University
USC Student Named to Commission on Aging
By Athan Bezaitis on November 24, 2009 7:44 AM
- Lynne Reynolds
Inspiration struck USC gerontology student Lynne Reynolds when she noticed that a large number of seniors living alone in her Berkeley neighborhood were rarely visited by friends or relatives.
An architectural designer with community ties, it occurred to her that the neighborhood’s block association, which received positive support from its city councilman, might be an ideal place to begin providing support for older adults.
After attending a workshop on the changing face of senior housing featuring USC’s Victor Regnier at Harvard University, she enrolled in the USC Davis School’s Master of Arts in Gerontology program, electing to take classes online so she could keep her full-time job at a local architecture firm.
This month, armed with her ideas for change and a semester away from completing her degree this spring, she was appointed to the Berkeley Commission on Aging.
“The commission was looking to fill a vacancy and commissioners were discussing some of the attributes that they were looking for,” said Ryan Lau, aide to Councilman Darryl Moore. “Something that was specifically requested was a younger graduate student in gerontology … which is exactly Lynne Reynolds.”
According to the city’s Web site, the commission is “charged with identifying the needs of the aging, creating awareness of these needs and encouraging improved standards of services to the aging.” Reynolds’ role will be to advise the city council and all other city boards and commissions, departments and private agencies on matters affecting the elderly.
At a meeting with the commission chairperson, Reynolds discussed her initial idea to help older people in her former neighborhood, calling the potential program “Neighbors for Seniors.”
“My goal is to identify as many of these isolated seniors as possible and connect them with individuals in nearby neighborhood associations who would agree to keep in contact with them and, to whatever degree they are able or interested, actively integrate them into their family lives - essentially adopting them,” she said.
Committed to seeing Berkeley become one of the World Health Organization's “Age-Friendly Cities,” she realized after the first board meeting just how severe the impact of the California budget crisis will be on local policy initiatives.
“That does make it seem like a much longer term goal than I would have thought would be necessary,” she said.
Still, she intends to bring an expanded outline of her program to the commission in the coming months that will connect it to the ongoing emergency preparedness, senior housing and disability programs currently under way throughout the city.
“I think that she will be able to tease out many issues that some of the other commissioners understand and have likely experienced, but don’t really know how to translate into policy or programming,” Lau said. “I think she will add a great deal to the commission.”
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Los Angeles Times featured the USC Rossier School’s centennial gala, which took place February 1. USC President Steven B. Sample was honored with the Global Education Leadership Award, and USC alumna Cindy McCain was honored with the Dean’s Alumni Achievement Award. “It’s rare for someone who’s lived as long as I have in politics with my husband to be speechless, but I truly am,” McCain said. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Sample, recounting his work in raising USC’s stature globally, being open to international students, and understanding USC’s position in Los Angeles as “the gateway to Asia and Latin America.” Nearly 350 people attended the event, including Sen. John McCain; Ed Roski, chairman of the USC Board of Trustees; Barbara and Roger Rossier, for whom the Rossier School is named; John Katzman, Princeton Review founder and benefactor of an endowed chair at the Rossier School; and alumni and longtime USC supporters Debbie and J. Terrence Lanni and Verna Dauterive.
The Chronicle of Higher Education included USC in a chart on international fundraising by higher education institutions. USC has received $2.9 million from international philanthropic funds, and is estimated to have more than 6,000 foreign alumni, the story stated.
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured Paul Debevec of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, who won an Academy Award for co-creating a light stage capture device and image-based facial rendering system that has been used in movies like “Avatar.” The award will be presented at a formal dinner on February 20, the story noted. Asked whether the technology could be applied to education, Debevec said: “Absolutely, yes. Maybe there’s a little rendering of a chemistry professor at the side of the screen who smiles at you when you get the question right and frowns when you get the question wrong. [In perhaps 10 years] that computer might, through its Web cam, look back at you, see where you’re looking on the screen, see how engaged you are, and actually adapt itself to trying to teach you in the way that it seems to be working the best. Just like one-on-one tutoring.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured linguist Paul Frommer of the USC Marshall School, who created the language Na’vi for the Golden Globe-winning movie “Avatar.” “Doing this kind of work as an academic is not going to advance your research reputation. It’s not going to result in publications in peer-reviewed journals,” Frommer said. “But it just may push the world forward in the way it’s turning on young people to the wonders of language”
Los Angeles Times reported that the 22nd annual USC Libraries Scripter Award was given to “Up in the Air” novelist Walter Kirn and to USC alumnus Jason Reitman and Shelton Turner, who adapted Kirn’s book for the screen. Los Angeles Times ran a second story about the Scripter Award.
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