USCTIMES
MARCH 2015 / VOL. 26, NO.2
USC TIMES / STAFF
FROM THE EDITOR
USC Times is published 10 times a year for the faculty and staff of the University of South Carolina by the Office of Communications & Marketing. Managing editor Craig Brandhorst Designer Bob Wertz Contributors Chris Horn Page Ivey Liz McCarthy Steven Powell Glenn Hare Chrissy Harper Photographers Kim Truett Chrissy Harper Ambyr Goff Circulation Carolyn Parks Printer USC Printing Services Campus correspondents Patti McGrath, Aiken Cortney Easterling, Greenville Shana Dry, Lancaster Jane Brewer, Salkehatchie Misty Hatfield, Sumter Annie Smith, Union Tammy Whaley, Upstate Jay Darby, Palmetto College Submissions Did you know you can submit ideas for future issues of USC Times? Share your story by emailing or calling Craig Brandhorst at craigb1@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-3681.
GENDER MATTERS Forty-one years ago, USC’s course catalog didn’t include a single class dedicated to women’s and/ or gender studies. A year later, in 1975, it had one — a single 100-level class taken by a dozen students, all women, and team-taught by three professors from three different disciplines: English, religion and art history. Today, we boast an entire Women’s and Gender Studies program with core and affiliated faculty from across campus, courses offered on a range of important subtopics and programming that extends into the larger community. It’s not only a story worth telling, as we happily do in “Women’s Studies, Gender Identity” (p. 4); we thought the subject worthy of an entire issue. Except this month’s USC Times is not strictly speaking about that one program, wonderful and important as it may be. Rather, this is our chance to look more broadly at issues pertaining to gender, identity and diversity, from a modern vantage and with an eye to the future. That’s why we’ve included the roundtable “LGBT @ USC” (p. 13), with LGBT Program Coordinator Kayla Lisenby, Multicultural Student Affairs Director Shay Malone and Chief Diversity Officer John Dozier. We also bring you a series of as-told-to narratives and short profiles from successful female graduates, staff, faculty and students. If our feature “Women Now” (p. 8) seems outdated — if the ubiquity of successful women on campus seems to have rendered such a treatment gratuitous — well, mission accomplished. That’s where we ought be. If you come away feeling there’s still more work to be done, whether in promoting young girls’ self-esteem or in the fight to stop domestic violence or in some other related field, same deal. We’ve come a long way, both in society and on campus, but there’s plenty more to do. There’s also plenty more to read, including our preview of the provocative exhibit “Crafting Civil (War) Conversations,” now on display at McKissick Museum (p. 2) and the latest installment of Carolina Road Trip, which this month took us to Aiken (p. 16). Finally, of course, there’s the front cover and all that it suggests about history and change. We hope you’ll agree, this stuff matters. Happy anniversary,
CRAIG BRANDHORST MANAGING EDITOR
The University of South Carolina does not discriminate in educational or employment opportunities or decisions for qualified persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation or veteran status.
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TIMES FIVE
This form, that form… Under the Affordable Care Act, taxpayers now have to show that they have "minimum essential" health insurance coverage. Employees who were enrolled in the State Health Plan or BlueChoice HealthPlan from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2014, can simply check the box showing "Full-year coverage" on tax return forms 1040, 1040A or 1040EZ form. No further action or documentation is required. Employees who were enrolled in a health plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace and who received a subsidy for their coverage will receive a 1095-A from their provider in the mail.
IT’S A PLOT! Outdoor Recreation is looking for teams of at least four people interested in tending a produce garden. Teams can choose from two locations: Carolina Community Garden at Preston Green, which features 20 raised beds, or the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center Garden, which features six. Plots are awarded through an application process. For more information and a link to the applications, visit Outdoor Rec’s website at: http://campusrec.sc.edu/orec/carolinacommunitygarden/.
STAKE YOUR CLAIM WageWorks is accepting claims on 2014
GIVE UNTIL IT FEELS GOOD The university’s annual United Way campaign continues through March 20. Focused on education, financial stability and health, the United Way is one of the most effective ways to contribute to charity. Donations pledged during this “bridge campaign” will be for the July 1-Dec. 31 period. Another campaign will begin in November for the 2016 calendar year. Watch the @UofSC Today email for details about events planned during the campaign.
medical spending accounts through March 31. Employees who haven’t used up all of the funds in their account can still file claims for expenses from last year or for the first three months of this year. Those claims will be paid out of the 2014 account until the funds are exhausted or the grace period ends. If claims from the first three months of this year have exhausted last year’s funds, no more claims
Move it, people Faculty and staff looking to get in shape for the Changing Carolina Peer Leaders 5K in April can get a little help from their friends. Gamecocks on the Move, a free walking and running program offered through Campus Wellness, provides faculty, staff and students the resources and support to train for a 5K. Training starts March 16 — five weeks before the event. Group sessions will last 30 minutes and will be held at 5:30 p.m. on March 18, April 1 and April 15. Signup is available on the Gamecocks on the Move website: http://www.sa.sc.edu/shs/cw/staff/gotm/.
from last year will be accepted. MoneyPlus Claim Forms can be printed from the PEBA Insurance Benefits website, www.eip.sc.gov, under the “Forms” tab. Completed forms should be faxed to WageWorks at 888-8005217. Direct any questions to the USC benefits office at 803- 777-6650.
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CONVERSATION PIECES By Glenn Hare
k In South Carolina artist Tom Boozer’s diorama, “Fellowship,” miniature trees, cabins and a creek frame a harmonious tableau of blacks and whites cooking, moving furniture and setting the table as a community of equals at a former plantation. Menace, however, lurks in the form of a rattlesnake hiding in the bushes.
What’s at stake in how we choose to remember and commemorate the American Civil War and its aftermath? As the city, state and nation recognize the 150th anniversary of the war’s end this spring, McKissick Museum is asking that very question through a series of thematically related events, including the free exhibit “Crafting Civil (War) Conversations,” on display through May 30. Thirteen artisans from around the Southeast, selected through a juried process, created traditional craft media to imagine the war’s end as a scene of reconciliation between former slaves and slave owners. Collectively, the 20 works invoke the material culture of everyday life from that era, both positive and negative. Baskets and quilts share gallery space with slave manacles and other discomforting artifacts that speak to the experiences of Southerners in the years preceding and immediately following the Civil War. “Each artist approached creating the scene differently,” says McKissick Museum director Jane Przybysz. “Some mined their family history. Others looked to forms of culture forged on antebellum rice and cotton plantations. And many seized upon textiles as metaphors of healing.” Ultimately, the exhibit is intended to pose more questions than it answers, not only about the legacy of the Civil War, slavery and emancipation, but about museums as sites of collective memory and art as an agent of change.
VOL. 26, NO.2 3 g Lee Sipe’s “Vessel No. 357,” a shallow basket crafted of pine needles, clay and raffia filled with cotton bolls, could serve as a table centerpiece or a conversation piece meant to provoke frank discussion. “Plantation owners and others involved in cotton’s production, sale and use became wealthy,” Sipe explains. “AfricanAmericans did not share in the wealth they helped to create through their labor. The descendants of slave owners and the descendants of slaves share a past and a future. Full reconciliation is necessary to build a future that fulfills the dreams of all. The table of brotherhood would be a great place to begin the process.”
ALSO FREE IN MARCH “Governors at Work and Play: National and Regional Governors’ Conferences” Now through May 1 Hollings Special Collections Library Weekdays, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Featuring memorabilia from South Carolina Political Collections, this exhibit depicts political leaders bonding at the annual governors’ conference through the years. Photographs of deep-sea fishing, a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral and political leaders taking hula lessons highlight the spirit of camaraderie. Ten South Carolina governors and lieutenant governors are represented. US Navy Band and Sea Chanters March 10, 7 p.m. Koger Center for the Arts The premier wind ensemble of the United States Navy presents a joint concert with Sea Chanters, the Navy’s official chorus. The program will feature an array of marches and patriotic selections, as well as traditional choral works, opera, show tunes and songs about life on the high seas. 2015 Open Book Series Mondays and Wednesdays, March 16 – April 22, 6 p.m. Hollings Special Collection Library
k Quilting bees served as social occasions for many women in the postwar South. Susan Lenz’s “Stitching Together,” a sculptural art quilt featuring fabric adorned with gravestone rubbings from the graves of unknown Confederate soldiers and from a historic African-American cemetery, depicts a figurative reconciliation of slaves and owners. “The whole cloth art quilt on the frame now is ripe for its own special conversation,” says Lenz. h Once considered “blue gold” because of the wealth it brought the Palmetto State, indigo and the dye created from it played a crucial role in South Carolina’s antebellum economy. The dye’s production, however, depended upon the manual labor of slaves. Connie Lippert’s tapestry “Oppressed/Oppressor” uses the deep blue within a wider palette to probe the complicated relationship between slave and slave owner.
Part book club, part lecture series, part community read, the six-week Open Book Series pairs a Monday talk by an invited scholar with an appearance by a celebrated literary artist two days later. Series host and USC creative writing professor Elise Blackwell kicks things off March 16 with a talk on Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow George Saunders’ short story collection “Tenth of December.” Other guests are Mary Szybist, Kate Christensen, David Bajo, Teju Cole and Chang-rae Lee. For more information and to register, visit http:// artsandsciences.sc.edu/theopenbook “We Are…Women!” March 20, 7 p.m. Law School Auditorium First performed at the USC Women’s and Gender Studies conference in 1995, this dramatic adaptation of writings by various feminist authors is being restaged in celebration of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program’s 40th anniversary.
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WOMEN’S STUDIES, GENDER IDENTITY By Page Ivey
From its beginnings 40 years ago as a class to explore and celebrate the achievements of women in religion, art and literature, the Women’s Studies program at the University of South Carolina has expanded to offer students a major — frequently coupled with another degree — and hundreds of courses cross listed with dozens of disciplines. Now renamed Women’s and Gender Studies, the program offers a chance to explore intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality, geography and other dimensions of difference and inequality. And, for the first time, the program is being led by a man — coming full circle from when a handful of faculty and students pushed for a course exclusively geared toward the study of women’s lives and issues.
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“We think about gender in a larger conceptual way. And we think about men’s studies and masculinity as much as we think about the social and political status of women.” ED MADDEN
ONE TOUGH CLASS “The modern women’s movement had started about 1966 and women were becoming more aware of being ‘the other’ or sort of non-entities,” says Vickie Eslinger, ’69 political science, ’73 law. “You know, you still had sex-segregated want ads: male-help wanted or female-help wanted.” Now a prominent attorney, in the late 1960s Eslinger was among the students on a committee to create a women’s studies program at USC. She had already finished law school by the time the first class was held in the spring of 1975, but she remembers the need for new programs and policies on a campus that was quickly evolving. “Clearly, university officials realized that they were going to have more and more women students and that they should teach some of the history and things that would be relevant to women,” says Eslinger, who also made headlines when she sued to become the first female page at the S.C. State House. A few years later, students like Beth Padgett were able to benefit from the efforts of women like Eslinger. Padgett was among the first students to take a class in the fledgling program in the spring of 1975, the same year she earned her bachelor’s in journalism. She earned her master’s in journalism in 1992 and has been the editorial page editor for The Greenville News for several years, but that single class in women’s studies left an indelible mark. “It was just a wonderful experience,” she says. “It was affirming to see
and learn about the contributions of women and to see other people get excited about talking about those ideas. Women’s history wasn’t woven throughout the curriculum. This class was filling the void that existed decades ago.” That first class was offered as a 100-level course, Padgett recalls, with teaching duties split among three professors: one in English literature, one in religion and one in art history. “I think they were unsure that women had enough achievements in any one discipline to make a whole class,” Padgett says, adding that each professor wanted a final project on their material. “It turned out to be one of the toughest classes I had at Carolina. It certainly was not a typical freshman-level class.”
MAJOR GROWTH From those beginnings, USC’s Women’s Studies program grew to include more courses and to offer a graduate certificate. In 1999, Women’s Studies became an undergraduate major, under the direction of Lynn Weber, who had founded and led a women’s research center at the University of Memphis. During Weber’s 11-year tenure, the program added faculty members from a variety of disciplines. These joint appointments continue today and contribute to the interdisciplinary nature of the study, but in the 1990s finding departments ready to allocate instructors to classes and to
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As an undergraduate, Vickie Eslinger (top) contributed to the development of the original Women’s Studies program. Now an attorney with Columbia law firm Nexsen Pruet, she handles cases involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation and whistleblower issues, as well as other business, employment and labor litigation. Beth Padgett was one of a dozen students who took USC’s first women’s studies class in 1975. A veteran journalist, she’s now the editorial page editor for the Greenville News.
hire faculty jointly with women’s studies was a mixed bag — while some were eager, others were resistant. “The key for the director is how you negotiate for other faculty,” Weber says. “For our first hire I sent a request for proposals to every chair in the university and got 13 proposals. After much negotiation we hired our first joint appointment, Dr. Deborah Parra Medina, with the School of Public Health. Her hire agreement serves as the template for all joint hires in the university today.” Another key was the development of the Women’s Well Being Initiative, an ongoing partnership with the communities of Cayce and West Columbia, just across the river from campus. “We wanted to engage with a community nearby. We wanted it to have racial and ethnic diversity and working-class neighborhoods,” Weber says. “We went in and we asked community members, ‘What do you need?’ One of the first needs identified was for young people’s activities.” That one initiative spawned others. One of the very first WWBI partnerships, a relationship sustained over the past 10 years with the Lexington County Juvenile Arbitration Program, is a program aimed at keeping female youth first offenders out of the formal justice system. Led for the past six years by Olga Ivashkevich, associate professor in the School of Visual Art and Design, the program provides arts-based workshops to help teenage girls engage with issues of gender and social justice. These campus-community partnerships signify the broader community reach of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
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DEGREES OF DIFFERENCE The program’s scope has broadened to include an array of issues pertaining to gender, sexuality and discrimination. Many undergraduate women’s and gender studies majors are, in fact, double-majors, especially those who may be going on to graduate school in social work, law or business. “I think more and more students are recognizing that a major in women’s and gender studies is a great value-added major,” says program director and English professor Ed Madden. “Our degree offers immeasurable benefits for those fields, by developing an understanding of how ‘difference’ works.” That intersection of differences in race, class, gender and sexuality represents a broadening of the program’s coursework beyond women’s issues, as reflected in the 2008 name change to Women’s and Gender Studies, says Madden, who also is the program’s first male director. “We think about gender in a larger conceptual way. And we think about men’s studies and masculinity as much as we think about the social and political status of women,” he says. “We’re about understanding
forms of social difference and the impact those forms of social difference have in terms of social power, in terms of government, in terms of policies and procedures tied to human resources, in terms of the history of things like Title IX or nondiscrimination policies.” Madden says his primary goals are to add faculty members, increase the number of students majoring in the program and continue to support community engagement and quality research in the broadening field. But, at least one battle must be fought anew with each new class — and it’s a battle that predates even the earliest days of the program: disdain for the word “feminist.” “A lot of students think they are not feminists, yet they believe that women should be paid equally for their work, and they believe in the political, social and economic equality of women,” Madden says. “There are all these fundamental forms of gender equality that they believe in, but all they can think about are the stereotypes. So I do think a lot of the introductory courses are disabusing them of stereotypes and teaching them this fundamental history.”
Lynn Weber served as director of Women’s and Gender Studies for 11 years. During that time, the program expanded its footprint on campus and its reach into the larger community. “The key for the director is how you negotiate for other faculty,” Weber says.
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WOMEN
NOW When USC Times set out to write this month’s cover story celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at USC we thought it might also be a good time to solicit a few as-told-to narratives from successful women faculty, staff and alumni as a way of showing just how far we’ve come. The research spotlights, meanwhile, suggest there’s still plenty of work to be done.
VICKI ESLINGER ATTORNEY ’69, POLITICAL SCIENCE, ’75, LAW
At graduation, a professor actually said to me, “You’re smart, for a woman” — and he thought he was giving me a compliment. I wanted to say, “Well, you’re smart, for a fat, bald-headed old guy.” But I didn’t think that would be polite. My parents taught us to have backbones, and that if we saw injustice and we could fix it, we needed to do it. They forgot to tell us that there were things that women couldn’t do. I mean, I had my pilot’s license at 15. I think one of the key things that changed was that Southern daddies started wanting the same things for their daughters that they wanted for their sons. People used to say, ‘I’m not a feminist, but…’ Today, some people still say that because the side that doesn’t want women to make progress has convinced them that being a feminist is a negative, that we’re horrible and that we’re men-haters. Being a feminist simply means insisting that people be judged on their own merit. I knew things had really progressed when my daughter was about 6 or 7 years old and I took her to a new pediatrician, who was a guy I had gone to high school with. On the way back, she said “Did you notice anything unusual about the doctor?” I said, “No. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s a great doctor.” And she said, “He was a boy. I didn’t know boys could be doctors.” I said, “They can be anything a girl can be as long as they work hard and set their minds to it.”
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JACQUI MICHEL ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP CONSULTANT
BOO MAJOR USC EQUESTRIAN TEAM COACH
’74,’76 MASTER’S, ’80 PH.D., GEOLOGY
When I was working on my Ph.D. in USC’s geology department in the 1970s, I met my future husband, Miles Hayes, who was chairman of the department. Back then, husband-and-wife teams in the same department were sort of against the law in academics. So what were my options? We were doing some consulting work, and we decided to form a company, Research Planning Inc. In 1977, we opened an office down in Five Points. That gave me a career. RPI started off doing environmental and energy-related work, and we got involved in oil spill work, just as it was starting. There was no oil spill program in the United States — we helped create it. With the Amoco Cadiz oil spill in France in 1978, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was organizing an oil spill research group. We got started with them, and we’ve been under contract ever since as part of the scientific support team for the U.S. Coast Guard. We’ve also done habitat restoration, including the management of a $465 million coastal restoration program in Saudi Arabia. We work with alternative energy, evaluating offshore wind turbines and wave and current harvesting devices in an effort to mitigate potential impacts. For the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, I arrived the day the rig sank, and I worked there essentially the next four-and-a-half years. I’ve worked in 32 countries now, and I really do enjoy myself. Working for a company where we do mostly applied science, it’s a lot like academics. You work hard to solve complex problems. Having a spouse that has the same amount of intellectual curiosity and intensity and drive — that really makes a difference.
I came to USC 18 years ago, the second year of the equestrian team — it was a club team before it became a varsity sport — and it was hard way back then. Everyone in the athletic department was very supportive, but the students got a lot of flack from other students who weren’t athletes. “Anybody can ride a horse” — we got that comment a lot. We would respond, “Anybody can throw a football and anybody can whack a tennis ball.” We’d invite other teams to come out for the afternoon to ride the horses. That really helped. When you start getting recognized for winning, that helps, too. More people come out to our competitions and watch now. Some people still don’t know we have an equestrian team, but a long time ago nobody knew. A lot of our success has to do with who we surround ourselves with. I’ve been here through three athletic directors, and every one of them has been very supportive of our sport and what’s needed to make us better. That’s been a very positive thing for us. And exposure for women’s sports has increased dramatically since I’ve been here. It still has a long way to go, but I see that our administration is doing a lot to make sure that all sports get exposure.
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SUSAN ELKINS CHANCELLOR PALMETTO COLLEGE I’m blessed with having had the example of a strong work ethic and an appreciation of the value of an education from my parents. I grew up working in their funeral home during high school and college, and became an eighth-grade math teacher in my hometown of Gainesboro, Tenn., after graduating college in three years. I taught for 10 years, and in the summers I worked part-time jobs; I was a rural mail carrier for a while and for three summers I helped run a JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act) program where we found summer jobs for young people who were at the poverty level. The light came on when I was doing that. I realized that while it was important to teach students to solve for x, preparing these students for life was much more important. After working in a grant-funded project that provided career development and educational opportunities to young people, I joined Tennessee Tech, my alma mater, as director of extended education. Then I earned a master’s and later an Ed.D. in higher education administration. When I left Tennessee Tech after 23 years, I was serving as vice president for extended programs and founding dean of the College of Interdisciplinary Studies. When I read the mission and job description for the new chancellor of Palmetto College, I don’t think I could have found a position that looked any more like me. My motto is “helping people help themselves through education,” and as a first-generation college graduate, I’m keen on improving student access and student success, particularly to first-generation students in rural areas. That’s what gives me the desire to make sure that our two-year campuses — Lancaster, Salkehatchie, Sumter and Union —are strong for their communities. It’s fabulous to be 18 years old and be able to come to Columbia and have the traditional college experience, and we want as many people as possible to do that. But a lot can’t. What drives me is delivering the same quality USC education to those who can’t leave their communities or jobs to attend the Columbia campus. It’s Palmetto College students like Julie Livingston and many others who motivate me. Julie recently shared her story with the Board of Trustees — a story that depicted her as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a full-time employee … and a Palmetto College student finishing her degree in business administration from USC Aiken online through Palmetto College. That’s what Palmetto College is all about.
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RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
AIDYN IACHINI
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SOCIAL WORK
MARY LOHMAN
’07, EXERCISE SCIENCE; ’12, MASTER’S, PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK; DIRECTOR, GIRLS ON THE RUN COLUMBIA
Sometimes the best research is the research born of true collaboration. Take the ongoing project of social work assistant professor Aidyn Iachini and Girls on the Run Columbia council director and triple alumna Mary Lohman, who received her undergraduate degree in exercise science from USC’s Honor’s College before pursuing dual master’s degrees in social work and public health. A fun, curriculum-based physical activity youth development program, Girls on the Run is a 501(c)3 that promotes self-esteem, responsibility, optimism and a host of other positive attributes while training girls for a 5k. It also pays big dividends for its volunteers and for people like Lohman and Iachini, whose efforts are having an impact both locally and nationally. “We are so much more than a running program — we’re focused on the whole girl,” says Lohman, who participated as a volunteer coach as a teenager in Atlanta before approaching exercise science professors Karin Pfeiffer and Russ Pate about starting something in the Midlands while still an undergraduate. “I know the impact these programs can have,” she says. “I see the difference not only in the lives of the girls who are in the program but also in the lives of the volunteers who are the backbone of our organization.” While Girls on the Run Columbia was already a successful program when Lohman took over as its first fulltime director five years ago, she wanted to know more about how the program was being implemented by its coaches, who range from parents to seasoned teachers to lawyers in the community, and what they needed to make their jobs easier. Enter Iachini, Lohman’s former professor, who routinely teaches the College of Social Works course on program evaluation. With help from public health professor Michael Beets, she and Lohman codesigned some pre- and post-surveys that zeroed in on the barriers and facilitators to implementing the program. The findings had an almost immediate impact at the local level. “We want to make sure we’re training our volunteers appropriately and running things appropriately — it’s just like any other business in that respect,” Lohman explains. “Aidyn’s research helps us stay up to date and also gives us a legitimacy when we explain to parents, for example, why we’re not a competitive program.”
The team’s findings also informed a couple of papers that have caught the attention of the international Girls on the Run organization. “Possibly the coolest part of the collaboration is that Girls on the Run Columbia has been able to inform revisions to both the curriculum and the evaluation processes at the international level,” Iachini says. “Some of their advice to coaches is directly derived from our study. That research has also allowed Mary to showcase Girls on the Run Columbia as a truly innovative program.” Of course, there’s also a personal payoff for both women. “This position challenges me every day to be a better me,” Lohman says. “I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but we’re asking the girls in the program, and our coaches and volunteers, to reflect on themselves. It’s important that we do that as well.” Iachini, meanwhile, has participated as a running buddy for a friend’s daughter. “There are things happening for girls in this program that just can’t be captured in a pre-/post-survey,” she says. “It’s really exciting to see those girls benefitting from that program. I’m definitely excited about our partnership moving forward.”
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ALICIA SIKES COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT ’83, COMPUTER SCIENCE
I went to the University of South Carolina to do computer science and ended up flying. I’d always been interested in airplanes, and my last semester I met another student who was a pilot. I said, “I’ve always wanted to fly.” So, I investigated taking lessons and started about a month later at Eagle Aviation at Columbia Metropolitan Airport. I eventually got my instructor’s certificate there and began a job as an instructor with Midlands Aviation. Later, I worked at Napier Air Service in Dothan, Ala., as an assistant chief pilot, and at Air New Orleans, where I was a first officer and then a captain. Then, at the beginning of 1988, one of my friends at Air New Orleans said, “Hey, look! TWA is hiring, and look how old everyone is. They’re all going to be retiring. We could be captains almost immediately!” That’s how I ended up at TWA — I just kept on meeting people that had places to take me. An airline captain coordinates everything that’s going on: you’re basically like the leader of a three-ring circus. You coordinate with dispatch and flight attendants and the gate agent and mechanics. You’re taking in all of this information, and you’re leading the process, trying to get your flight out on time and get from point A to point B as safely as possible. People just a little bit older than I am have issues sometimes with females flying airplanes. People my age and younger have no issues at all. I was one of the first female pilots to get hired after it became more accepted in the late 80s, but I haven’t really encountered anything like a glass ceiling. Because I’m confident and go for training, I do well. They can’t try to put me down because I can fly the airplane as well as the guys.
LINDSAY RICHARDSON STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT SENIOR, POLITICAL SCIENCE, MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT MAJOR
I noticed my freshman year that there were so many strong women on campus who were great mentors, the kind of people to push you forward. They are the kind of people you can rely on whether it’s for personal problems or basic leadership lessons. Being a female leader, you have to own your style and you have to claim it. One of the early mistakes I made was trying to model my leadership on other people. It wasn’t working for me. I was getting stressed out. Once I was able to say, “This is how I lead, and this is who I am,” that changed the whole picture. I didn’t come to campus wanting to be student body president or anything like that. I don’t like being in the center of attention. It’s very uncomfortable for me. It was uncomfortable to assume such big responsibilities — it was a leap outside of my comfort zone — but I’m glad I did it. It’s made me a better person, a better leader. I’ve come up with my own definition of leadership. Leadership is rising to the occasion. Carolina is a very welcoming environment, and while no place is going to be perfect as far as bridging the gender gap or breaking the glass ceiling, I think it’s a great place to learn and grow.
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RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
SUZANNE SWAN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PSYCHOLOGY (CLINICAL COMMUNITY PROGRAM) AND WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES
In a state that often leads the nation in the number of women killed in domestic violence, Suzanne Swan’s research on interpersonal violence and aggression seems not only relevant but vital. An associate professor in psychology and in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Swan teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on social pyschology as well as courses on men, masculinity and relationship violence. “The statistic that’s often cited — one in five women will be assaulted during college — has been around for 20 years, and it’s still a valid number,” says Swan, whose research
surveys gather information from students at Carolina and the universities of Kentucky and Cincinnati.
violent women, too. The vast majority of college students don’t want anyone getting hurt,” she says.
“The good news is that a lot of people are getting involved in bystander interventions, often women looking out for other women and preventing things from happening. Some men are also getting involved as bystanders to help others.”
Swan’s latest research is taking a closer look at the use of drugging or drink spiking. Students surveyed at the three institutions were asked if they had ever been the recipients of spiked drink or food, witnessed it occurring or knew someone who had done it. About 6 percent of women and 1.6 percent of men who responded to the survey reported they thought they might have been drugged on at least one occasion. In 13 percent of the incidents, the druggings resulted in sexual assault.
Swan, who consults with the university’s sexual assault communications committee, advocates for prevention efforts as well as interventions aimed at perpetrators. “It’s a small number of men who are doing this on college campuses, and there are a few
“The next step we want to take is to interview people who say they have spiked drinks for others,” Swan said. “No one has looked at offenders of this kind of behavior before other than in forensic toxicology investigations. There’s just not much known about the experiences of victims or perpetrators.” Much of her research focuses on the behavior of college students, examining the prevalence of sexual and partner violence, and bystander intervention. With two children of her own, that sometimes becomes the topic of family conversation. “My 12- and 16-year-old know about my research on this drugging stuff and sexual assault,” Swan says. “Instead of preaching to them, I sometimes just share what we’ve found in our studies. The lessons are self evident, I think.”
14 USCTIMES / MARCH 2015
LGBT @ USC
A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
When it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, we’ve recently seen a lot of changes, from the legalization of same-sex marriage at the state level to the subsequent extension of benefits to same-sex spouses at all state agencies. To find out where we are, and what’s left to be done, with respect to gender and sexual-identity equity on campus, USC Times invited Chief Diversity Officer John Dozier, Coordinator for LGBT Programs Kayla Lisenby and Director of Multicultural Student Affairs Shay Malone to share their thoughts.
USC Times: How can we characterize the current climate for LGBT issues on campus? KL: We’ve come a very long way at USC. Our gay student association, which is now our Bisexual Gay Lesbian Straight Alliance, was established in 1982 — and only after the ACLU went to court on behalf of the students. Now we have sexual orientation and gender included in our nondiscrimination policy, we have our active Safe Zone Ally program and, obviously, we have my position. We’ve made a lot of progress in what is historically a short time, and in the last five years the momentum has picked up. There has been a lot of growth everywhere over the past ten years, but if you look at the SEC and at our peer aspirant institutions, we’re still ahead of the curve. JD: Kayla’s role is important as she advocates not only for our LGBT students but for the entire university. What she does helps to ensure that the concerns of our LGBT students, faculty and staff are both understood and addressed. Having an LGBT coordinator provides the university community with a person who is focused on developing and executing a strategy to promote safe environments for all of our students.
USC Times: Are we experiencing another Civil Rights movement? JD: I don’t think anyone saw the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 as a destination. Civil and human rights are a continuing journey. As different groups voice their concerns about the
lack of inclusivity, we need to be conscious of that. Our role will constantly evolve, not just as a university but as individuals. Civil and human rights issues require our constant focus and attention.
USC Times: So what else do we still need to address as a campus community? KL: When we talk about our LGB communities, or our LGBQ communities (see “Questioning the Q?” on opposite page), we see a lot of forward progress, but we haven’t seen as much progress on behalf of the trans community. So we started a task force last summer to examine what policies are in place on campus and what we can do to make campus more inclusive for our transgender community. Outside of Safe Zone, our Trans Task Force takes a lot of my attention. It’s something our students are interested in — and certainly, for our transgender students, it’s vital. SM: We have so many programs that provide support and education, but we also have some really fun events that our students need — so they can have a time to get together, talk, find friends and support. We have a lot of programs that come out of our office, but there’s room for growth. JD: It’s hard to identify any one program that has more impact than any other. It’s an overall strategic focus. How people define themselves is not only important to them; it’s also important to us as a university community.
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USC Times: What challenges do you still face on campus in terms of providing support? KL: My biggest challenge is that students are here for four years, maybe less. They’re here for such a short time, and they come in without the historical context, so they want to see things happen very, very quickly. We have to make sure we’re doing things right, and there’s a lot to consider. Recognizing and responding to the passion of students but also remembering the rate at which change happens at the institutional level, and the way it should happen at the institutional level, can be very complicated. It takes commitment at all levels and very careful timing to make sure change permeates and really takes hold throughout the institution. JD: I’ll start from the macro level. We have to respect individual difference in a way that allows everyone to feel that their contributions are going to be valued, that they themselves are going to be valued here. Ultimately, that allows us to draw a greater enrollment, get the diversity of opinion that helps us be better individuals and improves the scholarship and learning that our university community values. And when I talk about diversity, I want be really clear: I’m not only talking about the groups of people on our campus who are either underrepresented or in some way marginalized. Diversity is about everyone, because everyone brings uniqueness to our university that deserves to be respected and valued. Until we look at it through this lens, diversity will always feel like someone else’s concern — where people don’t see themselves as being diverse. KL: We’re not pushing an agenda or a set of beliefs. I don’t want to change anybody’s deeply seated moral or religious beliefs. This is about providing education and building an inclusive community. It’s an embodiment of the Carolinian Creed. There is a lot of new information to digest and things are changing all the time, very quickly, in terms of legislation, people’s attitudes. Sometimes I think people become overwhelmed, but folks shouldn’t fear engaging with these issues. There are a lot of opportunities and a lot of safe spaces for conversation.
SM: Those safe spaces are critical. Because these issue are ever-changing, we want to make sure we’re supporting these students in the best way. And I think our administration realizes that there are these communities that want their support. We have more allies. The word is out that programs exist.
USC Times: How do we gauge success when it comes to the issues facing the LGBT community? JD: Partly by how individuals across campus feel about their individual sense of inclusion. As a university, we need to be aware of that. But this work is not just affective, it isn’t just about a feeling; it also drives our bottom line. It plays a role in how we recruit more and better faculty. It’s about how we help the university attract more and better students, more and better staff. Our university is growing, and as we grow we need to be mindful that our pool of candidates, whether faculty or students or staff, will continue to be more diverse. KL: I’m very lucky to work with our students one-on-one. My version of success comes from having conversations with students about positive developments and from seeing others take up the mantle for more inclusiveness at Carolina. Just this semester we started an opportunity for our trans students that if they identify with a different name than is on their official record, we would notify their instructors on their behalf. They use a form through our office and I send an email to the professor, just to give the student an extra layer of safety and support. Getting emails back from faculty who say, “I don’t really know much about trans issues, but thank you for letting me know. I will respect this student’s name and pronouns” — that signals success to me. I’m really lucky to see those daily positive steps. I also get to write letters of recommendation on behalf of our LGBT students, and knowing that they were able to pursue their education and development here, and that they could achieve so much during their time here without feeling marginalized or ostracized because of their identity — that’s huge.
16 USCTIMES / MARCH 2015
CAROLINA ROAD TRIP
AIKEN: WE’RE NO. 1!
Chancellor Sandra Jordan
Everyone likes winning streaks, and USC Aiken is enjoying a long one, ranking among the top three comprehensive universities in the South since 2000. The institution, one of the oldest in the USC system, ranked No. 1 this year in U.S. News and has held the top spot 10 of the past 16 years, beating out more than 600 other comprehensives in the South. “We’ve also received four separate designations for our veteran-friendly status,” says USC Aiken Chancellor Sandra Jordan, the campus’ fourth leader in its 53 years of operation and the first woman to serve in that position. But USC Aiken boasts more than stellar rankings. In 2014, the school became the only institution in South Carolina admitted to the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. The 29-institution council selected Aiken after a rigorous site visit that focused on how seriously the campus values the tenets of a liberal arts education for its 3,400 students. And that’s no surprise, really. USC Aiken’s student/teacher ratio is 14:1 and its average class size is just 18. “We have purposely managed our growth over time to sustain a culture of academic excellence and personal attention,” says Jeff Priest, USC Aiken’s executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. “From teaching to undergraduate research, we’re providing students with experiences that will make them successful in life.”
We are family When Summer Farmer was looking for a new college, the availability of an honors program was a must. “I’d always been in honors programs in high school, and it was a big point for me in choosing USC Aiken,” said the chemistry senior who wants to become a chemistry professor. Launched in 1991 and expanded in 2005, the program’s current enrollment is up to 87. There’s honors housing — half of
ENGINEERING A NEW DEGREE USC Aiken has offered an associate degree in engineering for years, and now, with approval from the Commission on Higher Education, will start offering a bachelor’s degree in industrial process engineering. “The College of Engineering and Computing in Columbia has bragged on the quality of our students because so many of them transferred there to earn bachelor’s degrees,” says Aiken chancellor Sandra Jordan. “Now we’ll be able to graduate some of our own.” The two-year program routinely enrolled 100 students, and 180 are currently signed up for the new baccalaureate degree, which combines traditional engineering concepts with business-oriented disciplines such as operations management.
the program’s students live there in what Farmer describes as “one big family” — and an honors lounge. “We have people in so many different majors who can collaborate on everything. That’s what brings us together,” Farmer said. “We can be nerds as much as we want.”
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Have swim fins, will travel In his 34 years at USC Aiken, Garriet Smith has seen a greater emphasis on both research and good teaching. He’s also seen many of his former students become accomplished professionals. “A lot of them are now my colleagues,” he says. When Smith joined the USC Aiken faculty in 1981, the institution valued but didn’t emphasize faculty research. That began to change when he and other faculty began to up the ante. In Smith’s case, that meant working with Cornell, Scripps Institute, Tel Aviv University and James Cook University in Australia to determine the health of the world’s coral reefs. Diving gear in tow, Smith jetted from Zanzibar to the Caribbean to study coral diseases. “Sixty percent of marine fish spend part of their lives in coral reefs, so the health of the reefs is important for fisheries,” says Smith, who now gets coral samples delivered straight to his lab as he researches the effects of climate change on coral health.
Caitlin Butler, Emma Foerster and Helen Morris
Catalysts, caffeine and poetry USC’s Office of Research launched the Magellan Scholars Program in 2006 to foster faculty-mentored undergraduate research projects across the system. USC Aiken students and faculty submitted five winning proposals the first year. To date, Aiken can claim 78 Magellan Scholars, more than all of other non-Columbia campuses combined. This year’s scholars include:
Caitlin Butler, English sophomore Faculty mentor: Tom Mack Topic: Determining whether 19th century Aiken-born poet Gamel Woolsey, who lived most of her life in England and Spain, can be considered a Southern poet. Outcome: Butler will present her research at the American Philological Society of the Carolinas.
Emma Foerster, chemistry junior Faculty mentor: Gerard Rowe Topic: Compounding reactive iron enzymes that can cleave hydrogencarbon bonds at room temperature. Outcome: Foerster will present a research paper at the American Chemical Society this semester.
Helen Morris, biology senior Faculty mentor: Michelle Vieyra Topic: Examining effects of low and high doses of caffeine on human cognitive performance. Outcome: Morris plans to enter a doctoral program in biomedical research in the fall.
ENDNOTES
Forty years ago this spring USC offered its first women’s studies course. The following fall, the same course was offered again, along with a handful of courses related to women’s experiences, history and literature (see ad, right, from the 1975 Garnet & Black yearbook). These initial offerings served as the seed for the Women’s and Gender Studies program we know today. The facts and figures below are intended to provide a little perspective on the program’s growth over the last four decades.
Univ. 111
1992
Course number for the first Women’s Studies class, which was taught at the freshman level but called “one of the toughest classes I had at Carolina” by alumna and Greenville News editorial page editor Beth Padgett (see p. 4).
42
2008 2000 Year the program changed from Women’s Studies to Women’s and Gender Studies, broadening the reach of its faculty’s scholarship and the range of courses students could take.
*According to latest available figures.
First year USC offered a bachelor’s of arts degree in the field.
Year students could begin pursuing a minor or a graduate certificate in women’s studies.
Courses now offered in Women’s and Gender Studies, including courses cross-listed with other disciplines. In addition to introductory courses, students can now take courses in such areas of study as pregnancy and birth; marriage; ecofeminism; sexuality, gender and power; AfricanAmerican feminist theory; and women and crime.
29 and 43 Number of undergraduate majors and graduate certificate students, respectively, in 2014.* Many students have second majors in fields such as social work, criminal justice and psychology.
3
Number of instructors who taught the university’s first course in women’s studies.
12-14
Approximate number of students on the midterm roster for the first WGST course. Two of the students dropped, leaving a dozen ambitious students, all women, who completed the course.