Spring is in the air! The equinox is just a couple weeks away, with spring break arriving just ahead of it. We hope you enjoy the recess and come back refreshed, recharged and ready for the semester’s home stretch.

Note: If you’re experiencing challenges related to global events or any issue, support is available. Visit this webpage to learn about USC’s many student support services.

In this month’s newsletter: 

At the recent ceremony installing James Bullock as USC Dornsife’s 23rd dean, USC President Beong-Soo Kim described him as “the perfect person to steer the College into the future,” citing his “energy, vision, leadership and good cheer.”

Bullock said his goal is to innovate and focus “on providing students with a modern approach to the liberal arts, true to foundational principles, but updated for the students and job markets of today.”

AI can be a brilliant tool, but blind to basic morals. USC Dornsife researchers are studying how to keep it aligned with human values.

Why it matters: Generative AI can sometimes behave in ways people see as amoral or dangerous.

Problem: ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) can generate content that makes them seem sociopathic.

What’s new: USC Dornsife’s approach blends psychology and neuroscience to tackle the issue and explores “personal vulnerability” as a safety concept.

Yes, but: Translating human psychology into algorithms remains complex, and performative empathy isn’t enough to prevent harmful actions.

What to watch: Research may lead to early warning systems for misaligned AI.

The bottom line: Preventing harmful AI behavior may require new designs that go beyond surface-level mimicry of empathy.

A Dornsife history alumnus competed in the recent Winter Olympics. Can you name the event?

Creative writing major and master’s student Micah Owens, who spent much of his life in boarding school before coming to USC, is the latest winner of the USC Dornsife Magazine Creative Writing Contest — an achievement he calls “an amazing moment of validation.”

Owens recently answered questions about his unusual life path, how it inspires him to write and what brought him to USC Dornsife.

Want to submit an entry to the Creative Writing Contest? The deadline is March 15.

USC Dornsife biologists have discovered that when synapses malfunction, neurons can quickly stabilize communication using physical changes at the connection — not electrical activity.

Why it matters: Stable neural signaling is essential for movement, learning and brain health. Breakdowns in this balancing system have been linked to conditions such as epilepsy and autism.

How they did it: In fruit flies, the team shut down key receptors on the receiving side of a synapse and watched how the connection adjusted. Then they removed structural components one by one to pinpoint what enables the fast repair response. ,

Of note: The backup mechanism still worked even when the researchers silenced electrical activity, challenging long-held assumptions about how neural connections recover.

What else? The team identified a key structural protein required for this backup response. Without it, the synapse couldn’t compensate.

Opportunity: Understanding this structural signaling system could guide future therapies aimed at strengthening neural resilience and helping prevent neurological diseases.

When it comes to teaching physics, Professor Vahe Peroomian nails the fundamentals — and stuns students to help them remember important principles.

Registration for the USC Dornsife Academic School Ceremonies is officially open. Eligible students with graduation terms of Fall 2025, Spring 2026 or Summer 2026 should check their USC email for a message from registration@dornsifeevents.usc.edu with instructions to register for their assigned ceremony.

To view assigned ceremony groups, please visit the USC Dornsife Commencement FAQs. Note: Ceremony group changes cannot be accommodated.

For questions regarding registration, please email events@dornsife.usc.edu. And make dornsife.usc.edu/commencement your first stop for commencement announcements, FAQs and more.

March 15 is the deadline to enter the USC Dornsife Magazine Creative Writing Contest. We’re looking for original fiction, poetry, memoirs or essays on the theme of “America’s 250th Anniversary.”

The winning entry will be published in USC Dornsife’s award-winning alumni magazine this spring. Read the poem by creative writing student Micah Owens that won the last contest

Summer is a great time for you to stay on track toward graduation and lighten your future course load, and planning early helps. With on-campus, online and new flexible options, taking just one GE course can make a big difference — and help set you up for success next year. Registration for summer GE courses is now open. Learn more >>

Explore ways to respond to AI’s arrival into daily university life, including development of university programs that address ethics, creative potential, environmental and social impacts, and surveillance.

Join USC alumni at the Joint Educational Project House for Alumni Day of SCervice and photograph science experiments to create visual lesson guides for elementary students in JEP’s programming.

Explore the key dynamics, critical issues and what the outcome could mean for the state’s political future with Rusty Hicks and Corrin Rankin, respective chairs of the Calif. Democratic and Republican parties, and Center for the Political Future Fellow Seema Mehta.

History alumnus Carsten Vissering ’20, an NCAA swimming champion, competed in bobsled at the 2026 Winter Games in Milano Cortina. Read more about his path from pool to ice.

Semiquincentennial. The United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this year. As part of LA2026, led by the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute based at USC Dornsife, USC Libraries will stage an exhibition and host programs exploring Bicentennial events in Los Angeles.

“The notion that all people are created equal and that each of us has inalienable rights that no government can violate remain core ideas in our society,” said EMSI director Peter Mancall. “USC’s location … enables a wide public to view documents that helped establish these ideals.” (Ad Astra per Aspera mural by Robert Arenivar and Jose Luis Gonzalez, 1975.)