About What Matters to Me and Why

Why WMMW at USC?

"What Matters to Me and Why" represents a creative solution to an important and often unrecognized problem in the university setting: the separation of intellectual life from personal and spiritual issues.

For some time, students have been asking for more informal contact with faculty. They have expressed their desire to encounter faculty and administrators as rounded human beings, professional models, and mentors. The people who shape USC, who teach students the ways of their particular disciplines, and who help them develop marketable skills also have a great deal to pass on in terms of worldly wisdom, moral guidance, and sources of spiritual strength.

How does WMMW work?

For eight years, a broadly based committee of students was assembled by Rabbi Susan Laemmle, the former Dean of Religious Life, to plan and direct "What Matters to Me and Why" at USC. They put forward the names of faculty and administrators whom they see as good candidates for the honor of being asked to speak in the series, and then serve as contact person and host for the presenters selected. The new Dean of Religious Life, Varun Soni, will continue this tradition.

At each WMMW session, the featured guest spends about twenty minutes addressing the topic "What Matters to Me and Why," and then the floor is opened to informal dialogue for the remainder of the hour. Just as there is no one way to address the topic, so there will be no one direction in which dialogue will proceed. The student contact from the WMMW committee introduces the speaker and makes sure that the session goes forward in a professional yet friendly manner. An indirect purpose of WMMW is to maintain an arena in which people can talk about important, personally charged questions in an open, mutually respectful way.

Since WMMW takes place at the noon hour and since even busy people need to eat, a light lunch will be provided throughout the series. For more information, call 213-740-6110 or write to varun.soni@usc.edu.

The program seeks to involve all members of the USC community and the Trojan Family. Not just students, but also faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and neighborhood residents are encouraged to attend. Bringing together these diverse USC constituencies forms another indirect purpose of the series. The program has been successfully presented for years at  both Stanford and Princeton, and it came to USC in 2000.

Co-sponsors of WMMW:

 A number of campus groups whose purposes accord with those of "What Matters to Me and Why" have signed on as co-sponsors of the series. These include:

• Mortar Board Senior National Honor Society at USC
• Undergraduate Student government
  
• Graduate and Professional Student Senate
• Academic Senate