by Allison Engel
When University Professor Alexander Capron took over as president of the faculty on July 1, he decided to make the focus of his one-year tenure a university-wide dialogue to create an engaged, sustainable residential campus. He calls it The Living University.
“It’s a vision of a transformed USC,” Capron said. “It moves beyond freshman dorms into a program of true residential life that develops attractive neighborhoods for families of staff and faculty.”
On Feb. 19-20, the Academic Senate and the Office of the Provost will co-sponsor a retreat in Huntington Beach to brainstorm ideas for The Living University. Faculty members, administrators and staff will be involved in identifying and prioritizing initiatives for change.
Capron, a globally recognized expert in health policy and medical ethics who teaches at the USC Gould School of Law and the Keck School of Medicine of USC, said making the university’s campuses more vibrant and sustainable will bring an extra dimension to USC and propel it forward.
“Being in Los Angeles is a unique strength, and people coming to USC value the fact that they have 100 neighborhoods to choose from,” he said. “There are so many different environments in Los Angeles.”
The downside is that faculty and staff are scattered across Southern California. Often, they are thwarted by traffic from coming to campus for extracurricular activities, he said. “Our history means that we haven’t had the out-of-classroom collegial relationships that occur more readily at some other institutions,” Capron said.
If there is a more vibrant culture to attract faculty and staff to live close to campus, the result “will be a virtuous cycle,” he said, making the university even more engaged in Los Angeles and more attractive to employees.
The Living University expands the definition of what we seek in a university, he said. “Of course, we’ll still want to emphasize outstanding teachers, world-class research, a diverse and highly capable student body and excellent and efficient services and facilities,” he said. “This initiative just speaks to growing and developing a university culture.”
Capron, who has lived in Silver Lake and Santa Monica during his 25 years of teaching at USC, recently spent four years in Geneva, Switzerland while working as the director of ethics, trade, human rights and health law at the World Health Organization.
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