USC in the News 10/17 to 10/19/2009

The Chronicle of Higher Education included USC in its new list of Top U.S. Producers of Fulbright Students, 2009-10. USC has eight Fulbright scholars during this academic year, the story reported.

The Chronicle of Higher Education highlighted USC in an article on the increased use of videoconferencing on college campuses. The story highlighted work by Paul Debevec of USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, who has built a holographic conferencing system inspired by "Star Wars." The system projects video onto a spinning mirror to create a 3-D effect. Debevec said that the system allows the speaker to turn his holographic head toward the person he means to address. "When you get multiple people together, getting a three-dimensional sense of the spatial relationships and seeing who's paying attention to who and being able to read body language and gestures are very important in education," Debevec noted.

The New York Times reviewed "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original," a new biography by Robin D.G. Kelley of the USC College. "It holds the largest amount of helpful, uncaricatured information about Monk in one place and goes a long way to correct a reductive understanding of Monk as a person, if not necessarily Monk as an artist, that has persisted for more than 60 years," the story stated. "He wanted to get a hit," Kelley said, refuting the perception that Monk was a reclusive "artiste." "He wanted to make money. It wasn't about fame; it was about a working musician who believes that you could take a pure piece of music and get people to buy it."

The New York Times mentioned USC in an article on how the Sierra Club is lobbying for the elimination of coal-fired power at 60 college campuses. This was a Greenwire story.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Edward Lawler of the USC Marshall School in a story on how the recession has changed the workplace. "The overall trend is 'travel light' by companies, because the new normal is constant change," Lawler said.

Los Angeles Times featured the fourth annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar, which is organized by L.A. as Subject, a research collective hosted by the USC Libraries. The October 17 event at USC's Davidson Conference Center showcased artifacts of modern Los Angeles. KPCC-FM and CW News Los Angeles affiliate KTLA-TV also covered the event.

Los Angeles Times highlighted the USC Gould School's annual Institute on Entertainment Law and Business conference, which this year was attended by some 600 industry leaders. The story highlighted Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger's keynote address. The event was also covered by a second Los Angeles Times story and Variety.

ABC News interviewed Richard Paulson of the Keck School of USC about women in their 40s having children. Paulson said that women 45 and older have a 5 percent chance of getting pregnant without any assistance, and most will require an egg donor. In vitro fertilization using donated eggs can cost between $20,000 and $25,000, he noted. "I don't like to say that these are the lengths that people go to, rather in 2009, it is good to know these options exist," Paulson added. He said that women as old as 50 should have the right to have children by any means, if they are medically healthy. "I think in this country, the respect for privacy and reproductive freedom is very high," Paulson said. "I am not saying it trumps the rights of the child, but most of us think that a woman should be able to choose whether to carry a pregnancy or not."

Asian News International highlighted the USC West Semitic Research Project, which uses advanced photographic and imaging technologies to document texts and objects from the ancient world. Project members are helping the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute make high-quality electronic images of nearly 700 Aramaic administrative documents etched or inked on clay tablets, images that are then distributed to the international research community via the Internet. Scholars from the West Semitic Research Project helped build and install the Oriental Institute's advanced electronic imaging laboratory, the story noted.

National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" interviewed Muhammad Sahimi of the USC Viterbi School about a meeting of Russian, French and American representatives to work out an agreement by which Iran would send most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for further processing, preventing use of the uranium in bomb-making. Sahimi said that this is an elegant solution to the problem of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile. "At least as far as the enriched uranium that is under inspection and monitoring of [the International Atomic Entergy Agency] is concerned, there is no possibility of weaponization," Sahimi said. Protests sparked by the disputed re-election of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad created a crisis of legitimacy and have put Iran's leaders on the defensive in the international arena, Sahimi added. "So what they want to do is perhaps reach some sort of accommodation with the West so that the external pressure on them will be lower."

The Atlantic cited A. Michael Noll, professor emeritus of the USC Annenberg School, about Bell Labs, which has produced several Nobel laureates. "Everything we take for granted today -- digital music, digital art, lasers -- came from Bell Labs," Noll has said.

United Press International featured research by Nathanael Fast of the USC Marshall School and colleagues which found that bosses who don't feel like they can handle their jobs are more likely to bully their subordinates.

The Dallas Morning News cited Susan Estrich of the USC Gould School in a column on whether President Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. "For a change, the world is on our side, rooting for our president's success, eager to bolster his standing in the world in the hopes of furthering his and our mission," Estrich had written. "For a change, the American president is popular abroad; foreign leaders are eager to be associated with him. This is bad? This is something to be suppressed? Not in my book."

Los Angeles Business Journal quoted Tracey Seslen of the USC Marshall School in an article stating that the housing market isn't expected to rebound soon. According to Seslen, a 13 percent drop in condominium sales from August to September suggests that the condo market could have a tougher time bouncing back than the single-family home market, possibly due to higher interest rates for condo loans.

The Boston Globe cited a 2006 study from USC's Initiative and Referendum Institute which found that California's constitution contained 513 amendments, of which 43 originated with voters.

The Des Moines Register mentioned that USC closed its German department last year.

Los Angeles Times mentioned a USC Annenberg School professor in a story about an email chain letter.

Los Angeles Times quoted Gregory Keating of the USC Gould School in a story about L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich allegedly threatening to prosecute city building officials if they issued permits for six wall signs at the L.A. Live entertainment complex, an apparent violation of the city's outdoor advertising ban. Keating said that threatening criminal prosecution in a case like this is overkill if the options of filing civil or administration action are available, especially when it comes to city officials acting in good faith. "This appears inappropriate because it's heavy-handed and appears to intimidate people exercising legitimate rights to petition the government," he said.

The Orange County Register ran a Q&A with Stan Ross of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate on the commercial development industry, which has suffered from defaults and bankruptcies. "The commercial sector has not yet fully seen the impact of illiquidity in the capital markets. As a result, we haven't seen the full magnitude of defaults or foreclosures yet in the marketplace," Ross said. "Some of these institutions that were holding or buying these securities will run into some serious problems with respect to liquidity and capital requirements. They will either have to be restructured, taken over or look for new equity capital to continue on. The impact on the economy could be a further loss of some institutions and a continued slowdown of new development."

The MetroWest Daily News cited a USC study on the immigration status of Dominicans in Massachusetts.

The Durango Herald reported that James McGregor of the Keck School of USC is scheduled to speak at a pregnancy expo about fetal brain development and how parents can bond with their babies in the womb and after birth.