain, when you’re 18 years old, you go to the pub, the club or a bar, and drink. You have to find other stuff to do here.

YOLANDASo they have bowling nights and karaoke, and we get together and do different things like that, and it helps us to communicate more, I think.

MARIA In Italy, we don’t really have anything like a college life. Basically, I go to class, and then I go back home. I live on my own [in Italy] so the idea of sharing a bedroom here — at first, I was a little bit worried about that. Not worried, but you don’t know who your roommate is going to be, and I was always used to living by myself in an apartment. Going from that to sharing a bedroom [with a roommate] and sharing a kitchen with 150 people, it was like, ‘Oh my God, are we going to be able to do that?’ And I have to say we are actually doing a pretty good job.

I’m really enjoying my time here, and it’s working out. You get to interact with people from all over the world, people who are like you but from different cultures, so you can learn a lot from them.

JACLYN This is my second year at Maxcy, and it’s so fun living with all these internationals — you get to hang out with them and have a relationship. The worst part is when they all leave. It stinks. But then you have an excuse to travel and go see all of them because they all say you can come stay with them. I’m planning on going next year and visiting everyone in Europe.

I was really nervous last year because I didn’t realize I was going to be living in an international dorm until I got here. I just figured the internationals would all want to stay together, but they really branched out and wanted to experience the American culture. JACLYN KUHN

Northern VirginiaMajor: Risk and insurance

management & financeRoommate from: Virginia

YOLANDA COOPER Northwest London

Major: English literatureRoommate from: South Carolina

MARIA VITTORIA BIANCHINIRome, Italy

Major: managementRoommate from: Spain

MIGUEL ALBERTOSMadrid, Spain

Major: economicsRoommate from: South Carolina

OLLIE JOHNSONNorthwest London

Major: History, literature and culture of the Americas

Roommate from: Australia

VOL. 25, NO.11 11

OLLIEThis is my third time in the U.S. The first time was with family, then I was here on a school trip and now this time by myself: three very different experiences.

Living in South Carolina has introduced me to the spectacle that is college football. Back home in the U.K., college sport is very much a low-key affair, so it is refreshing to experience how students grant such excitement and dedication to a team whom many would not have held any sort of sentiment towards before their university years.

MIGUELYes, tailgating and the football games have been really different from anything I’ve ever known. Back in Spain, college culture is totally different. You don’t really care where you go; you live with your parents and go to the university that’s closest to home. Your friends in college are going to be your friends in class, which is different here because here you don’t make friends in class — you make friends around the university, around the dorm.

Right now, the only thing I’m hating is the food. It’s not bad, but it’s not what I’m used to. The food, the recipes are so different. We eat a lot of fruit, a lot of vegetables back home. There are a lot of fried things here: fried chicken every day, a lot of fries.

MARIAA lot of what they call organic food here is ordinary food for us. But it’s a lot more expensive. We have a diet [back home] that is really healthy. Like you might have pasta for lunch, but when I say pasta, it’s a really simple sauce, not a lot of butter; we just use extra virgin olive oil and really fresh food.

The food here is over-processed, in my opinion. And the eggs are white. Most of us found it, like, shocking because the eggs are

not supposed to be white when you buy them at the farm. I’m missing the food back home.

OLLIE A biscuit here is completely different from what a biscuit is back in the U.K. I don’t really understand what a biscuit is here.

MARIAYeah, is it supposed to be sweet or savory?

YOLANDAThe biscuits here are a lot like scones.

OLLIEBut the traveling has been great. A lot of us went to Miami for fall break and that was good. I’ve been to Asheville, Atlanta, Charleston. I have a different perspective on distance because back in the U.K., I’ve been on a two-hour drive to Birmingham, and I considered that long, but when I come here and take trips, I think, “Wow, that [trip to Birmingham] was such a short trip!”

YOLANDAI did a 13-hour coach journey to New York last weekend!

MARIAGoing to Miami, the road trip a bunch of us took, we saw cotton fields, and that was nice. But then it was 10 hours of the same landscape. In Italy, to go from the deep south to up north, the landscape changes completely.

I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with Jaclyn, she’s one of my suitemates, and she said, ‘I’m from Virginia,’ and I said, “Oh, Virginia is four hours from here, right?’ She said, ‘No, I’m from northern Virginia, it’s an eight-hour drive.’ But it’ll be good!


BY PAGE IVEY

Let’s be serious, learning English as a second language — especially Southern Amer-ican English — is no piece of cake, especially when folks say things like “piece of cake” and call someone the “apple of my eye” and that they’d “walk through fire” for a friend.

It’s enough to make an international student yell, “It’s all Greek to me!” — if only he knew what that meant.

Making sense of these turns of phrase, these clichés and idioms that pepper much of our speech, is the role of the conversation partner in the University of South Carolina’s English Programs for Internationals.

The partners, typically Carolina students, but sometimes faculty and staff, help interna-tional students learn the lay of the land and get a handle on college life.

“It’s important because our students are strangers in a strange land and they really don’t understand our culture,” says Alexandra Rowe, director of EPI at Carolina.

“Often when a bond is established, when they get to know each other well, then the EPI student is comfortable asking questions they might not be comfortable asking a teacher.”

Common questions might involve how Americans use eating utensils, if a sign adver-tising a “Garage Sale” means someone is selling his garage or why signs prohibit “standing” in certain locations.

“There are little things that are all around us out in the community that we wouldn’t necessarily teach in class because we wouldn’t think of it,” Rowe says. “But if they are just walking along, they might see something and ask about it.”

Rowe says the Conversation Partners Program is almost as old at EPI, which is more than 40 years old, and is essential to helping EPI students become more familiar with the language as well as the culture.

Join the conversation

There are about 250 students in the EPI program

at any one time. Most of the students are Middle

Eastern men and native Arabic speakers; the next

largest group is from Asian countries and speaks

a variety of languages.

Students are assigned conversation partners

when they have reached an intermediate

proficiency in English. About 180-190 English

speakers are needed for each of the five

nine-week terms: two terms during USC’s fall

semester, two terms during the spring and one

term over the summer. Many conversation

partners repeat over multiple sessions.

To learn more about participating in the

program, visit www.epi.sc.edu and click

on Conversation Partners.

ENGLISHIT’S ALL

TO ME“Our students need to have English lan-

guage input targeted at them, all around them as much as possible,” Rowe says. “It accelerates their learning.”

Although there are tales of conversation partners and EPI students who formed such a bond that they later got married, that sort of interaction is discouraged, says Ann Janosik, a co-coordinator of the Conversation Partners Program.

“A lot of our students really enjoy having someone their own age to talk to,” Janosik says. “USC students are such a wonderful source of information about college life, not just daily life in America, but negotiating life on a campus. It’s a big change.”

The USC students get a chance to meet someone from a part of the world they may never visit. Some University 101 students volunteer to satisfy their global experience component.

“This can give some of our USC students a cross-cultural experience. It can open doors of interest and even of opportunity,” Janosik says. “Some very good friendships have been formed over the years.”

The only downside to relying heavily on students for conversation partners, she says, occurs during the summer session when enrollment is significantly lower. That’s when the program needs faculty and staff to step in and fill the void.

“There’s no prep involved, no work. You just agree to meet for an hour a week,” Janoski says. “It’s just talking.”

VOL. 25, NO.11 13

MASTERING INTERNATIONAL

BUSINESSUSC’S IMBA PROGRAM CELEBRATES 40 YEARS

BY PAGE IVEY


As the University of South Carolina’s international business programs celebrate their 40th anniversary this fall, a recent redesign of the graduate program guarantees that Carolina will stay on the leading edge of the field. But the initial idea for

a master’s program in international business came about organically, as the university sought to help South Carolina companies compete overseas.

In 1971, several members of the Business Partnership Foundation had begun new activities overseas but were encountering issues with personnel and managerial effectiveness. Jim Kane, who was dean of USC’s business school at the time, had a series of conversations with representa-tives from these companies, notably Springs Industries and Sonoco.

“At the same time, we were receiving a lot of direct foreign investment into South Carolina,” says Randy Folks, a junior faculty member at the time but now executive director for the Center for International Research and Development and international business professor emeritus. “The dean felt like South Carolina was going to have some kind of role in the global economy in the future, and it would be a good idea for us to be preparing people for it.”

That good idea led to the creation of a graduate program in international business, with a curriculum that emphasized the strong understanding of at least one region of the world, economically, historically and culturally.

“We believed that everybody should have a really strong capability in a second language when they exited the program,” Folks says. “Then we believed everybody should have the opportunity to utilize the skills that they learned in the classroom by spending a lengthy period of time over-seas in an internship.”

Considering that most students in the program in the mid-1970s had been out in the workforce for some time before returning for the international graduate degree, the internship component was a key distinguishing feature, according to Folks.

Over the next four decades, that language component remained a constant while the internship component was expanded and improved. The IMBA also now boasts a cohort program through which students are sent to live for a year to 18 months in a foreign country. When they return to campus, these students take additional classes here, which helps internationalize the Moore School experience.

“We’ve always been interested in having our students learn about context and what that means about the models they use and the places they work,” says Andrew Spicer, professor and faculty director of the full-time MBA programs in the Sonoco International Business Department. “We try to keep that historical vision of contextualized intelligence.”

“The IMBA program has given me an amazing network of classmates and alumni around the world in many different fields. Because it is such a small and unique program, the connection we share is very strong and I have no doubt that this network will help me in my career.”

— Caroline Osborne (IMBA 2013), business leadership associate, Coca-Cola North America Group

Success is contagious

USC’s International MBA program has been

ranked in the top three by U.S. News & World

Report for 25 consecutive years. In the survey

of “America’s Best Graduate Schools 2015,”

released in March 2014, the program was

ranked No. 1.

That expertise has spread to the

undergraduate international business

program, which was ranked No. 1 in

September 2014 in U.S. News’ “America’s Best

Colleges Guide” – the 16th year in a row the

Moore School has received the distinction.

VOL. 25, NO.11 15

Imagine attending a public elementary school in the United States, graduating from a public high school in the United States, apply-ing to a public university in the United States, then being denied

entrance — because you’re not from the United States.Immigration policy is one of the stickiest political issues of our time.

But for USC assistant professor of Mexican literature Raul Diego Rivera Hernandez, who was born in Mexico and went to college in Mexico before coming to the U.S. to pursue his Ph.D. at Ohio State University, education is a basic human right.

That’s why, back in August, Hernandez volunteered with Freedom University. Started in 2011 by a group of University of Georgia profes-sors, Freedom University provides free college-level courses for undoc-umented youth in Georgia who have been denied entry at the state’s top five public universities and denied in-state tuition at all public state universities by the Georgia Board of Regents.

The school’s name is inspired by the Southern Freedom Schools of the 1960s, which offered classes on social justice to African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement.

“Freedom University is a place where students can continue to devel-op their skills, attend classes and receive a high-quality college education but without receiving credit,” says Hernandez, who first learned about the program in 2013 when a group of the small school’s students and volunteers were invited by USC’s Latin American Studies Program to give a talk on campus.

“We were celebrating the 50th anniversary of desegregation at the university, and we wanted to show that there are still issues — in this

case, where undocumented students in the state of Georgia could not attend school with in-state tuition rates,” says Hernandez.

After speaking to several students, Hernandez offered to come to Georgia as a guest speaker. The director of Freedom University told him they would be happy to have him but what they really needed was some-one to come teach and mentor.

“Listening to their stories, it was like a matter of common sense. They are not asking for a free education, they are asking for a very clear right: ‘We want to go to college and we want to go to college as in-state tuition students,’” Hernandez says.

“For me, it was a mandatory issue to really do something. I found out that I could have at least some small impact, at least with this small class that I teach every Sunday.”

Hernandez, who teaches Latin American crime fiction at Carolina, now drives to Atlanta each weekend to teach contemporary Mexican history and politics. His research interest in Mexican “narco-literatura” and grassroots journalism inspired by the recent drug war provides a context for discussing the ongoing violence in Mexico with his students, many of whom were born there but have little knowledge of their birth nation’s recent history.

“They are building their own personal history, their own personal memory, and connecting to things they have heard about but never re-ally experienced,” says Hernandez. “My goal is to help them understand what has been happening in their country for the last 15 years that they have been absent.”

WITH EDUCATIONIDENTIFYING

BY CRAIG BRANDHORST

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VOL. 25, NO.11 17

SYSTEMWIDE

How did you get interested in studying displaced persons?

My parents were among the approximately 14.5 million East-Central European Germans expelled from their homeland, 1944-1950. This was the largest forced migration in modern history. An estimated 2.1 million died. My work combines personal and professional interests.

Is this a neglected part of European history?

Yes, it has been a largely neglected part of European history because Germans have been stigmatized solely as perpetrators with the attribution of collective guilt. History courses tend to reinforce this stigma, which is why it so stubbornly persists.

I want to set the record straight, which includes telling her-story instead of his-story, and to permit Germans to speak of their traumata and validate their voices. Based on United Nations Resolution 2106, adopted at the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1965, I contend Germans still experience racial discrimination. The recognition of their human rights and fundamental freedoms is impaired. My research contributes to a growing body of literature that challenges the German’s unequal footing.

Your methodology: Did you interview displaced persons?

Yes, in 1998 a USC research grant helped fund collecting the first testimonies of women who fled the advancing Red Army front, were shipped to Russian labor camps for years of forced labor and/or were subsequently expelled. They were children or young adults at the time. Many of them referred to the sexual violence perpetrated upon them, regardless of their age. This ethnographic fieldwork required travel, including to Germany.

It has been a difficult journey. On a personal level, the testimonies haunted me. On a professional level, I faced a combination of indifference, ignorance and sporadic ugly backlash. Nevertheless, some encouraged and supported further relevant intellectual engagement. For that I am grateful.

AROUND THE SYSTEM

USC Aiken ranked in the top 100 in Military

Times “Best for Vets: Colleges 2015.”

USC Beaufort chancellor Jane T. Upshaw

has announced that she will retire in August

2015. The search for a new chancellor is

underway.

USC Lancaster professors Chris Bundrick

(English) and Jason Holt (math) completed

the Wilmington, N.C., Ironman Triathlon

in October.

USC Salkehatchie welcomes area high

school teacher cadet students to campus

this month to hear an address by S.C.

Teacher of the Year Jennifer Ainsworth

and to participate in related workshops.

USC Sumter will recognize outstanding

achievement in athletics at the first Fire

Ants Athletic Banquet on Saturday, Dec. 13.

USC Union has launched its new mobile app

for Apple and Android devices. It will send

push notifications out to the campus about

inclement weather or any canceled classes

and will offer a direct dial-in to staff/faculty,

updated news and a way for students to

share pictures.

USC Upstate professor Desireé Rowe was

awarded $4,860 by the Waterhouse Family

Institute of Communication and Society at

Villanova University for “Performing Gender-

Based Activism in Eastern Germany.”

School of Medicine Greenville has received

provisional accreditation from the Liaison

Committee on Medical Education assuring

that the charter class will be eligible for

graduation with receipt of their M.D.

degrees in spring 2016.

To learn more about the USC system, visit sc.edu/about/system_and_campuses.

USC Upstate sociology professor Brigitte Neary researches the experiences of women displaced during armed conflict. In December, she will speak on German women’s experiences of sexual violence and expulsion from East-Central Europe following WWII at a conference in Berlin. Neary’s work has received national and international recognition, including the 2010 USC Upstate Annual Award for Scholarly and/or Creative Pursuits.

Brigitte NearyQ&A

ARRIVEUSC Times marks its 25th year by honoring 25 members of the Carolina community, one year at a time.

» PAGE 4

USCTIMESJANUARY 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.1

On Display

McMaster Gallery hosts Margaret Curtis exhibition, page 2

Are We Dead Yet?

An alumnus, a professor and a student journalist discuss the future of print media, page 10

Mapping the Ultimate Network

John Richards and Jane Roberts use MRI to peer into the human brain, page 12

WHAT’S INSIDE

14 ACADEMIC YEAR IN REVIEW

Reflecting on the year that was, anticipating

what comes next.

USCTIMESMAY 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.5

Fall ‘13

Desegregation at 50: Remembering the struggle, honoring the pioneers, page 9

This Summer

Exclusive Darla Moore School of Business building preview, page 2

Spring ‘14

New women’s sport takes the court, page 11

WHAT’S INSIDE

Fall into Culture

Sneak a peek at upcoming performances, exhibits

and events, page 2

Catch FYRE!

First-Year Reading Experience celebrates 21st year, page 4

Poet Delivers “Punch.”

USC Sumter English professor discusses new book of poetry, page 13

USC faculty reflect on their formative experiences as teachers. » PAGE 6

AUG. 13, 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.7

DIG IN!Presenting our first-ever food issue, complete with chef profiles, helpful hints and great conversation.

USCTIMESFEBRUARY 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.2

Flavor Profiles

USC alumni spice up local dining scene, page 4

Foodography

Three professors discuss food scholarship — plus pictures to prove it, page 8

An 11-Course Meal

HRSM’s Culinary & Wine Institute turns out master chefs, page 11

WHAT’S INSIDE

USCTIMESSEPTEMBER 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.8

Office Space

Sneak a peak at some of the most interesting offices on campus, page 2

The American Dream

Enjoy a provocative conversation about hope, freedom and economic security in the 21st

century, page 10

Unfinished Business

Five emeritus professors discuss academic life after the academy, page 14

THE WORK ISSUE

EARTHQUAKES!USC seismologists explore

S.C.’s faults, page 12

WEIRD SCIENCE!Eight professors recount their personal

science fair experiences, page 8

ALCHEMY!New book turns history

into gold, page 12

WHAT’S INSIDE?

SCIENCE FAIRS!

USCTIMESMARCH 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.3

Eat, Play, Lunch

Meet & Three takes to the stage, page 6

Art & the City

USC alumni make Main Street happen, page 10

Truth behind Fiction

Faculty and alumni discuss their new books, page 14

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

USCTIMESOCTOBER 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.9

Sailing, Cycling, Etc.Classes and opportunities under the sun, page 4

Garden PoetryTopiary artist and USC poet unite to commemorate desegregation page 10

Night SkiesAlumni astrophotographers capture the cosmos, page 12

What’s Outside

USCTIMESAPRIL 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.4

USCTIMESJUNE-JULY 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.6

Southeastern Piano Festival

Legendary pianist Leon Fleisher comes to campus, page 2

Dear Colleagues

Globetrotting faulty and staff send postcards from around the world, page 4

Get Smarter

Summer @ Carolina heats up, on campus and off, page 10

WHAT’S INSIDE

Greetings from

Playing Smart

Student-athletes score big in the classroom and on the field, page 4

The Point After

Faculty recall their glory days playing college sports, page 8

The Writing Game

Spurrier biographer Ran Henry takes to the classroom, page 14

THE SPORTING LIFE

USCTIMESNOVEMBER 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.10

OVERHEARD IN USC TIMES 2014

WE’VE GOT IT COVERED

Documents

USC Times December 2014