Steven D. Fleming, Ph.D. (second from right) and Michael Orosz (far right) were featured speakers at a roundtable on human security and geospatial intelligence on November 3, 2016 with International Relations Professor Steven Lamy (far left) and GEN [R] David Petraeus (second from left).
Charles F. Zukoski, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, and Elizabeth A. Graddy, executive vice provost, have announced that Professors Steven D. Fleming and Michael Orosz are among the recipients of the university's coveted 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Teaching Grants.
Fleming, professor of the practice of Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI) and of the Institute for Creative Technologies, and Orosz, research associate professor of the Civil and Environmental Engineering and Spatial Sciences and assistant director of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), will use this grant to develop a new course entitled "Seminar in Human Security, Geospatial Intelligence, and Policy Making."
The Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant Program is an initiative of the Provost's office to develop interdisciplinary curriculum through team-teaching and other teaching models that utilize expertise across the disciplines, the arts and the professions. The goal of these teaching grants is to:
- expose students to the broad strengths of USC faculty and multiple disciplinary perspectives on the issues addressed in their courses;
- provide faculty with an opportunity to explore common problems from different disciplinary perspectives and to reach broader audiences;
- build relationships across the university that increase our ability to engage in convergent research and multi-disciplinary approaches to education; and
- provide a platform that encourages the development and dissemination of novel teaching methods that emerge from interdisciplinary academic partnerships.
The collaboration between Fleming and Orosz leverages the synergies between the Spatial Sciences Institute in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences with the Information Sciences Institute in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, as well as other relationships across the university that Fleming and Orosz have formed around this topic.
In their announcement, Provost Zukoski and Executive Vice Provost Graddy noted that awardees were selected through a highly competitive application process and reviewed by a faculty committee. They congratulated the recipients that their selection is a testament to the quality of their proposals. In particular, the review committee found this course’s topic to be particularly timely and one that touches on relevant and current issues related to security, policy and human experience.
Fleming and Orosz will develop this course that will be included in the curriculum for SSI's new B.S. in Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence and its minor in Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence. This course also be option for students majoring in and with interests in international relations, cybersecurity, political science, public policy and more, as well as USC ROTC cadets.
"We are delighted that Professors Fleming and Orosz have this opportunity to create a truly innovative course that will provide students from across the university with access to the most impactful scholarship and professional context in human security, geospatial intelligence and policy, and congratulate them on this recognition of their combined expertise. This course will add to the considerable depth we have already developed in this multidisciplinary area," said John P. Wilson, SSI founding director and professor of spatial sciences, sociology, architecture, preventive medicine, computer science and civil and environmental engineering.
The four other recipient teams were:
- Daniela Bleichmar (Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences) and Nancy Lutkehaus (Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences) – Museum Cultures: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to the Study of Museums
- Terry David Church (School of Pharmacy) and Rebecca Haggerty (Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism) – Drugs and the Media
- David Craig (Keck School of Medicine), Xiaowu Gai (Keck School of Medicine), and Tatyana Ryutov (Viterbi School of Engineering) – Biomedical Data Privacy – Issues and Solutions
- Lucas Herchenroeder (Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences) and Jeffrey Kahane (Thornton School of Music) – Classics of Music and Literature: From Ancient Greece to Contemporary Los Angeles.
