USCTIMES
JUNE-JULY 2014 / VOL. 25, NO.6
s g n i t Gree from
WHAT’S INSIDE Southeastern Piano Festival
Dear Colleagues
Get Smarter
Legendary pianist Leon Fleisher comes to campus, page 2
Globetrotting faulty and staff send postcards from around the world, page 4
Summer @ Carolina heats up, on campus and off, page 10
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 Designers Philip Caoile Michelle Hindle Riley Contributors April Blake Glenn Hare Thom Harman Chris Horn Page Ivey Liz McCarthy Steven Powell Jeff Stensland Photographers Linda Dodge Kim Truett Printer USC Printing Services Campus correspondents Patti McGrath, Aiken Candace Brasseur, Beaufort 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 photos, stories or ideas for future issues of USC Times? Share your story by emailing or calling Craig Brandhorst at craigb1@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-3681.
SCHOOL’S (NOT) OUT FOR SUMMER! Summer school. It’s been an important part of the Carolina experience since the first Popsicle melted on the Horseshoe sometime last century, and it’s only getting hotter. With the On Your Time initiative now in its second year, and three new “summer institutes” offering packages of thematically related classes all summer long, students have more options than ever to rack up credit hours while the rest of the world broils. If campus feels like a ghost town lately, that just means everyone’s in class. Getting smarter. Staying cool. To learn just how cool summer school is these days, flip ahead to page 10. Summer @ Carolina is now in full swing, and, well, not just at Carolina. Sure, there’s still plenty of topnotch education going down around campus — witness USC’s Summer Research Experience in Brain and Cognitive Sciences or Qiana Whitted’s Maymester class on slavery, literature and pop culture — but the global classroom is real, the Isle of Capri and Disney World included. Of course, not all faculty who skipped town this summer are busy teaching. In the past month USC Times has received postcards from a geography professor in Mali helping locals improve crop yield, a Jewish history professor in Central Europe researching the Holocaust and an anthropologist in London studying the bones of 14th century plague victims. And that’s not all. We’ve also got a bassoonist gigging at an Egyptian temple in the heart of New York City, a novelist wandering the wynds and closes of Edinburgh, Scotland, and a biologist chasing butterflies through the mountains of Colorado. You can read about all of the above, plus a business school trip to Tokyo, Japan, in this month’s cover story, “Dear Colleagues,” starting on page four. Finally, if you’re wishing you, too, were out there on the road, we’ve got at least one really good reason to be glad you stuck around: a visit from legendary pianist Leon Fleisher, who will deliver a lecture and a pair of master classes at the 2014 Southeastern Piano Festival this month. We have an exclusive Q&A with Fleisher on page two. We think you’ll agree, it hits all the right notes and then some. So pack your bags, crack the books, pull up a chair and cue the music — it’s Summer @ Carolina!
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
ROCK ME, AMADEUS!
Community singers, students and classical music lovers are invited to participate in a performance of Mozart’s “Requiem” through the School of Music’s Summer Chorus I on Sunday, June 29 at 4 p.m. Rehearsals are 7:30-9:30 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays, June 3-26, at the School of Music. There is a $15 per session fee for noncredit participants. The concert itself is free and open to the public. Summer Chorus II begins July 7. For more information call 803-777-5369.
A FOSSILIFEROUS DISPLAY Recently catalogued fossils and minerals are among the items on display in the exhibition “Hidden Treasures: Rediscovering McKissick Museum’s Natural History Collection.” The exhibit, which opened in May and runs through Aug. 30, showcases some of the 21,000-plus objects in the museum’s natural history collection and provides a window on the cataloging process. For more information, visit the museum’s blog at http://miningmckissick.wordpress.com/.
LET’S GET FISCAL
Ready, Set … SAT! Want to help your high-schooler prepare for college entrance exams? The University Test Prep program is once again offering an intensive SAT/ACT test prep program at the Columbia campus for students entering grades 10-12 in the fall. Due to demand, the program will now be offered three times: June 23-26, July 21-24 and July 28-31. Each course meets 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Monday-Thursday. For more information, visit http:// saeu.sc.edu/adventures/index. html.
Got an employee getting a raise that takes effect before the end of the fiscal year? The Office of Salary Administration asks that you submit paperwork no later than June 5. If the increase goes into effect July 1 or later, the office requests that paperwork be held until any potential statewide pay increases are calculated for all employees. For more information call 777-3111.
MISTAKES WERE MADE Last month, USC Times incorrectly identified senior Bethany Schifflin as Brittany in the article “Taking Charge” (page 7). When Bethany crossed the stage in May, the journalism major did so as part of the first group of Carolina students to graduate with leadership distinction through a new program administered by USC Connect. Times, however, erroneously quoted someone named Brittany Schifflin, who records show has no record whatsoever. The same article also misstated the criteria for graduation with leadership distinction. The correct criteria for each “pathway” can be found at www.sc.edu/ uscconnect/leadership. Apologies to both Bethany and USC Connect — and congratulations to the entire graduating class of 2014.
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PREVIEW
BY GLENN HARE
Southeastern Piano Festival brings legendary pianist to USC
A conversation with Leon Fleisher A child prodigy at the piano, Leon Fleisher made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall at 16 and was one of America’s “young lions,” admired by the public and critics alike. Then in 1965 the music stopped after a neurological condition rendered two fingers on his right hand immobile. Bouts of depression followed, but Fleisher persevered, focusing on repertoire for the left hand only, conducting, teaching and serving as artistic director of the summer academy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. After undergoing experimental treatments, Fleisher returned to playing with both hands 40 years later. In 2007, he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor, the United States’ highest arts award for individuals.
After your Carnegie Hall premiere, you were among a cadre of young pianists selling out performances across the country. Were you like a rock star of the concert piano world? No, it was nothing like that, at least not in America. I did a tour of South America in the early 1950s, and in Buenos Aries at that time, when any musician of any fame toured the country, people would form fan clubs. Members were given special cards that offered discounts on household items. For a time, members of my fan club could purchase washing machines, toasters and other things at a reduced price. But we were primarily a product of the time. Because of World War II, many of the great European musicians came to this country. Many began teaching. My colleagues and I were the first generation of musicians in America to work with these masters. We were a continuation of that grand European tradition. My musical “father” was Artur Schnabel. His teacher — my
musical grandfather — was Theodor Leschetizky, a brilliant teacher. Leschetizky was a student of Carl Czerny, my (musical) great-grandfather, who was a student of Beethoven. Musically speaking, Beethoven is my great-great-grandfather.
Is it accurate that your mother was determined to mold you into either a world-renowned concert pianist or the first Jewish president of the United States? You have it reversed. She was determined to mold me into the first Jewish president, and if that didn’t work, then a great concert pianist.
If you don’t mind, I’d also like to ask about your right hand. Why are pianists’ right hands more vulnerable to injury? That’s a very perceptive question. When you open the lid of a piano to reveal the inner workings, you see lots of strings of varying lengths. The longer strings on the left side produce the lower, deeper tones, and the shorter strings on the right side make
the higher, lighter tones. The right hand is responsible for playing the melody — the main tune — while the left hand plays the harmony. As a result, the right hand works much harder than the left hand. And the fourth and fifth fingers are the weakest, with the least independent motion. They have to work especially hard. It’s no surprise that so many pianists who develop hand problems have them in those fingers.
Can you recall the early symptoms that led you to realize something was wrong? Writer’s cramp is the best way to describe the early sensation I felt in my fingers, and gradually my fourth and fifth started curving into the palm of my hand. They soon tightened in this position and I lost the ability to control them. I was diagnosed with dystonia, a neurological disorder akin to Parkinson’s disease. It took a long time to reach that diagnosis and there is no cure. However, the symptoms can be treated with a cosmetic drug, Botox. It relaxes the muscles enough so that I can move my fingers.
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What were some of the most extreme methods you considered? Oh, everything from hypnosis to Zen Buddhism.
Is it true that Leonard Bernstein tried to heal your hand by pouring Scotch on it? [Laughter] That was part of the Zen Buddhism treatment.
What advice would you give others faced with similar physical challenges? I don’t feel I’m qualified to give any advice. I only know that after several years of some pretty bad behavior, I came to the realization that music making is far more than playing with two hands. I concentrated on performing works for the left hand, of which there are many. Most were written for a pianist who lost his right hand in World War I. I also began conducting, which made me a better teacher. So, at least for me, I believe my music career is richer and deeper because of the problems I’ve experienced with my hand.
The Brahms D Minor Concerto is considered your signature piece. You’ve performed it throughout your career — at your Carnegie Hall debut and later, after regaining the use of the right hand. Why is this work so dear to you? My mother and father gave me a recording of it when I was very young. The D Minor is massive, powerful and emotional. The opening sound of the timpani and horns is like thunder — a defiant cry from the massed force of the orchestra. I instantly loved it. Within a year or so, I began work on making it my own. I dreamed of playing with a full orchestra. I debuted with it. I played it when I won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 1952. And I made a recording of it with George Szell that some people have called a classic. It’s never lost its freshness for me, and we’ve grown together throughout time.
Select piano students from around the country will participate in master classes with Leon Fleisher Tuesday, June 17 and Wednesday, June 18, at 4:30 p.m., and Thurs, June 19, at 10 a.m. The public can observe all master classes. Fleisher will also deliver a lecture, “Piano Conversations,” Thursday, June 19, at 4:30 p.m. All festival events will take place at the USC School of Music, 813 Assembly St., unless otherwise indicated. The Fleisher master classes and lecture are free. For a complete schedule of other events, including ticket prices, visit sepf.music.sc.edu.
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CAMPUS GROWTH
Dear colleagues E TO A CLOSE LAST MONTH, USC AS THE SPRING SEMESTER CAM M FF WHERE WORK IS TAKING THE TIMES ASKED FACULT Y AND STA Y. AWA Y’RE THE ILE WH NG DOI BE THIS SUMMER AND WHAT THEY’LL NAL TIO DETAIL RESEARCH, INTERNA THE RESPONSES WE RECEIVED CES AND STUDY ABROAD. MAN FOR PER DEVELOPMENT, MUSIC ER THAT OUR JOBS DON ’T STOP THEY ALSO SERVE AS A REMIND TCARDS: THEY’RE NOT JUST FOR JUST BECAUSE CLASSES END. POS VACATION ANYMORE.
VOL. 25, NO.6 5
Here in Edinburgh at the
Greetings from
Centre for the History of the Book doing research for my next novel. The city’s alive with the onset of spring — music, dance, and flowers everywhere. If it weren’t for the castle that looms above it all, I would get lost in the wynds and closes that twist through Old Town. And there’s always a piper sounding at the entrance to the Princes Street Gardens. The university is scattered about the south edge, much of it collected around the vast green known as the Meadows. The Centre sits atop a spiral staircase in a medieval tenement overlooking the greens,
Just landed in Tokyo to kick off our Business
a perfect setting for the study of historical pages.
in Japan summer study tour with USC’s Japanese program director Yoshi Sakakibara! This year, our Moore School Global Classroom programs will span
My research will also involve serious hillwalks in the
over 15 countries on five continents. Together, we’ll lead over 170 graduate and
Highlands and on the Isles of Mull and Iona, providing
undergraduate students!
much needed inspiration for setting and atmosphere. Scotland is a place that always beckons. Wish you
Sounds crazy, but you heard right — we’ve grown from only two programs
were here.
four years ago to over 11 study abroad courses in May and June alone! Our
David Bajo Assistant professor, English
students will have the chance to learn about international business, economics, microfinance and marketing, and see how all of it is influenced by culture and government. Anyway, I know that each of our programs will be fantastic and that our students will be forever changed. We have more first-time passport holders than ever, and I’m confident that whether it’s a student’s first international experience or one of many, their time in our programs will solidify another group of lifelong travelers! Best of luck to all of my colleagues in business. I look forward to catching up later this summer,
Sara Easler Director, business study abroad
gs n i et e r G om fr
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s g n i t e Grem fro
Sounds crazybut I’m on my way to New York City this summer, where I’ll be performing an original composition with the music ensemble Alarm Will Sound in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur. I’ve played the bassoon in a lot of places in my career, but I never thought I’d get the chance to perform inside an ancient Egyptian temple! If you’ve been to the Met, you’ve probably seen the temple. If not, you’ve probably at least seen it in movie or two (for example, Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” and Rob Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally”). It was built in the Nile River valley in 15 B.C. by Petronius, the Roman governor of Egypt, then dedicated to the gods Isis and Osiris. In the 1960s, when Egypt was about to build a dam upstream, the Egyptian government gave the temple to the museum rather than see it submerged. Now the temple is serving as the backdrop for “I Was Here I Was I,” a theater piece composed by Kate Soper and inspired in part by the Victorian adventurer Amelia Edwards. I’ll be playing bassoon and singing, which should be a lot of fun. I’m sure the ancient Egyptians meant for the temple to stand the test of time, but I can’t imagine they ever envisioned something like this … Wish me luck!
Mike Harley Clinical assistant professor, music
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I’m finishing research for a book this summer at the new Fred W. Smith
On my way to Poland and Germany to
National Library for the Study of George Washington
study the Holocaust with College of Charleston professor Ted Rosengarten
of Washington’s plantation house in popular American
and several honors students from CofC and USC. We’ll be visiting Krakow,
architecture and visual culture from the late 18th
Warsaw and Bialystok, as well as Berlin, as we consider how the Holocaust
century through the present, my research here is
is remembered and forgotten, and how current generations of non-Jewish
focused on the organization that made it all possible:
Poles and Germans have come to grips with this unspeakable crime. It
the Mount Vernon Ladies Association (MVLA). Formed
will in many ways be a painful experience, but it will also be a valuable
in the 1850s to purchase the house and save it from
opportunity for students to “see” history, to connect the reading and lecture
ruin, the MVLA has had a profound impact on the
materials from my class on the Holocaust (HIST 380) to the topographies of
ways in which Americans have remembered our first
terror and to comprehend the tragic consequences of racial discrimination,
president and his home. By combing through archival
hate and indifference.
correspondence and printed material and getting up-
This Maymester will be equally significant for me as a professor of modern Jewish history. I have been trained in Holocaust history and teach it every year, yet I’ve never visited Poland’s extermination camps, Schindler’s Factory Museum or the old ghetto neighborhoods. Although I’m
at Mount Vernon. While my book chronicles the image
close-and-personal with the buildings and landscapes the MVLA continues to interpret, I’m uncovering the development of their approaches and attitudes towards preservation and this very special place.
apprehensive about confronting man’s inhumanity to man, I’m convinced
Lydia Brandt
that the experience will be both meaningful and necessary and that it will
Assistant professor, art history
enhance and enrich my teaching in the future.
Saskia Coenen-Snyder Associate professor, history
Greetings from
8 USCTIMES / JUNE-JULY 2014
Greetings from
Hello from London! I just arrived and have six weeks ahead of me to spend with thousands of skeletons at the Museum of London. My graduate students, Samantha Yaussy and Brittany Walter, will be arriving in a couple of weeks — they’ll both be helping me collect data for my medieval plague project, and they’ll also get a chance to collect data for their own projects. My goal for this trip is to analyze the skeletal remains of over 200 people who died in the centuries before the Black Death. By the end of the summer, I’ll be able to reveal more about how health was changing before the Black Death emerged in the 14th century. This will be really important for understanding why the Black Death emerged when it did and why mortality was so high during the epidemic. But, you know me — it won’t be all work! I’ll spend the weekends wandering through the amazing
Gothic, Colorado, here I come! Along with students from USC, I’ll be collecting data on the Gillette’s
food markets in London and eating everything in sight, and I’ll
checkerspot butterfly at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab. We’re testing
visit the Tate Modern, the Natural History Museum, the British
hypotheses related to population persistence and natural selection in this
Museum and a few other sights (you can’t beat free admission!!).
introduced population, which is 500 miles south of its native range and
There’s just so much to do and see here — six weeks won’t be
completely isolated from any other Gillette’s checkerspot populations.
long enough!
What will our findings mean in the context of climate change? What are the implications for species management? We’ll do a short trip to the northern
Sharon DeWitte Assistant professor, anthropology and biology
U.S. Rockies to collect comparative data on populations within the native range. Of course, we’ll continue the traditional contest among the research group for who has the closest guess to the actual population size this summer. The prize is ice cream from the Gothic Store. And hopefully, no one will fall in a beaver pond this summer trying to catch that elusive butterfly. It will be a great experience for the students, and I can’t wait to see Gothic Mountain again!
Greetings from
Carol Boggs Director, School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment
VOL. 25, NO.6 9
Greetings from
Greetings from southern Mali, where my team of researchers from here and from USC is studying how farmers use weather and climate information. This information will allow us to help the Malian government design and deliver relevant, reliable weather forecasts so farmers can make better choices about what to plant and when. More than 15 years of living and working with rural African communities, whether as a graduate student or professor, or as an employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank, has taught me that the most productive role development can play in the lives of the global poor is the reduction of risk. While rural African communities are full of innovative means of managing economic and environmental risks, such as too little or too much rain, these strategies can sometimes decrease that harvest’s potential by as much as 20 percent. Our goal is to help return some of that potential by giving these farmers more and better information. Of course, really understanding the challenges the global poor face, and the ways they meet those challenges, requires living with them, and to the extent possible, sharing the experience of their lives. I think this work is incredibly fun, but it’s also around 110 degrees each day, and when the wind blows it feels like a hairdryer to the face. So we wait for the rainy season to start, which will bring conditions down to a much more tolerable 90-95 degrees! Wish us luck as we enjoy the maafe (peanut stew) and try to stay cool!
Ed Carr Associate professor, geography
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Summer @ Carolina WHEN THE SPRING SEMESTER ENDS, SOME FACULTY PICK UP A SUMMER SCHOOL CLASS OR TWO. OTHERS HIT THE ROAD. STILL OTHERS DO BOTH. WE MAY CALL IT SUMMER @ CAROLINA, BUT THESE DAYS THE CLASSROOM COULD BE JUST ABOUT ANYWHERE, FROM GAMBRELL HALL TO IL DUOMO DI FIRENZE TO DISNEY WORLD AND THE MAGIC KINGDOM.
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IF IT’S TUESDAY, THIS MUST BE FLORENCE This May, about 20 students learned the ins and outs of high-end fashion merchandising and international tourism in a special two-week class in Italy. “Marketing Communications in Italy” (MKTG 451) satisfies the international experience requirement for students in the Darla Moore School of Business and is one of about a dozen similar classes that traveled the world this May as part of the Moore School’s Global Classroom program. Students were given reading assignments prior to the trip, which included stops in Florence, Pisa, Rome, the Vatican, Pompeii and the Isle of Capri, plus visits to businesses, including Gucci, where they met with the company’s chief marketing officer. The syllabus also featured visits to a vineyard, a tourism agency, an ad agency and a private train company. Lectures were held in hotel lobbies and on trains — in other words, anywhere and everywhere — but students spent the most time seeing firsthand how Italian businesses operate. “As we go to visit these different businesses, we are able to point out the examples from the lecture materials,” says marketing professor Courtney Woresham. “It kind of brings it all to life when they see what they are learning in class being used in the real world.” But the trip wasn’t all business. In Rome, for example, students also enjoyed stops at the Forum and the Coliseum. “The great thing about marketing is everyone’s marketing all the time,” says Woresham. “So even when you are visiting a cathedral or a beach, you can explain how they’re promoting it to visitors.”
A LITTLE MORE CONVERSATION Want to succeed in the workplace? You can’t just walk the walk; you also have to talk the talk. Luckily, the Communications Arts Institute, a new Summer @ Carolina program, is designed to hone the skills students need to make themselves heard on the job. “Every business leader expects students to be able to communicate well — that means writing, speaking and having some facility with creating a website and basic design principles,” says Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and vice provost for special academic initiatives. “The Communications Arts Institute has fundamental courses that are highly relevant for many of our students.” As part of the On Your Time summer initiative, each institute packages existing courses from different disciplines around a central theme, in this case visual arts computing, writing across media, digital media arts and professional and business speaking. Other new institutes cater to business for non-business majors and foreign language, and enrollment is expected to grow. “We intend to build a predictable pattern into the summer sessions so students can plan ahead and know that certain courses will always be offered,” Fitzpatrick says.
HISTORY UNCHAINED You can learn a lot from a comic book. Same goes for movies, YouTube videos, even video games — and even if you’re studying a heavy subject like slavery. Qiana Whitted’s Maymester course “Slavery, Literature and Popular Culture” (AFAM 398) examined slavery’s depiction from 19th century slave narratives to the film “Django Unchained” and the graphic novel it inspired. “History and literature classes provide essential information about the past, but I think popular culture can be our most resonant encounter with history,” says Whitted, whose own research often explores the intersection of comics and race. “Sometimes when it’s framed in a form of mass media associated with entertainment, it sticks in a way it might not otherwise.” Whitted’s class also studied the 2013 film “12 Years a Slave” alongside the 1853 Solomon Northup slave narrative that inspired it, applied a critical eye to Beverly Jenkins’ historical romance novel “Night Song” and discussed slavery’s treatment in video games like “Assassin’s Creed.” “I hope students gain a critical perspective on the history behind these representations and learn to talk about them on an intellectual level. I want them to think about how we tell stories, who is authorized to tell them and from whose perspectives they are being told,” says Whitted. “And I want them to ask questions. I don’t think we ask enough questions.”
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SUMMER @ CAROLINA
SUMMER BRAINSTORM
NO MICKEY MOUSE COURSE OK, who wouldn’t want to sign up for a Maymester course that includes a weeklong field trip to Disney World, Universal Studios and Sea World? Those venues and more were on the itinerary for HRTM 590M, “Theme Park and Attraction Management,” which explores the history and business models of U.S. theme parks and attractions and features talks from industry executives. “It’s a lot of experiential learning and a lot of work, but you can’t help but have fun considering where you are,” says Scott Smith, an assistant professor in the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management and Orlando native who has extensive work experience at Disney. “We read and discuss a scholarly article about Coney Island — one of America’s first modern attractions that was a melting pot for people of different ethnicities — and we take behind-the-scenes tours of the Orlando attractions and get the inside scoop from their representatives.” Along with Orlando’s big theme parks, Smith takes students to Gatorland, a small roadside attraction that opened long before Disney World and continues to successfully compete with multibillion dollar corporations. “We also discuss the original vision that Walt Disney had for his theme park, and compare and contrast that with what exists today,” Smith says. At Sea World, Smith wants students to see how that corporation is managing the public relations challenges that come with keeping killer whales and other marine mammals in captivity. “What do you do when a thousand protesters show up at your door?” he says. “Students learn that managing an attraction isn’t all fun and games.” But there were still plenty of good times to be had in Orlando, Smith said. “During the week there, we start every day by eight and keep going until midnight.”
Summer’s not about kicking back but, rather, kicking it up an intellectual notch for ten scholars entering USC’s Summer Research Experience in Brain and Cognitive Sciences in June. The participants in this highly selective program, now entering its third year, were culled from more than 200 applicants from around the country. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program gives rising seniors hands-on experience with the cutting-edge tools of brain research, from functional magnetic resonance imaging to electroencephalography. “This is the research of the future,” says Doug Wedell, co-PI of the program with fellow psychology professor Jennifer Vendemia. “We have all these tools to open up new avenues of thinking about how mental processes operate in the brain.” Working with a mentor over the course of the nine-week session, each student develops an individual research project but also participates in weekly group laboratories and seminars presented by other USC faculty. That gives them a taste of the wide range of current approaches to brain research, which is going on all over campus in departments and programs from psychology to linguisitics to communication sciences and disorders. “The faculty get really excited about these students,” says Wedell. “Part of the mission is to get students to go into brain and cognitive sciences, and it’s working — almost all of them end up going to graduate school.”
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SYSTEMWIDE
Q&A with Jeffrey Irwin Jeffrey Irwin is an instructor of accounting at USC Salkehatchie and a 2013-14 Rise grant recipient currently conducting research on the Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA).
First, what exactly is the QDIA? Basically it’s a default fund (mutual fund) that would be purchased with an employee’s retirement plan money if the employee does not choose an investment strategy.
Tell me about your research. I’d say my field is forensic accounting and how it’s used to detect occupational fraud. I’m interested in developments in computer forensics and the impact of fraud examination and forensic accounting on compliance, governance, risk and controls. My research focuses on quantifying fiduciary guidelines related to the selection of QDIAs. There have been numerous recent court cases where employees have sued their employers for fraud related to Employee Retirement Income Security (ERISA) investments in their retirement plans. This has led the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to start looking at issues with companies abusing their fiduciary responsibilities, whether willfully negligent or not.
What excites you about your work? I worked in industry for many years before becoming an academic and administered my company’s 401(k) plan. I had the unique experience of being both an employee and an executive of the company that had a fiduciary responsibility for my employees. The fiduciary guidelines are very subjective and while I see how the employee’s welfare needs to be protected, employers that are genuinely trying to do the right thing can still be held liable for negligence.
AROUND THE SYSTEM USC Aiken’s Greek organizations came together at the end of the semester for a special event for people with disabilities and special needs. USC Beaufort undergraduate computational science researcher Patrick Niehaus (supervised by Kasia Pawelek) took first place honors for the best poster presentation at the 2014 SC EPSCoR/IDeA State Conference and won the first place award at USC’s Discovery Day. USC Lancaster’s Native American Studies Center and Catawba Indian pottery collection are featured in the May-June issue of South Carolina Wildlife Magazine. USC Salkehatchie is gearing up for summer camp season. Salkehatchie youth can look forward to Boeing Camp and STEAM camp, as well as basketball, baseball, softball or soccer camps. USC Sumter Fire Ants Baseball took home the NJCAA Region X title and hosted the super regionals in May. USC Union held a ribbon cutting ceremony in May to celebrate the official opening of its Laurens location. USC Upstate’s softball team ended its most successful season in school history with a 46-9 record, claimed its third A-Sun championship and earned its second consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament at the Tuscaloosa regional. USC School of Medicine Greenville Dean Jerry Youkey recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Delaware Valley Vascular Society at the group’s annual meeting in Philadelphia.
To learn more about the USC system, visit sc.edu/about/system_and_campuses.
“I’ll be using part of a provost’s grant to travel to the Library of Congress for research on Leonard Bernstein in June.” J. Daniel Jenkins, associate professor, music theory
OVERHEARD @UOFSC “My research in fish/fisheries conservation is taking me to Puerto Rico in May to sample coral reef fishes (grouper, snapper, triggerfish, parrotfish) and then to Ecuador in July to do some coastal freshwater fish community work.” Virginia Shervette, assistant professor, biology and geology “I’m in southern California this summer doing on/off set research on the working conditions and production cultures of stunt women working in the U.S. film and television industries. I’m also conducting some archival research on Bruce Lee’s TV career. It looks to be a much more action-packed summer than last year, when I was out here researching Alfred Hitchcock’s personal assistant.” Lauren Steimer, assistant professor, media arts “My wife, Cindy, and I are going on a charter cruise with Garrison Keillor and the cast of the radio show ‘A Prairie Home Companion.’ This is the eighth charter he has organized, and we have been on all of them. This one begins and ends in Dover, England, and makes several stops at ports on the Baltic Sea.” Daniel L. Tufford, research associate professor, biology
“I escorted a Capstone Abroad Maymester program to Peru with Jim Byrum of the Geography Department. We were in-country — Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu — from May 9th to May 23rd.” Erin Wilson, assistant principal, Capstone Scholars Program #CapstonePeru “I am traveling to Prague, Czech Republic for four weeks this summer. I will be taking classes at Charles University through a study abroad program called USAC. I applied for and won a grant for staff members to take part in a study abroad program to further their understanding of international education.” Jay Pou, academic advisor, Department of Psychology “I will go to India (Mussoorie, Uttarakhand) to study Hindi at the Landour Language School this summer in preparation for my Fulbright to India, which begins Jan. 2015.” - Krista Van Fleit Hang, assistant professor, Languages, Literatures and Cultures
“I’m traveling to China in May as a visiting scholar in the School of Public Health at Nanchang University. I’ll be delivering guest lectures on program evaluation and meeting with collaborators on the topic of physical activity promotion among Chinese youth.” Justin Moore, assistant professor, Arnold School of Public Health “In June I’ll be traveling to Ireland for fun. Currently, I’m working on connecting with family that live in Donegal, the city from which my paternal grandmother came and her family still resides. I’ve never met these relatives; so, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that everything works out!” Sarah Gareau, senior research associate, Division of Medicaid Research, Institute for Families in Society
“I’m going to Budapest, Hungary, from May 13-21. I love travel and photography, and my husband, Michael, is graduating with his Ph.D. on May 10, so we thought it a fitting way to celebrate.” Hannah Spicher, public information director, the Graduate School “I’ll be in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in May giving the keynote address for the Ontario Association of College and University Housing Officers and serving as Scholar in Residence for the conference. I’ll add a couple of days to visit Toronto and Niagara Falls.” Gene Luna, associate vice president for student affairs
“I’ll be traveling to the North Slope of Alaska this summer to collect soil cores for studying how soils are responding to climate change both today and over the past few thousand years.” Lori A. Ziolkowski, assistant professor, marine science