People Watch
Russian Around

Slavic scholar Sarah Pratt finds poetry in administration, beauty in a well-executed academic program.

AT FIRST GLANCE, Sarah Pratt’s background in Russian literature might not seem directly relevant to her current job as dean of academic programs in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Then again, intimate knowledge of Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn might be just the
“If anything in this job reminds me of Soviet politics – coercion or subterfuge – buzzers go off.”
thing to prepare one for the labyrinths of academic administration. She notes, only half jokingly, that “if anything in this job reminds me of Soviet politics – coercion on one end or subterfuge on the other – the buzzers go off and I know something needs to be changed.”
As the dean responsible for College programs ranging from Freshman Seminars through doctoral programs, Pratt heads an enormous infrastructure. She oversees teaching, advising, admissions, retention, overseas studies, graduate assistantships and fellowships. Plus there’s stewardship of sundry programs serving undergraduates across USC, including General Education, freshman writing, foreign languages, Thematic Option and the baccalaureate-M.D. program.
“On most days,” she says, “this is a really good job. On some days, it’s even inspiring. Once in a while, it’s profoundly frustrating. But it’s never, ever boring.”

THE AUTHOR OF three books and numerous articles that have earned her an international reputation as an authority on Russian verse, Pratt sees unexpected links between poetry and bureaucracy. Case in point: “People who know me as a specialist in Russian romanticism will think this is nuts,” says Pratt, “but I have come to see that the structure of an interdisciplinary program, or a well-thought-out spreadsheet for graduate funding, is like a poem. You can see it all. You can understand how all the parts fit together. And you can see how substance and meaning emerge from structure.”
Despite her heavy administrative duties, the Yale- and Columbia-educated scholar finds time to teach an undergraduate or a graduate course every year. “It’s important to me to be a real faculty member and keep that perspective,”
she says. “That means doing research and teaching.”
Her most recent book, Nikolai Zabolotsky: Enigma and Cultural Paradigm (Northwestern University Press, 2000), challenges standard interpretations of the Russian avant-garde and Soviet culture as fully removed from traditional Russian Orthodox metaphysics.

– Sharon Cohen

CRACKING THE CEILING
A Regular Vault-Air
Denis Kholev knows more about performing under stress than most athletes. The USC pole vaulter vividly recalls defecting from the
former Soviet Union with his family. (“It was an escape,” recalls the Ukrainian-born Israeli, then 15. “We had to rush, leave all our belongings behind.”) Later, he went through three years of military service in the Israeli army. After all this, competing for an NCAA title was no biggie. “If he’s on Palestinian patrol every day, he’s not going to be afraid of the vault,” quips track coach Ron Allice. In June, the 25-year-old business major lofted himself to a national title when he cleared 18 feet 6-1/2 inches (his lifetime best and a new USC record), becoming the first Trojan to win the pole vault since Dave Kenworthy in 1982. “To beat UCLA in the dual meet, to win the Pac-10 and finally to win the NCAA. This is the best senior year anyone can have,” exulted Kholev, who circled the track and performed a back flip in front of the stands after his record-setting leap.


ER Sleuth

Teasing predictable patterns out of traumatic injuries is this USC physician’s passion – and her balm for society’s ills.
HATE CRIMES, domestic violence and gang shootings may not be diseases, but they sure send a lot of people to the hospital. To emergency physician Deirdre Anglin, the traumatic injuries she sees at LAC+USC Medical Center are more than just wounds – they are societal problems begging for solutions. “When you look at injuries and understand why they happened, there’s nothing that isn’t really predictable in some way,” she says.
In the early 1990s, Anglin and then-USC colleague H. Range Hutson (now at Harvard) saw gang shootings spike, and “a little green light came on in my head,” Anglin recalls. “I thought: ‘This is it. This is where I can make a difference.’” The two ER physicians began interviewing sheriffs, priests and criminologists, looking for patterns. In 1997 they published a seminal article on gangs in the Journal of the American Medical Association, spawning the discussion of youth violence as a public health issue. Anglin has since produced groundbreaking articles on victims of hate crimes, police dog bites, date rape and so-called “suicide-by-cop.” She’s currently studying patterns in intimate partner violence, shining scholarly light on the facts in the hopes of altering public policy, preventing injuries and saving lives. “As physicians, we have so much power to influence change,” she says.

– Alicia Di Rado


TOP SCORER
Hollywood Maestro

In an industry noted for its youth fetish, one 79-year-old remains timeless. “Elmer Bernstein is movie music,” film critic Leonard Maltin declared in a Los Angeles Times “Calendar Weekend” cover-feature on the composer and longtime faculty member in the USC Thornton School of Music’s elite scoring program. The numbers tell it all: more than 150 film scores, some 80 TV scores, 12 Academy Award nominations and three statuettes. Marking Bernstein’s 50 years in the biz, the Motion Picture Academy threw a gala in November; the L.A. County Museum of Art ran a four-week film series highlighting his greatest hits: The Man With the Golden Arm, Sweet Smell of Success, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Magnificent Seven and others. Bernstein built his reputation writing music for Westerns, epics and jazz-infused dramas of the 1950s and ’60s. In the ’70s his deadpan score for Animal House made him the top comedy composer. Later projects have run the gamut from My Left Foot to The Age of Innocence. Recently he’s returned to his classical roots, composing a guitar concerto for Christopher Parkening MM ’69. He is currently at work on a string quartet.

Other Stories

Looking Eastward

Mann of Mystery

Worth the Gamble

Math in Motion

Shelf Life

Retina Magic

Potent Medicine

People Watch
Milestones

Reginald Lathan ’76, whose Gardena-based trucking company, ChemTrans, transports liquid bulk products throughout 13 Western states, has been elected to the Board of Trustees. A graduate of the USC School of Public Administration, Lathan is president-elect of the USC Alumni Association and on the advisory board of the entrepreneur program at the USC Marshall School of Business. He also chairs the USC Community Advisory Council.
Martha Harris has been named senior vice president for university relations, replacing Jane Pisano, newly appointed president of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. Harris joined USC in 1979 as director of the USC News Service. She was subsequently named associate vice president, then vice president of university public relations. The Office of University Relations oversees the university’s efforts in alumni relations, civic and community relations, public relations, cultural relations, media relations, protocol and events, health sciences marketing and KUSC-FM.
Randolph P. Beatty is the new dean of the USC Leventhal School of Accounting. He replaces Kenneth A. Merchant, who has returned to teaching. Beatty comes to USC from Southern Methodist University, where he was a distinguished professor of accounting for nine years. In 1994, Business Week named Beatty one of 12 “Masters of the Classroom.” Before SMU, he taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of expertise are initial public offerings, reputation formation and private-firm valuation.
Pratt illustration by John Cuneo
Kholev photo by Michele A.H. Smith
Anglin photo by Don Milici
Bernstein illustration by John Cuneo
Features -- Rock of Aging - Next-Generation War Games - A Voyage Through Time

Departments -- Mailbag - What's New - In Support - Alumni News - The Last Word

Home