USCTIMES
SEPTEMBER 2015 / VOL. 26, NO.6
IN THIS ISSUE
Steady as She Grows
Teaching from the Brain
Educated Guessing
As USC’s footprint expands, campus experts size up future, page 2
Three dedicated classroom veterans discuss the changing landscape of higher education, page 7
USC faculty members speculate on the future of their fields, 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.
FUTURE PERFECT
Managing editor Craig Brandhorst Designer Brandi Lariscy Avant Contributors Chris Horn Page Ivey Liz McCarthy Steven Powell Glenn Hare Thom Harman Photographers Kim Truett Chrissy Harper Ambyr Goff 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.
Future Perfect By the time you read this, the Carolina’s Promise capital campaign will have announced a final tally, the USC marching band will have unleashed a triumphant cymbal crash and President Harris Pastides will have closed the book on another State of the University address. The staff here at the War Memorial Building, meanwhile, will have moved on to October. In this business, you see, we live in the future, and we’ve got the perfect issue to prove it. No, we’re not talking time travel and teleportation. We’re talking real world stuff, from how and where we’ll do our jobs in the years ahead to what we’ll do in our downtime. The prog nostication starts on page 2 with a special State of the University package featuring the inside scoop on the many exciting changes ahead. We’ve also included plenty of other predictions, though please — don’t hold anybody to anything. We made it perfectly clear to everyone interviewed that we wouldn’t bust out this issue five years down the road and ask what in the world they were thinking when they prom ised flying cars. Of course, most of the musings seem pretty reasonable. For example, our informal round table discussion with members of the FLIP discussion group, hosted by the Center for Teaching Excellence, yielded some pretty smart insights into the changing landscape of higher education. “Teaching from the Brain” starts on page 9. You might also check out “Educated Guessing,” beginning on page 10, whereat you can peer into the future of music education, museum work, 21st century medicine and something intriguingly wonky called compressed sensing technology. It’s heady stuff, to be sure, but we found just the right experts to make it all make sense. Finally, we couldn’t put out a proper issue on the future without also talking to the next generation. For “Dream a Little Dream,” page 16, we invited several USC undergraduates to ponder the world that awaits them upon graduation. Their answers are as thoughtful as they are inspired, as hopeful as they are realistic. They also made us feel a little better about the road ahead and who will be driving. So there you go — or, there you will have gone. Obviously, there’s no such thing as the perfect future, but the future perfect? That’s another matter, and it’s not just an awkward verb tense. As you will have discovered by the time you finish this issue, it’s also a state of mind, and one always within reach.
Look forward,
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.
VOL. 26, NO.6 1
TIMES FIVE
MANDATORY REPORT Under federal Title IX regulations, university employees have a legal responsibility to help ensure that all students have a safe environment free of sexual misconduct, discrimination and harassment of any kind. Regulations require all faculty and staff to report all sexual assaults. Resources are available 24/7 for victims and members of their support network at sc.edu/sexualassault.
IT’S EASY, PEOPLE
ORDER UP! Lunch at McCutchen House just got a little more sophisticated. The historic Horseshoe restaurant has switched to a bistro format this fall rather than a buffet, offering diners their choice of salad, soup, entrée and dessert — for the all-inclusive price of $10. (And yes, they will still serve tomato pie.) Operated by the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management, McCutchen House provides training for HRTM students and convenient on-campus dining to the university community. Hours of operation are 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every Tuesday though Friday during the semester (excluding holidays and university breaks). For reservations, call 777-4450.
CHECK YOURSELF New to the university? Overwhelmed by your mental to-do list? The Division of Human Resources new employee site has all the resources you need, including a checklist of items to complete within your first 30 days. For more information visit http://sc.edu/about/ offices_and_divisions/ human_resources/new_ employee/index.php
Users of the finance portion of PeopleSoft, USC’s new data management system, can schedule additional training throughout September. Sessions include classes for requisitions, deposits, payment requests and query management. For more information visit the Division of Information Technology’s PeopleSoft page at www. sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/ division_of_information_technology/ peoplesoft. To register, check out the schedule and click on the desired class.
NO TRICK, JUST TREATS The General Assembly has approved a one-time bonus of $800 for eligible employees in full-time positions. To be eligible, you must have continuous state service of at least six months prior to July 1, 2015 and earn less than $100,000 per year. Eligible employees should expect to receive their bonus on Oct. 31. Contact the Salary Administration Office at 803777-3111 or saladmin@mailbox.sc.edu for questions about the upcoming bonus.
2 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2015
STEADY AS SHE
GROWS
As the University of South Carolina begins another academic year, signs of growth and change can be seen just about everywhere. From the addition of new academic space to an evolving 21st century curriculum to a steadily expanding faculty and student body, the state of the university in 2015 is as fluid as it is firm. But what can we expect over the next 10 years? USC Times asked President Pastides and others in the know to talk about the road ahead.
TIME TO
ACCELERATE
In August, Harris Pastides began his eighth year as president of
$242.8 million in sponsored awards for 2015, marking a 5.5
the University of South Carolina. His tenure in that post has been
percent increase over the previous year that will help to fund
marked by sustained growth and a remarkable amount of posi-
initiatives in South Carolina and around the globe.
tive change, despite an economic downturn that crippled many other institutions nationwide. “This is not a time for gradualism,” Pastides said not long after taking office in 2008. “I promise we will accelerate our momentum as a world-class university, yet remain a faithful index to the best hopes and dreams of all South Carolinians.” Seven years later, with the successful completion of the $1 bil-
“Academic research and excellence is our entry to global leadership,” says Pastides. “The depth and scope of our research — from medical science to aerospace to data analytics and more will propel us forward.” But research is just one example of how the university is making a name for itself internationally. More international students are choosing a Carolina education than ever before, while USC
lion Carolina’s Promise capital campaign, and with a number of
students continue to explore the world through study abroad.
major projects either completed or well underway, USC is poised
New faculty continue to enhance the university’s reputation,
to capitalize on its momentum to become a significant player on
and a larger and larger pool of quality graduates goes forth
the world stage.
each year with new ideas and the education to make a differ-
In recent years USC has added significant academic space,
ence worldwide.
recruited new faculty with international reputations in their
All of that, says Pastides, is a testament to what has
fields, attracted higher caliber students from South Carolina
been accomplished by the university over the past several
and elsewhere and entered a number of public-private partner-
years and will serve as a call to action in the years ahead.
ships with companies like IBM, Fluor and Boeing that promise
“Our willingness to innovate and to work hard and work
to enhance the university’s global reputation for research and
together has cut through the headwinds that crippled
education.
or deterred many others,” Pastides says. “And now that
Meanwhile, faculty have continued to set new records in new grants. The Office of Research recently announced
we know the headwinds won’t deter us, we need to accelerate.”
VOL. 26, NO.6 3
WORLD WITHIN REACH For years, USC has welcomed international students and the perspec tives they bring to the classroom. Now, the university is rolling out the welcome mat for even more. This fall, USC launched its International Accelerator Program, which offers, with assistance from the English Program for Inter nationals, intensive coursework in English and cultural support for international students who want to pursue degrees at Carolina. The first cohort of 41 students hails from China, Vietnam, India, United Arab Emirates and Nigeria. A similar number is expected in the spring, and perhaps half that many will come next summer. Those who successfully complete the two-semester program will be admitted to the university. “We typically have about 1,500 international students at Caro lina, but only about 300 are undergraduates,” says Allen Miller, vice provost and director of Global Carolina. “We’re looking at admitting about 100 students every year through the accelerator program — a number that could rise substantially in several years — so we’re talking about increasing the number of international undergraduates quite a bit over time.” Carolina students will benefit immensely, he added. “If we’re going to prepare students for the global workplace, we have to expose them to the interconnectedness of climate change, global health, global security. The world is an interdependent system, and our students will understand that better when they’re rubbing elbows with more students from around the world.” While the number of international students who want to attend USC is large, many more can’t afford to study abroad. To that end, Carolina is discussing partnerships with several highly reputed
international universities to offer USC certificates in the areas of human resources management, international business, mechanical engineering and public health. “We will basically create self-contained courses with lecture videos, course material and quizzes. The cost to their students will be lower than their regular tuition,” Miller says. “These institutions want to offer high-quality content from American universities, and their students want the prestige that comes from having a certificate from a recognized Western university.”
S-P-A-C-E One of the challenges associated with the university’s continuing enrollment growth is space — specifically, having enough of it for academic purposes. As the university sets a course for more growth during the next 10 years, the need for additional classroom and teaching laboratory space is acute. “Classroom utilization in 2014-15 was very high, and the strain on scheduling was exacerbated by the renovations occurring in Hamilton College and what is now the School of Journalism and Mass Communications Building, which meant those buildings could not be used for an academic year,” says Derek Gruner, university architect. “With both of those buildings back on line, this year will be better.”
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The real game changer, though, is the Close-Hipp Building, formerly home to the Darla Moore School of Business. When the U.S. Department of Justice backed out of its plan earlier this year to lease the building, the facility’s 340,000 gross square feet of academic space became a windfall for USC. “Utilizing Close-Hipp will help us enormously during the next decade,” Gruner says. “With that space, we have an opportunity to be more proactive in our planning.” One of the first strategic decisions involves the College of Hospi tality, Retail and Sport Management, which had been slated to move into the current law school site on South Main Street. University space planners deemed Close-Hipp a much better fit for the college.
THE EVOLUTION OF
“There’s much more natural light in Close-Hipp,” Gruner says. “HRSM will occupy about a third of the usable space in the building with a signature presence on the first floor. We envision student lounge space on the first floor, as well, with other student-focused depart ments such as Global Carolina moving to the building.” Close-Hipp will receive some mechanical and other life safety upgrades during the next few years, which will be accomplished in phases while it is occupied. With HRSM no longer going to the old law school building, that facility’s 193,000 gross square feet will be programmed for instructional laboratory space, classrooms and offices. Those renovations are planned in phases to begin after the new law school building comes on line in 2017.
HIGHER ED
It’s no secret — the undergraduate educational experience is evolving, and nowhere is that more evident than in our curriculum. Over the next ten years, students at Carolina will benefit from a range of new academic opportunities, starting with an increase in the number of interdisciplinary courses offered and a greater emphasis on beyond-theclassroom experiences. According to Helen Doerpinghaus, dean of undergraduate studies, it’s a matter of responding to student needs and maintaining relevancy in a rapidly changing world. “Students demand integration of learning in classes with what they are doing outside of the class in their internships, service projects, undergraduate research work, leadership experiences or international study trips,” says Doerpinghaus.
“They realize that what they learn in college has the greatest impact if it fits in the context of their life experience and passion – and they want the curriculum and the extracurricular experience at Carolina to support that.” Indeed, even the definition of “beyond the classroom” will expand as technology continues to break down walls and facilitate communi cation. “Students will pull in what they are learning from their friends at other colleges because that, too, is an important part of the learn ing architecture for young adults,” Doerpinghaus says. “Technology will support very personal engagement — it won’t replace the college campus or in-person connection, but it will support that traditional university experience.”
VOL. 26, NO.6 5
Pilot and co-pilot
USC started encouraging students to take more control of their college learning experience with the On Your Time initiative in 2013, but no one at Carolina is expected to go it alone. On the contrary, the univer sity has begun beefing up academic advisement to ensure that students have the necessary resources to make informed decisions about their course of study. Key to this effort is the University Advising Center. Launched in response to a pair of student and adviser surveys conducted by a special task force in December 2014 — and after studying national best practices — the new center will provide advisers compre hensive resources and more consistent information about academic policies. “The surveys both suggested that we needed to do something as a university to provide some kind of level playing field,” says Doer pinghaus. “The research shows that you’re not going to improve retention and graduation rates without standardized and improved advising.” Located in the Close-Hipp Building, the new advisement center has served roughly 1,000 transfer-in and change-of-major students since July 2015 and will soon become the hub for all advisement on campus. Plans call for hiring up to 25 new first-year advisers who will be allocated to different colleges and schools based on targeted caseloads. These advisers will provide guidance on curriculum choices, co-cur ricular opportunities, academic and career planning, and personal development. Additional advisers, including some faculty advisers, will serve upperclassmen.
MAXIMUM
IMPACT
These days, the university has a $4.1 billion impact on the state of South Carolina. In the future, experts anticipate that contribution to increase significantly. “The primary role of the university is to educate South Carolinians — a mission that is only going to become more important over time as the demand for highly educated, skilled workers continues to rise both locally and nationally,” says Doug Woodward, economist and director of research at the Darla Moore School of Business. A report by the Moore School released in November 2013 shows that by 2030 the state will experience a shortfall of 70,000 baccalaure ate degree holders needed to meet workforce demands. The bulk of the shortages will come in management, education, business and financial operations as well as computers and mathematics — all areas where the university is poised to make a difference.
“If you’re a business student, you’ll probably go to the business school’s advisement office. If you’re in engineering, you’ll still go to engineering,” says Doerpinghaus. “But there will be first-year advisers in those locations who have been trained by the central office, who are hired and evaluated in a standard way.” Measured growth, infinite opportunity
For all the improvements to the advisement process — and all the emphasis on new technology and beyond-the-classroom opportunities for students — faculty will remain central to the academic experi ence. In fact, as enrollment grows over the next decade, the university intends to expand faculty at a clip of roughly 25 new tenure-track positions per year. Coming on the heels of the Provost’s Office’s three-year Faculty Replenishment Hiring Initiative, the new ten-year plan will result in a net gain of 250 new faculty by 2025. “We’re still going to replace retirees and people who leave,” says Doerpinghaus. “This is in addition to that, so we can serve more stu dents and at the same time improve quality. Student faculty ratios will improve, we can add some new researchers, we can bring in faculty in areas that are new and developing.” As the university responds to the student demand for more engage ment with their professors, both on campus and in virtual spaces, faculty will represent what Doerpinghaus calls “the hub in a wheel of opportunity.” “The future for faculty members holds infinite opportunities and challenges,” she says. “We faculty are alive and engaged at a time of unprecedented discovery and learning.”
6 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2015
Return on investment
Nationally, college graduates earn on average $15,000 more per year and $1 million more over a lifetime, and economists expect that to increase as the demand for skilled employees continues to rise. But USC’s economic impact goes beyond wallets of individual alumni. “The university will help spur entrepreneurial activity and attract innovative firms to the state,” says Joey Von Nessen, an economist in the Moore School. “Across the world, universities serve as the linchpin for the knowledge economy, which will continue to grow in the 21st century.” The university’s impact will also extend beyond state borders through connections with international companies. Von Nessen and Woodward point to the Moore School of Business’ Division of Research, which provides economic research to companies like BMW and Michelin and helps aid those companies with strategic planning. But there’s at least one major X factor in all of this. As President Harris Pastides has noted, for every $1 the state invests in higher educa tion it sees a $25 return in economic impact. Since the Great Recession, however, state support has dwindled to only about 10 percent of USC’s total budget. Consequently, the burden of paying for college has shifted to students and their parents through tuition increases, which has already increased expectations that the university continue to deliver. “The market for education is changing just as quickly as other sec tors of our economy – and the university must be able to adapt to these
changes,” Woodward says. “This includes everything from student con cerns over rising tuition costs to distance learning programs designed to expand the university’s outreach and to meet student needs.” Answering the call
Improving access to higher education has been a priority at Caro lina for several years but went into overdrive with the launch of the Gamecock Gateway bridge program in 2012 and Palmetto College the following year. The Gamecock Gateway allows select Midlands Technical College students to live on the USC campus until they can transfer to Caro lina. Palmetto College, meanwhile, has made it easier for place-bound students to work towards a Carolina degree online and has eased the transition from system campuses to the Columbia campus. Both programs are expected to play a critical role in providing South Carolina students access to the state’s flagship university over the next decade. But access is only part of the equation. To help eligible South Caro lina students who may have trouble affording a college education, USC launched the need-based Gamecock Guarantee scholarship program in 2007 and will continue to honor that commitment. The On Your Time initiative, which has allowed students to complete a full semester of coursework during the summer since 2013, will also make college more affordable by allowing students to speed up their progress toward graduation.
VOL. 26, NO.6 7
TEACHING FROM THE BRAIN BY CRAIG BRANDHORST
Every other Thursday around noon you can find Alan White, Janet Hudson and Terry Wolfer at USC’s Center for Teaching Excellence, having lunch with likeminded colleagues and talking about the latest research — in teaching. As faculty members, they have their own discipline-specific research interests, but as members of FLIP, an informal discussion group dedicated to transforming higher education instruction through evidence-based practice, their focus is entirely pedagogical.
As members of FLIP, each of you has expressed a particular interest in the role of pedagogy in higher education. What’s the attraction?
ALAN WHITE Professor of biology, assistant dean of undergraduate STEM education
JANET: I’ve been at different universities in my career, but I’ve always
gravitated to whatever their version of the CTE is because I’ve found that that’s really where you’ll find the most engaged faculty. In my own field, so often students think history is a matter of memorizing facts, and that’s very frustrating. That’s led me to transform the way I teach, to try to thwart the approach of just memorizing material. TERRY: One of the ironies of higher education is that we’re experts
JANET HUDSON Associate professor of history, Extended University
in our content areas, but we tend not to bring that same scientific orientation to our teaching. We’ve got all these rigorous and system atic procedures for evaluating our practice, but how do we analyze our teaching? On our teaching evaluations we talk about means and standard deviations, and that’s as far as it goes. Our students get the explicit message that they need to evaluate their practice, but they get the implicit message that they don’t. That’s part of the reason I’m intrigued by the chance to talk to colleagues who are also interested in the science of teaching. ALAN: I’ve had that same discussion with many professors: “Why
TERRY WOLFER Professor, College of Social Work
do you teach this way?” “Well because it’s the way I was taught and it worked for me.” Would we accept it if a graduate student in our lab said something like that? No! So why is it any different with the science of teaching? A large number of our graduating seniors don’t have the kind of truly fundamental understanding of biology that I wish they had. I see that as at least partly our fault as faculty.
8 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2015
If you were to pick one area of pedagogical research or one trend you find the most intriguing, what would it be? ALAN: The interaction between our practices and what we know about how our brains work. We know a lot about how the human brain works, so why are we not using that information directly in our teaching? Some things allow people to learn better. Our practices should align with that. We should be doing things in class that are based on some sort of evidence that they work. TERRY: In social work, the classroom is getting more and more
connected to professional practice. The classroom is not a segregated space from the world we’re training students to enter. That’s a trend in social work and a lot of disciplines. JANET: I can almost see a model where we return, in a strange way,
to the apprentice days — the expert is there to help you, but you spend lots of time mastering the basics on your own, with the aid of technology. The instructor becomes the mentor.
the switch!
FLIP
WHAT’S FLIP, YOU ASK? Well, acro-
nymically speaking, it’s Focus on Learning Inno vation and Pedagogy. In practice, the informal faculty learning community is a great deal more.
Participants in the twice-monthly forum discuss various evidence-based approaches to instruction, including student-centered learning, discipline-based education research, flipped classrooms, problem-based learning (PBL), case studies and other forms of active learning. Launched in 2014 by Alan White, assistant dean for undergraduate STEM education, FLIP is open to faculty members, instructors, postdocs and graduate students from all disciplines. The group meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at the Center for Teaching Excellence from 11:45 to 1:15 located in Thomas Cooper Library, Room L511. For more information, check out the FLIP website: http:// www.sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/cte/events_calendar/ fall_2015/flip.php
ALAN: But that will depend a lot on scaling. It’s one thing to have that kind of interaction with a small group, a class of twenty. But one of the problems we have in biology is there are over 1,600 biology majors taking classes in groups of several hundred at a time. So how do you have that kind of individualized interaction with 300 different students? Technology helps — if you know how to use it right. Videotaping your class is not fundamentally any different than sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture. That’s not changing anything.
So then what technology is effective in the classroom? JANET: There’s technology that can expose you to content, test
you on it, determine what you’re confused about and target you to what you need to work on. That’s one way to use technology in a smarter way. ALAN: Right, adaptive learning. That’s very promising. Of course, all of this leads to another problem, which is convincing faculty members that they should be taking their teaching seriously. There are 100 different pressures telling them, “Don’t spend too much time on this, you have too much other stuff to do.” They make tenure based on research, they get full professor based on research, they get their pay raise based on research. The thinking is, “I can’t afford to be a bad teacher, but other things are more important.”
Do you see that balance ever shifting? TERRY: Yeah, I think so. I don’t foresee a major change anytime
soon, but there are examples where this is happening at some of the elite research-based universities. We have this emerging body of research about teaching now, and we’ve got empirical support for it. Over time, that should start to permeate. JANET: Federal funding for grants is shrinking. Also, many state
legislatures are asking, “What are you doing to educate students?” They care less about research in many cases. And then K-12 is chang ing. We’re going to get a whole generation of students who have experienced such a different style of learning in their K-12 education that they’re just not going to tolerate some of the ways we’ve been teaching. ALAN: I’m highly encouraged by all this optimistic talk, but this same point was made twenty years ago — that we need to think about teaching as part of scholarship, that it needs to be rewarded, that we need to do more than just pay lip service to it. JANET: Well, I think the ideas have been there, but the pressures
haven’t. Look at what cost has already done to the landscape of higher education, look at what the changes to the funding model
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have done. Now, with the research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and the emerging technology, we have a confluence of factors. It behooves us to respond in an intellectually sound way. TERRY: Part of the argument is that if at USC we can figure out
how to adapt, that becomes a way to stand out. What about faculty who complain that incorporating more technology in the classroom might make them less relevant. Is that a legitimate concern? TERRY: I think it’s a legitimate concern for business as usual. But
there’s something else, which may be more apparent to me because I come out of social work, but it applies to other disciplines as well — that using technology for learning is helpful, but it’s not adequate for preparing people to work with people. If it was strictly about acquir ing information, then cognitive systems might be good enough. But you don’t learn how to work with people by working with a com puter. To the extent that we want to train people for a workforce that requires collaboration, that needs to be some part of the educational process.
ALAN: Another way of countering that fear is to say, “No, this is not going replace you. It’s replacing the rote part of what you do.” To me it’s much more interesting to have a conversation with a student at a more advanced level where you’re actually grappling with questions and coming up with solutions.
In the near term, what else can be done to improve teaching on campus? JANET: I think CTE is doing it — offering grants, getting people
together to help them redesign their courses in ways that incorporate these new principles. We currently have two cohorts that are doing exactly that. ALAN: And it’s encouraging to see how many people are applying for
those grants. There are two to three times more people applying than there are grants to give out. There are a lot more people out there who are interested and taking this seriously.
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EDUCATED GUESSING No discipline is immune to change. As the world around us evolves at an ever-quickening pace, so, too, do our studies, our areas of research, our careers. And while it’s virtually impossible to predict anything with absolute certainty, there’s definite merit in looking around the bend. With that in mind, USC Times asked a handful of Carolina professors to discuss the evolution of their fields and to speculate intelligently on what might happen next.
ART IS POWER BY GLENN HARE
There are no music stands in Rooms 106 at the School of Music. There’s no podium either. What you will find are spaces for brainstorming and planning — whiteboards and corkboards, flip charts and Post-it notes, books on finance and leadership. And just in case there’s a need play out those ideas, the room has a seven-foot Baldwin piano. More idea incubator than music studio, the SPARKLab is a training ground where USC music students hone skills that reach
beyond the concert hall, explains Rebecca Nagel, a professional oboist and the director of Carolina’s Music Leadership Laboratory, or SPARK. “Twenty five years from now, I’d like see the arts — and music specifically — as more than a pretty frill,” Nagel says. “Future gen erations will need to know how to communicate verbally, virtually and visually. They will need to know how to share their musicianship with all aspects of society. They will need the skills to communicate
VOL. 26, NO.6 11
successfully with everyone from the mayor to the business community to their neighbors.” Historically, musicians have always been a bit entrepreneurial, contracting their talents for functions such as weddings and corpo rate events, symphony orchestras concerts and recording sessions. But Nagel believes the successful musician of tomorrow will be valu able to healthcare, economic development and government. The SPARK program gets music students active in the community, partnering them with schools and community service organizations as well as medical facilities and other institutions, including Oliver Gospel Mission, Richland Library, SisterCare and Dorn Veterans Administration Medical Center. “Music should be an important element in community develop ment,” says Nagel. “Companies want to locate in places that have
an active arts life. The arts make communities livable. Who doesn’t want to be around beautiful sights and sounds?” USC music students also take part in arts advocacy, get involved in fundraising and grant writing, and take a course in personal finance as applied to the life of a musician. And just as she wants her students to be able to navigate corporate boardrooms and the halls of government, Nagel hopes leaders in those areas begin to recognize just how import ant artists are to our communities. “Music has the ability to connect us to each other,” she says. “I believe that everyone has felt connected to the world around them through the arts and through music. I think music makes us human.”
FRONTIERS OF MEDICINE BY FRANCIS G. SPINALE AS TOLD TO STEVEN POWELL
It’s always hard to predict what might happen in medicine. Look at our predictions for the human genome project. While this has been an exciting scientific advancement, the predictions were that gene therapy would be commonplace and that we would be able to perform molecular surgery and correct defects in DNA. Or look at the discovery of the stem cell, which was predicted to yield the ability to “grow” replacement organs, such as parts of the brain or heart. While our understanding of the mechanisms of disease has been greatly enhanced by the human genome project — and we are beginning to tap into the potential of stem cell therapy in some very refined contexts — overall, our predictions have come up a bit short. I do believe that in the next decade we will be able to target sequences of DNA in a highly specific manner — without the use of viruses. Thus, specific DNA mutations or gene deficiencies will be corrected with greater success. I’m uncertain that stem cells alone will be the cure we once thought, but I do think we could use stem cells with some novel biomaterials to form a hybrid system that could be used to replace damaged regions of the brain/nervous system or cardio vascular system. And there are other areas of medicine that hold great potential, beginning with nanomedicine. The use of small nanoparticles decorated with high concentrations of a drug that can be guided to a desired location in the body could improve the diagnosis and testing of organs and systems in unprecedented ways. The field of biomaterials is also heating up, and I believe one day we will be able to replace damaged areas, with and without the use of stem cells. Novel biomaterials could be used to repair burns and other disfigurement, and also to construct complete and functional bio-prostheses, which will, by appearance, seem to be a normal structure but will actually contain enhanced functionality.
We may even be able to integrate bio-prostheses to actual neural pathways. A third frontier is neuroscience. Our capacity for imaging the brain and nervous system is on an exponential growth rate, and we will continue to make strides in our understanding of how we form memories, develop phobias and succumb to addiction or long-term stress related illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Moreover, our increased understanding of neural networks may allow us to reprogram parts of our brain that are damaged, say after stroke or a traumatic brain injury.
12 USCTIMES / AUGUST 2015
EXHIBITS A, B AND 2.0 BY GLENN HARE
E-mail, tweets, Facebook posts and digital photographs pose challenges for folks like Claire Jerry, McKissick Museum’s chief curator of collections and research. That digital information is extremely valuable but can be hard to retrieve, catalogue and interpret. “Take, for example, what took place here in the last couple of weeks,” Jerry says, referring to the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House grounds. “I wonder who’s capturing all that digital content for historians of the future. I wonder if researchers in the future — 50 to 100 years from now — will be able to track social movements in quite the same way.” Another challenge facing institutions like McKissick — museums that rely heavily on exhibiting man-made and natural objects such as works of art and fossils — is getting the modern visitor through the door. “How do you get people to come inside and experience threedimensional objects in person when they can see them online?” Jerry asks. “My personal dream is that online collections will drive people to see the real thing. Seeing a Van Gogh painting online is totally different than seeing a Van Gogh painting in person.” Future archivists, collections managers and curators will there fore need to be equally astute at managing both physical and virtual displays. That’s why museum management programs at Carolina are
training the next generation of museum professionals to navigate both the real and the digital worlds. But even as students get valuable hands-on training in collection management and exhibition design that reflects the latest trends, the role of curator itself continues to evolve. “At one time curators were the gatekeepers and the authorities for museums,” Jerry explains, “but recent trends show the public isn’t interested in a single authoritative voice. Increasingly, the public wants more input into what’s being displayed in galleries and museums, and leaders in the field have been questioning the duties of the curators. Maybe we won’t need curators in 25 years — ” That’s an extreme case scenario, but just how far will the pendulum swing? Will future museums only exhibit what the public demands? And what will that mean for the professionals working in those institutions? “I think the future is somewhere in the middle,” says Jerry. “Going forward, museums will have to interact with the public — digitally and in person — before, during and after their visits.” Even with increased access to digital information, Jerry believes the public will continue to want the expertise of curators. “We see digital natives wanting the guidance that museum profes sionals provide,” she says. “They want the labels, they want the back stories, and they want information that puts the objects they’re looking at in perspective to the world they know.”
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LESS WILL DO MORE BY TOM VOGT AS TOLD TO STEVEN POWELL
As scientists, we normally measure all the data we can and then, for efficient storage, compress to fewer data by eliminating many values under a threshold. And it’s not just scientists who do it — compression algorithms on phones and iPads create much smaller datasets. That’s why we store our music as MP3s and our pictures as JPEG files. So what if instead of measuring all possible data and then compressing them, we measure only the important data and omit the rest? The method is mathematically sound and has begun to revolutionize measuring in many fields, including astronomy, high-energy physics, engineering, robotics, and biological and chemical imaging. Measuring only ten percent or less of a signal consumes less energy, which is important in space exploration and the deployment of autonomous sensors for environmental or nuclear non-proliferation
monitoring since it will increase the time period a probe can operate and send signals. The approach even offers potential health benefits. Three to five percent of all new cancers diagnosed in the U.S. are thought to be caused by CAT scans. Compressed sensing allows shorter scan times and therefore less exposure to radiation. In MRI imaging, measurements can be taken two to ten times more rapidly with little or no impact on the image quality, making patient mobility less of a problem. In brain imaging, 3D images can be obtained in about 30 milliseconds. Galileo is credited with having said, “Measure what can be measured.” With compressed sensing, the idea is to measure only what should be measured — and to get better results in the process.
14 USCTIMES / AUGUST 2015
Tomorrow’s Playbook IN THE STANDS, ON THE FIELD BY THOM HARMON
“We want to make sure that you have fun, that you’re invested, that you leave an event thinking, ‘That was so fun, we have to come back!’” Charles Bloom, senior associate athletics director for external affairs, has a lot of ideas for how to make an already exciting fan experience even better, beginning with the tailgate. “What if you were able go up to a Blue Marlin or Little Pigs Barbecue tent at Game cock Park to stock your tailgate?” Bloom posits. “That’s going to be the challenge: having all that available to the fan so that they say, ‘We’ve got to go!’” And with a little creativity, the excitement generated by that pregame experience could extend right into the main event. “I think what’s coming is for someone to be able to customize the whole experience, whether that’s sitting close to or far from the action,” says Eric Nichols, associate athlet ics director for marketing. “Maybe Cocky comes to visit you, maybe that seat has your name on it, maybe you have preordered your favorite food and beverage, and maybe that season pass is not the same seat every game. Maybe it’s not even a seat, but a lounge that you have access to.” A lot of that depends on technology, obviously, but the university is poised to pursue those opportunities. From news alerts to replays to premium access options for con nected users, a range of options is on the table. “You need to be able to buy concessions from your seat,” Nichols says, but as he cautions, it’s also important to find a balance between technology and the live event experience. “I don’t want to bring the television experience into the arena or stadium,” Nichols says. “I want the stadium to be a unique experience.”
VOL. 26, NO.6 15
GAMECOCK JERSEYS buy the numbers… BY THOM HARMAN
If you’re shopping for a Gamecock jersey this fall, you’ll notice a trend: the only numbers available are 1 and 15. Collegiate athletics programs have found themselves in a changing, uncertain landscape when it comes to student-athletes and how their likenesses are used. To protect both the university’s image and the student-athlete, jerseys featuring the numbers of popular players are no longer available. The number 1 was chosen so that fans can call their team No. 1, and it can also mean they are the team’s No. 1 fan. The second option is “15” because it stands for the year 2015. USC is not alone in this shift; it’s happening nationwide. For example, the University of Miami and Ohio State both chose the same two numbers this year, and half of the SEC has made similar changes. Currently, there’s no way of knowing how long this numbers game will continue, but the university felt it important enough to jump to proceed with caution — and hope that down the road fans can once again buy a jersey featuring the number of their favorite player. For now, though, the numbers 1 and 15 make perfect sense.
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Dream a little dream BY CHRIS HORN
When college students think about the future, they tend to have an immediate perspective — Do I know what I want to do with my life when I graduate? Can I find a job in my field? USC Times asked several undergrads those questions then invited them to dream a little, to look farther down the road about where they might be in five or 10 years. Times also asked these digital natives to weigh in on where they think technology is headed, for better or worse.
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Caroline Skjoedt Junior, public relations/ business minor
The Communicator
Ideally, I’d like to be doing external and internal communications for a large company, writing press releases, handling media, really doing everything. I am kind of concerned about finding a job when I graduate in 2017, because there are so many college graduates out there, but I have a lot of friends who graduated this year who have found jobs. I’m just not sure if I’ll find what I want at first. Getting Social
Technology is only going to get better, but I think it’s taking over people’s lives. When I go home to Atlanta, I sometimes babysit an 8-year-old who has an iPhone and an iPad, and he doesn’t want to go outside and play because he can stay inside and play on those devices. I see people who are on their phones all the time, and sometimes I’m one of those people. On the other hand, those same devices make it easy for the news to come to us; we don’t even have to go out and search for it. I have a social media pres ence, but I don’t use it to the extent that others do. I try to unplug from electronics when I go home. In the Black
I’d like to work for a big corporation, and I hope to travel a lot. Right now, my heart is set on London. At some point, I want to be self-employed, probably merging public relations with the fashion industry. It would probably be more than 10 years before I’m ready to start my own business, though, because I refuse to go into debt. I work at a boutique now, and my boss lets me see the managerial side of things. I’m only 20, but I have ideas about how that business could be improved.
The Advocate
I really do need a graduate degree in this field. I might take a year or two off to work and then enter graduate school for a Ph.D., but either way, I’ll be working in laboratories for a while. My career goal is to work for a non-profit or non-government organization that’s helping indigenous communities in coastal areas, particularly those affected by climate change. I want to help give them a voice. I want to do work in policy, science and on the humanities of the environment. I don’t see myself on a college campus in 10 years. I like the atmosphere, but I don’t think I want to be chasing a tenure-track job. Maybe later down the road. Letting Go
I can foresee computers being manipulated without any touch, perhaps responding to visual cues, and 3-D gaming that projects onto any surface. There’s a complaint that people are so absorbed in their smart phones, but if you think about it, people have always been avoiding each other. Think about newspapers and comics — they were something you could get absorbed in while riding a train and kept you from having to interact with the people around you. A phone is a constant source of entertainment, but sometimes at night I have to remind myself that I need to get a good night’s sleep and just let it go. Have Fun, Will Travel
I’m not sure where I want to live; I have a wanderlust and want to work and travel abroad in Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. I just want to see how other people live. This was my first big move, coming to Carolina. I’ve been to Europe for a short visit and I’ve traveled up and down the East Coast. Mainly, though, I need to find ways to relax, to find something that distracts me from work — maybe scuba diving or sky diving. I used to have a dream about writing books — fiction and nonfiction. Now I’m thinking more in terms of nonfiction, something informative about the issues I’m studying.
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Kaitlyn Bretz Junior, environmental sciences
18 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2015
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Tony Alessi Sophomore, English/ philosophy
The Private Contractor
I’m not sure about graduate school, but definitely not right away. My specialization is web development, so I’ll probably move in that direction, working with companies that want to change the platform of their website or add databases or other enhancements on the backside. Instead of a regular 40-hour job, a more appealing option for me is to be a private contractor. Then I can live where I want to and travel a lot. The Internet of Things
The Scholar
I think I’ll be in graduate school, either pursuing a Ph.D. in English or perhaps law school. Ideally, I’d like to be an environ mental attorney or a professor of English, Greek or some other ancient literature. I, Robot?
I like to imagine that I would have been better born prior to the Industrial Revolution, but then I think about air conditioning and pain medicine — technology can be very good. I didn’t step into social media until sixth or seventh grade. I was late in the game. But two or three years ago, I phased out all of that: Instagram, Facebook, everything. I think social media will continue to thrive, unfortunately. It’s interesting that the more menial tasks in law will probably be taken over by automatons. I think my leaning toward humanities is a fear of mechanization; it’s horrifying to think of how far robots have come. How far off are we to putting a human brain in a robot?
The most important thing on the horizon, I think, is that artificial intelligence will come into being. Repetitive jobs will be replaced by it, but that’s a good thing: It could free up people’s time to do more important work. That sounds kind of science fiction-y, but robots are progressing — it’s not out of the question. And the whole “Internet of things” is already happening: appliances that can connect to the Internet. When Google self-driving cars become ubiquitous, they’ll be connected to the Internet. There’ll be more opportunities for jobs but also opportunities for hackers, so security will be paramount. Not My Place in the 9 to 5 World
I like writing code, but I also like music — playing guitar and songwriting — and studying Arabic. I enjoyed my time in Oman this summer studying the language. My dream job would be consulting and traveling in the Middle East several months of the year. I’m not sure where I’d like to live, but I’d like to have a studio in my house, in a town with a growing music scene. My dream job wouldn’t be a regular 40-hour thing.
The Great Outdoors
I’d love to live in New Zealand or Scandinavia, but the older I get, the more I see myself staying in South Carolina. I love to do outdoorsy things like camping and kayaking — I’m an Eagle Scout — and I’d like to help young kids get involved in appreciating the outdoors. I would love to have a family one day, but I’m fairly doom and gloom when it comes to the future, so I’m hesitant about having kids. But I always thought adoption would be pretty cool. There’s always a need, and it makes sense, particularly in light of environmental concerns.
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Victor Reynolds Junior, computer science
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Hyuri McDowell Sophomore, psychology
The Entrepreneur
I’m aiming for medical school, probably psychiatry. My family has a background as entrepreneurs, and my parents have always stressed the importance of deriving income from multiple streams. So I’ve thought about attending a medical school that offers a joint M.D./M.B.A. Right now I’m just taking it one step at a time, studying for the MCAT. My goal is to graduate with no debt. 3D M.D.
I’ve been fascinated with a company called Ultrahaptics that makes holograms you can feel — no gloves or anything, you can feel it with your bare hands. That could have a lot of implication for medical school education. The Big City
I would love to go to medical school on the West Coast. I’m not sure about ever starting a family, but I’d like to live in a major city at some point, and I’d want to do that before I have kids. I like the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and I can see myself settling there.
The Humanitarian
I’ve always been one of those girls with a 10-year plan in the back of my mind. I thought about moving to Kenya to start an orphanage, but after I did an internship at one there during my freshman year, I realized I could have a similar impact here. What I mean is, I’m working this summer for a jewelry company in California that employs women from Uganda to give them health care, child care and an education. You can make an impact globally, whether you’re in Columbia, Kenya or California. I see myself going to law school to become an international humanitarian attorney or perhaps a Peace Corps volunteer who comes back to Washington, D.C., to advocate for others. Making Connections
The fact that I can maintain contact with anyone around the world with just a phone is still amazing to me. Social media can be a hindrance to personal connections, but it’s been mostly positive for me, especially with travel. One thing that’s kind of scary to me is the idea of the Internet connecting every single aspect of life. That would take away privacy and definitely would need some type of regulation. Call of the Child
I love to travel. I’d love to move around a lot and live out of a suitcase forever. I also feel passionate about adopting children. I’ll probably end up somewhere in the U.S., but if I could live any where, Budapest is my favorite city.
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Joy Caroline Hicklin Junior, political science with business and French minors
20 USCTIMES / SEPTEMBER 2015
CAROLINA ROAD TRIP
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE COLUMBIA DOCTOR TOMORROW BY PAGE IVEY
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he University of South Carolina School of Medicine was founded nearly 40 years ago to address a need for more doctors in the state and continues to meet that obligation on several fronts. With fewer than 100 graduates a year, the school provides qual ity one-on-one time with practicing physician mentors and world-class researchers. “Our unique mission is to train primary care physicians for South Carolina, especially in underserved areas, and I am pleased with the quality of the educational product in this school of medicine,” says Dr. Les Hall, who was named executive dean of the School of Medi cine and chief executive officer of the Palmetto Health-USC Medical Group in February. The school is also a place where practicing physicians can come for continuing education. Research money goes into finding better ways to serve the state’s population, both rural and urban. Several research projects are working on better delivery of primary care, including mental health care. The school is also participating in an inter-professional training program that helps students in a variety of disciplines learn their roles in a team approach to health care, from surgeons to social workers. “I think the future of health care will be team-based,” Hall says. “It’s a very cost-effective model. Our students need to know how to function as a part of that team. We need to make sure they are collaborative-ready, that they will know their roles as members of a team. There is nothing more frustrating for the patient than receiving fragmented care.” Stethoscope of the 21st century
One unique selling point of the School of Medicine Columbia is its use of ultrasound in all phases of medical education. Today, students at the Columbia campus learn to use ultrasound technology as a basic diagnostic tool.
Medical student Timothy Day uses a handheld ultrasound device on a fellow student during an orientation class.
Richard Hoppmann, founder and director of the Ultrasound Institute, champions ultrasound technology as the stethoscope of the 21st century.
“I heard about the great ultrasound program and what a great experience it is with the smaller classes,” said fourth-year student Ashley Evens, a 2011 graduate from Carolina with a degree in biology. “You get to know your classmates well. It’s like a family.” Evens plans to specialize in interventional radiology “I think the future of health and says her experience using ultrasound technology will care will be team-based. give her a leg up when she It’s a very cost-effective gets to her residency. model,” says Les Hall, who “When they come with was named executive dean of that ultrasound skill, our the School of Medicine and graduates can very quickly chief executive officer of the have an impact in their Palmetto Health-USC Medical residency,” says Dr. Richard Group in February. Hoppmann, director of the Ultrasound Institute at the School of Medicine. “We were the first medical school in the country to have a fully integrated ultrasound curriculum across all four years. And we’ve grown it a little bit each year.” Students learn on a variety of pieces of equipment, but the most interesting one is a handheld ultrasound device that looks and oper ates something like a classic iPod with the digital image displayed on a screen about the size of a smartphone.
Long associated with radiology, cardiology and obstetrics, ultra sound is gaining favor in emergency medicine to quickly diagnose internal bleeding, to help with triage on the battlefield or even to help medical personnel guide needles directly into the veins they are seek ing, without threat of complications or multiple sticks. “You can make the argument that nearly every graduate will have ultrasound applications as they continue their studies in residency,” Hoppmann says, recalling a remarkable find years ago when School of Medicine students were scanning each other. “We had a student who had thyroid cancer and it was discovered and successfully treated,” Hoppmann says. The student was able to complete her studies while undergoing treatment. Shape of Things to Come
The School of Medicine does have at least one big change to make in the coming years, Hall says — either a major upgrade in facilities at the Veterans Administration campus where it is currently located, or a move to a more modern facility. “It is increasingly difficult to maintain that cutting edge in educa tion and research when you are in facilities that were built in the 1930s and that cannot be modified externally,” Hall says. “The folks here have done a good job with what they have, but you always have to be planning for the future.” One thing that won’t change anytime soon is the intimate student experience. With the Columbia campus turning out roughly 100 new graduates each year, and the School of Medicine Greenville still ramp ing up its student body, both programs are where they need to be. “With the Greenville campus, it is unclear whether we need to increase class size here,” Hall says. “Our future is as a long-term part ner of Palmetto Health and the VA.”
ENDNOTES
Sorry, the cookie on the cover is not intended for human consumption. The fortunes below, however, should give you plenty to chew on as we head into the fall semester. From cooler temperatures to the changing of the leaves to the arrival in your campus mailbox of the next USC Times, the future looks pretty sweet right now and it will only get sweeter.