“There is no better way for students to understand concepts within sociology than to see them.”
To Reflect and to Serve

For nearly 2,300 students, learning and doing public service are entwined, with tangible rewards to themselves and their neighbors.

NIKI GOVE NEVER saw poverty and rarely thought about violence growing up in affluent Mission Viejo, Calif. “I lived a pretty sheltered existence,” says the psychology major. “I was in a bubble.”
So Gove was both frightened and excited when her sociology professor announced that to pass his class, students would have to participate in a community service project. She ended up tutoring an 8-year-old girl at a battered women’s shelter. “I was pretty nervous at first,” Gove says. “It was so unfamiliar to me. It’s been an eye-opening experience.”

THAT'S EXACTLY the point of service-learning projects, which are becoming ever-more popular requirements in undergraduate classes.
Nearly 2,300 students are involved in community service – up from 1,500 students three years ago. And it’s expected to grow in the next few years, says Dick Cone, executive director of the Joint Educational Project – the department that has overseen service learning for the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences since 1972.
Administrators attribute the recent upswing in part to USC’s being named the Time/Princeton Review “College of the Year 2000,” an honor bestowed, according to the Time editors, because USC has “one of the most ambitious social-outreach programs of any university in the nation.”
That outreach can range from mentoring school children and working at after-school programs to volunteering at non-profit health centers and shelters. With so many interested students and faculty members, the challenge these days is to make sure that community work relates directly to academic theory. Organizers discourage professors from using community service as an add-on.
“The goal is to weave community experiences into the lifeblood of courses,” says Cone. “The work that students participate in does make them better individuals, but we believe it’s much more effective when informed by academic theory.”
Cone and his staff help professors design lesson plans that tie the two together. Students are required to write weekly papers making the connection and keep journals recounting their experiences.
“There is no better way for students to understand concepts within sociology than to see them,” says Karen Sternheimer, a lecturer in sociology.
For some, the work is so rewarding that they volunteer even after their service course has ended. Such was the case for Nick Wegner, a kindergarten tutor at Weemes Elementary School.
“I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and I didn’t come into contact with minorities too often,” says Wegner, a biomedical engineering major. “Volunteering in the schools has been a great way for me to get involved in the community around USC. I’ve gotten rid of some of the stereotypes I once had.”
Wegner meets twice a week with James, 5, who has trouble focusing on

USC chemistry major Leslie Vitin tutors kindergartners at Weemes Elementary School for extra credit in her Spanish course.
assignments. The boy needs one-on-one attention, which Wegner happily provides. “We’re forming a great relationship,” he says. “It can be challenging at times, but it’s also a lot of fun.”
Another USC student, Leslie Vitin, helps out in the classroom for extra credit in her third-year Spanish class. “It’s really helped me with my Spanish,” says the chemistry major. “I really love working with the children, too.”
Charles Paus, a lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese, encourages community work because it lets his students use their Spanish outside the classroom. “In my course students are graded on their ability to communicate in Spanish. The conversation practice they get through JEP is the most direct tie-in with the course. Beyond that, there is the benefit of exposure to local Spanish-speaking cultures – from Mexican to Guatemalan to Salvadoran – which relates to cultural aspects of the course.”
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo’s sociology class focuses on changing immigration laws and various nativist movements. “For students who work at non-profit agencies as part of their service-learning experience, these issues are more real,” says the associate professor.
The challenge these days for JEP is to manage growth. “We want the program to remain high quality,” Cone says. “It’s very labor-intensive work, but when you read the student papers you know it’s well worth it.”

– Gilien Silsby

Religion in Politics
Connecticut’s Yiddischer Yankee

“A BARRIER WAS BROKEN, and it wasn’t me who broke it. It was Al Gore, and I won’t be able to thank him enough for that,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, talking about his history-making candidacy to an overflowing crowd at USC’s Davidson Conference Center. In April, the U.S. senator from Connecticut – who was America’s first Jewish vice presidential nominee – delivered the third annual Carmen and Louis Warschaw Distinguished Lecture, sponsored by USC’s Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. “My experience convinced me,” Lieberman said, “how much [attitudes] have changed for the better and how much more tolerant and open America is.”
The bulk of Lieberman’s talk, however, focused on foreign policy. America, he said, must be grounded in its ideals. “Should our relationships be premised primarily upon classic balance-of-power security arrangements, or should we actively support those core values of freedom, opportunity, justice, the rule of law, throughout the world?” he asked. “I believe that we are the best abroad, as we are at home, when our policies are based on our values. A foreign policy that does not rest on our values cannot ultimately succeed.”
Early to Embed, Early to Rise
Student-inventors in Gaurav Sukhatme’s course on sensory computing, when asked to design “embedded systems” (ones that bypass keyboards and database hook-ups) turned out some pretty cool tools for under $1,000. How about a smart-camera that tells your handheld computer where to find empty parking spaces? Or an infrared controller that lets you program the VCR over the Web? “The future won’t be where you can point to something and say ‘that’s the computer,’” doctoral student Dave Naffin said in a Wired News article on Sukhatme’s class. “The computer will be everything with a microchip in it.”
Book illustration by Edel Rodrig/ Chip juggle illustration by A.J. Garces / classroom photograph by Irene Fertik / Lieberman photograph by Irene Fertik