In her role, Jones-Bos helps to foster the understanding of Dutch views while expanding Netherlands-U.S. relations. She oversees several government institutions and departments at the American Embassy in The Hague.

“Public diplomacy aims to present a realistic and favorable image of the Netherlands abroad,” she said. “I see myself as an instrument for many departments at the embassy to engage with Americans on issues that are relevant to us and to you.”

The course, taught by Mai’a Davis Cross, assistant professor of international relations at USC Dornsife, delves into European foreign and security policy operations, as well as the relationship between the United States and the European Union.

“It was a wonderful and unique experience for students to be able to benefit from the Dutch ambassador’s vast expertise,” said Cross, who invited Jones-Bos to speak to the class. “I always try to find ways to bring the study of European politics to life in the classroom, and there is no better way to do this than to have a European ambassador speak directly with students.”

During her visit to USC, Jones-Bos helped the students see the connections between the Netherlands and America: Despite its small size, the Netherlands is much more than windmills, supermodel Rebecca Romijn (whose parents are Dutch) and master artist Rembrandt, she said.

“Our goal is for the U.S. to see the Netherlands as a country with shared history and values,” Jones-Bos said. “We have an entrepreneurial spirit, believe in tolerance, openness and aim for sustainability. Economically, the Netherlands is very strong and a relevant partner in investment and trade.”

The second largest agricultural export in the world, the Netherlands’ strengths include creating innovative sustainable solutions for water management, energy, gaming and nutrition.

With a population of 17 million and much of the land below sea level, the Netherlands is susceptible to heavy flooding.

“Water has always been a threat coming from the seas and the rivers but it has become an opportunity [to help others] as well,” Jones-Bos said.

For example, the Netherlands has brought its knowledge and expertise on water management to New Orleans and the Florida Everglades. Netherland water experts also plan to speak with California authorities about water issues in the California Delta, she said.

The Netherlands has created dams and water draining systems to defend the country from massive flooding. After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Netherlands officials worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies to strategize how to prevent similar flooding. In addition, the country provided aid and brought water pumps to the area, becoming among the first countries to provide relief.

Jones-Bos also emphasized the country’s long history with the United States. As early as the 17th century, Dutch seafaring explorers navigated the Indian Ocean to discover distant countries and traded throughout the world including with America.

In addition, the United States and the Netherlands share some defense policies, with Dutch soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and in the Caribbean. The two countries also share views on peacekeeping and human rights, Jones-Bos said.

The United States benefits from several Dutch trade investments and businesses, Jones-Bos continued, such as The Philips Co., Shell Oil Co., Dove and Heineken. Jobs created in America by investments in Dutch firms and exports total 624,636, according to economicties.org. These economic ties place the Netherlands as the third largest foreign trade investor in the United States.

Students asked Jones-Bos questions that ran the gamut, from what her job entails to if she enjoys her career to why the Netherlands continues to support the United States even as its popularity wanes.

“It is very important not to forget old friendships and strong economic relations,” Jones-Bos answered.

She has traveled to 46 of the 50 states educating people about the Netherlands and is working to attract American investments in the Netherlands.

“We are very much in favor of looking at new possibilities of free trade agreements between the European Union and the U.S. because that could add to economic growth and create more jobs,” she said.

Priya Gupta, a sophomore majoring in international relations global business at USC Dornsife, said the ambassador’s visit and talk provided her with a new perspective.

“The ambassador inspired me to change my mindset about smaller countries,” Gupta said. “The size of the country doesn’t matter as much anymore when you have globalization, exportation, and the outsourcing of jobs and technology.”

The results of their study appear this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the most widely circulated medical journal in the world.

“We believe this is the first major study to clearly demonstrate that changes in air pollution exposure affect cardiovascular disease mechanisms in healthy, young people,” said Junfeng “Jim” Zhang, the study’s senior author and professor of environmental and global health at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Beijing, plagued by chronic air pollution, was awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics after promising to improve air quality for the duration of the event. Spending $17 billion on environmental cleanup, the government shut down factories and limited automobile traffic from July 20 to Sept. 17 to encompass the Olympic Games (Aug. 8-24) and the Paralympic Games (Sept. 6-17). Pollution control measures relaxed after the Paralympics.

“Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and the Chinese government had proposed to reduce pollution levels to be comparable to other Olympic host cities,” Zhang said. “We wanted to take advantage of such a huge intervention and look at what happens to people biologically.”

Zhang’s team, which included scientists from the University of Rochester, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Peking University in Beijing, recruited 125 male and female resident doctors who worked at a central Beijing hospital, all of whom never were smokers and were disease-free. The participants, whose average age was 24, visited the clinic six times: twice prior to the air pollution controls, twice while the pollution controls were in play and twice after the games had ended.

The researchers examined biomarkers for systemic inflammation and blood clotting, as well as heart rate and blood pressure. During the Olympics, they observed statistically significant reductions in Von Willebrand factor and soluble CD62P levels, both of which are associated with blood coagulation, among the study participants. Soluble CD62P and systolic blood pressure levels also increased significantly after the Olympics.

These changes indicate that exposure to higher air pollution levels are associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular problems. Changes among other measured indicators that support this association also were observed, although not statistically significant.

“Changes in cardiovascular physiology and inflammation contribute to the instability of atherosclerotic plaques, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke if ruptured,” Zhang said. “The changes in Von Willebrand factor and soluble CD62P are consistent with their roles in rapid thrombotic response.”

Each biomarker observed in the study has been related to cardiovascular morbidity or mortality in clinical studies, but few studies have considered how the environment affects the markers. In fact, it is only recently that population studies have linked air pollution exposure to risk for cardiovascular disease, according to professor Jonathan Samet, holder of the Flora L. Thornton Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School.

This new study offers important evidence that air pollution exposure harms the health of the public, added Samet, chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.

“This study shows how air pollution exposure may act to increase cardiovascular disease risk, supporting the more general findings on air pollution and this very important group of diseases,” said Samet, who also is director of the USC Institute for Global Health. “We need to remember that large numbers of people in cities around the world are still exposed to high levels of air pollution as they are in Beijing.”

The study underscores the fact that people’s health and the environment are indelibly linked, said Caroline Dilworth, program administrator from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which provided funding for the study.

“When air pollution levels are lowered, the health benefits can be immediate,” Dilworth said.

Other USC co-authors included postdoctoral research associate Jicheng Gong and Duncan Thomas, professor of preventive medicine.

The study was jointly funded by the NIEHS (1R01ES015864, P30ES005022, 5P30ES007048), Health Effects Institute, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection and Beijing Council of Science and Technology.

In 1990, at the beginning of China’s economic transformation, a large majority of Chinese people across age, education, income levels and regions reported high levels of life satisfaction: Sixty-eight percent of those in the wealthiest income bracket and 65 percent of those in the poorest income bracket reported high levels of satisfaction.

But life satisfaction has fallen dramatically among the poorest Chinese in the last two decades, according to the study, reflecting a growing unease about employment prospects and the dissolution of the social safety net.

Despite happiness parity just 20 years ago, the percentage of the poorest Chinese who say they are satisfied with their lives has fallen more than 23 percentage points. Only 42 percent of Chinese people in the lowest income bracket reported high levels of life satisfaction in 2010, while, at the same time, the percentage of the wealthiest Chinese who said they were satisfied with their lives grew about 3 percentage points, to 71 percent.

The paper, appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), comes on the heels of the revelation that the Chinese government has not released an official report about wealth distribution in the country in more than a decade.

“There are many who believe that well-being is increased by economic growth and that the faster the growth the happier people are. There could hardly be a better country than China to test these expectations,” said Easterlin, University Professor and professor of economics at USC.

“But there is no evidence of a marked increase in life satisfaction in China of the magnitude that might have been expected due to the enormous multiplication in per capita consumption,” Easterlin said. “Indeed people are slightly less happy overall, and China has gone from being one of the most egalitarian countries in the world in terms of life satisfaction to one of the least.”

Overall, life satisfaction among Chinese fell sharply in the early 1990s, bottomed out in the 2000s and has since recovered to about the same or slightly lower levels of individual happiness ­­– despite the largest period of economic growth in history and a quadrupling of China’s gross domestic product per capita.

The analysis uses a wide range of data sets on self-reported life satisfaction and is the first to track happiness trends in China over a long period (from 1990 to 2010) rather than using simple comparisons of points in time.

The overall downward trajectory in life satisfaction among low-income people in China, the most populous country in the world, is similar to observed trends in the transition countries of central and eastern Europe, and in both areas reflects the emergence of substantial unemployment and the dissolution of the social safety net, correlating to declining satisfaction in particular areas of life, such as household finances and health.

On one of the surveys included in the latest PNAS analysis, people in China were asked a general question about how they viewed their own health. In 1990, a majority of Chinese people in both the wealthiest bracket and the poorest bracket rated their health as “good” or “very good” – with only a 4 percentage point divide across income levels. By 2007, the divide in perception about personal health had grown to 28 points, driven by a decline in self-reported health among the poorest Chinese and an increase among the wealthiest.

“One may reasonably ask how it is possible for life satisfaction not to improve in the face of such dramatic per capita economic growth,” said Easterlin, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “There is more to life satisfaction than material goods, and there is an important policy lesson here for the Chinese government and policymakers generally: Among ordinary Chinese people, especially the less educated and lower-income, jobs and income security, reliable and affordable health care, and provision for children and the elderly are of critical importance to life satisfaction.”

USC’s Robson Morgan, Malgorzata Switek and Fei Wang were co-authors of the study.

The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism students – variously dubbed “Annenberg Ambassadors” and the “Annenberg Tweetforce” – sent out thousands of 140-characters-or-less dispatches on behalf of the conference. The annual event, held this year from April 30 to May 2, took place at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel and was organized by the Milken Institute, a Santa Monica-based think tank.

“The Annenberg students were incredible performers at the conference,” said Conrad Kiechel, the Milken Institute’s director of communications. “Their hard work, engagement and creativity enabled us to tweet from all 130 panels during the three days.”

The conference brought together hundreds of renowned panelists and moderators from business, finance, energy, education, health, technology, public policy and philanthropy along with nearly 3,000 audience members.

“I am incredibly amazed at the level of discussions I was part of and extremely honored to have been part of this experience,” said Stephanie Lavayen, a master’s candidate in strategic public relations.

Lavayen tweeted sessions regarding emerging global markets and the future of the U.S. economy. She said she found tweeting the remarks of former President Bill Clinton to be particularly memorable.

“The Global Conference not only elevated my awareness and understanding of the many complex issues facing our nation and the world,” Lavayen said, “but left me with the desire to continue growing my knowledge about world issues and contemplating solutions.”

The opportunity for Lavayen and fellow Trojans Niku Ward, Jacques Dubois, Lauren Gelbach, Kendall Klinger and Brenna Clairr O’Tierney to participate in the event stemmed from a lunchtime conversation held in early March between Kiechel and Jerry Swerling, USC Annenberg professor and director of the school’s Public Relations Studies program.

“I mentioned that, though we post videos of every panel at the Global Conference, I wanted to find ways to further unlock the incredible content,” Kiechel said.

“The thought that immediately crossed my mind,” Swerling said, “was we should be able to solve that problem.”

As a result, a partnership was sealed and seven weeks later, after divvying up sessions based on their respective areas of interest and experience, the USC Annenberg students were working in the same room as CEOs, investors and other national and international movers and shakers.

“They were able to hear from some of the best minds in the world about the latest thinking in those areas of interest,” Swerling said of the students. “On top of that, their tweeting put them squarely at the center of one of the hottest phenomenon in communication: the sharing of high-value information.”

Public relations professor Matthew Le Veque joined the students at the conference.

“Self-publishing of real-time content via social media platforms are part of the skill set used by modern public relations professionals,” Le Veque said. “For students to move from the classroom environment to the real-world environment and apply what they have learned is an invaluable part of their education process.”

First-year strategic public relations master’s candidate O’Tierney has a longtime interest in energy issues. She’s already spent a summer handling public relations for Shell Oil, and she has worked on an account for a biofuels enterprise.

“They gave us a ton of responsibility and freedom, which I really appreciated,” O’Tierney said of both the Milken Institute staff and the USC faculty. “Social media can go viral, so they took a big risk on us. I believe it paid off.”

O’Tierney said she spent the three days of the conference waking up at 4:45 a.m. and returning home at 8 p.m. She attended Tweetforce morning planning sessions and evening debriefings, as well as 12 Global Conference sessions. She tweeted some 700 dispatches via the handle, @migcenergy.

Kiechel reported that the institute sent out 5,379 tweets during the conference; he estimated that more than two-thirds of them came from the USC Annenberg Tweetforce.

Some of O’Tierney and her fellow ambassadors’ tweets were used by the Huffington Post as part of that site’s Global Conference coverage.

O’Tierney said she was tweeting so much and at such a fast pace – 59 times during one particular session that at one point Twitter temporarily locked her out, figuring her to be a possible spammer.

Undeterred, the resourceful graduate student composed her tweets in a word document. Once social media access was restored, she sent out the backlog. This, O’Tierney said, also happened to other members of the Tweetforce. Chalk up another, albeit unanticipated, learning opportunity.

“I feel like I have a better handle – no pun intended – on Twitter now,” O’Tierney said. Laughing, she added, “And writing in 140 characters is now something I dream about.”

Trevor Steele and Cara Lasala, two other USC Annenberg students, also tweeted the conference.

Kelvin J. A. Davies, James E. Birren Professor of Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology, and Enrique Cadenas, Charles Krown/Alumni Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the USC School of Pharmacy, received notice of the honor earlier this year from French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Grand Master of the Order, which oversees knighthood.

“Sir Enrique” and “Sir Kelvin” were decorated as Chevaliers (Knights) of the l’Ordre national du Mérite (National Order of Merit). The National Order of Merit recognizes both French nationals and citizens of other countries, and serves as a parallel to the Légion d’Honneur (Legion of Honor).

“I was raised on the legends of the French knight Sir Lancelot du Lac, who traveled to England to join King Arthur’s Round Table. In a sense, therefore, this is the fulfillment of a childhood dream,” said Davies, who also is a professor of molecular and computational biology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “In reality, almost all scientific progress is a collaborative effort, with students, postdoctoral fellows and nontenured research scientists contributing at least as much as the professors under whom they work. I should like to thank all those who have worked in my laboratory over the years, who have given so much and who have made this award possible for me.”

Cadenas, professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences at the School of Pharmacy, and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, said: “Today we live in a truly global community where international collaborations foster extraordinary discovery and development of solutions for problems facing our world. This great honor, bestowed on professor Davies and me, truly signifies the enduring scientific progress that our two nations have together made possible.

“I am grateful to many colleagues who have contributed to my work over the years, especially my French colleagues, Josiane and Pierre Cillard, Bertrand Friguet and Luc Montagnier,” Cadenas added. “I am also grateful for the extraordinary support I have received from USC School of Pharmacy dean R. Pete Vanderveen, vice dean for research Sarah Hamm-Alvarez and Board of Councilor member Gale Bensussen, all of whom have steadfastly supported my work.”

In his announcement letter, Sarkozy noted that the rank of knight was conferred on Cadenas and Davies in recognition of their services to France and to science.

Davies is among the world’s leading experts on free radicals and oxidative stress in biology, and Cadenas ranks as a top scientist on the role of mitochondrion-centered processes in neurodegenerative diseases, with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition, both Argentinian-born Cadenas and British-born Davies have long-term ongoing research collaborations with distinguished French colleagues and together have organized several international scientific conferences in France on the biological causes of aging and age-related neurodegenerative diseases, as well as nutrient-based strategies to treat them.

Davies and Cadenas were knighted at the Résidence de France in Beverly Hills. USC president C. L. Max Nikias, USC provost and senior vice president for academic affairs Elizabeth Garrett, outgoing USC Davis dean Gerald C. Davison, incoming USC Davis dean Pinchas Cohen and Hamm-Alvarez attended the formal award ceremony.

The two knights later will travel to Paris where their honors will be confirmed and bestowed at a ceremony at the Luxembourg Palace, the seat of the French Senate.

Established in 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle, the National Order of Merit  roughly is equivalent to the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom or to a Knight Bachelor designation in the United Kingdom. The medal of the Order, conferred on Cadenas and Davies, is worn on the left chest and features the profile of Marianne, the French national emblem of liberty and reason, and crossed tri-color flags suspended from a laurel wreath and a blue ribbon.

The 20-year-old political science major became the youngest person in history to complete the Explorers Grand Slam in April when he parachuted 8,000 feet to land on the North Pole.

In addition to that sub-freezing visit, the Explorers Grand Slam included reaching the South Pole and scaling the Seven Summits – mounts Vinson Massif, Kosciuszko, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, McKinley and Everest – the highest mountains on each of the seven continents.

“I was a bit of a wild child growing up, so when I was 12, my parents took me to Antarctica to climb Mount Vinson,” said Strange, who took eight years to complete the historic Grand Slam feat. “They thought when I got there that I would get scared and turn back, but I kept going. And since then I never really stopped.”

Strange, the son of adventurers Brian Strange and Dianette Wells, believes his affinity for climbing the world’s tallest peaks has a lot to do with his free-spirited personality.

“When you are climbing a mountain like Everest, where you are basically isolated in tents for two months away from society, you start to feel like you are in your own little world,” Strange said. “And for someone like me, that can really be a beautiful thing.”

The Malibu native also battles the fears that come with his death-defying passions.

“A big aspect of my training occurs on the mental side of things,” he said. “I always think about worst-case scenarios before I climb. When I started getting into this, there was a lot of pressure on me. People said I was too young or that I wouldn’t make it, and so a big part of all of this was proving people wrong.”

Though it’s a challenge to balance an adrenaline-filled lifestyle – which includes climbing, skydiving, BASE jumping, downhill skateboarding and surfing – with the academic requirements at USC, Strange wouldn’t want it any other way.

If anything, the Sigma Chi fraternity member sees himself as an international representative for the university.

“I have traveled all over the globe and to each continent at least twice,” said Strange, who also is involved in USC’s Structured Curriculum Program. “And yet regardless of where I go, I am constantly representing the USC colors. I may not play a varsity sport or anything like that, but I hope I serve as a symbol for extreme sport athletes on campus. Even when I was at the North Pole, I made sure to plant a USC flag in the ground.”

In addition to representing the Trojan Family, Strange uses his platform as a renowned adventurer to raise awareness about issues pertaining to genocide and Parkinson’s disease.

“Genocide and Parkinson’s disease mean a great deal to me,” Strange said. “Traveling like I have, I’ve seen quite a lot. And although they might seem very different, both causes are about people caring about people. If in some small way I can help, I will continue to do so.”

While the sophomore plans to pursue a career in politics or television after graduation, he hasn’t finished testing his limits outside the classroom. Next up on his list of daring adventures: to swim the English Channel and to scale Bhutan’s Gangkhar Puensum, which likely is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world.

“I view life as an adventure within itself, and I’m just on one big adventure right now,” Strange said. “It’s not easy being a college student and also having this completely different life outside of campus, but I don’t see myself stopping any time soon.”

As a Shanghai native, Wu has witnessed China’s growing demand for luxury goods produced by a company responsible for the high-end brands Dior, Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy.

Wu outlined factors he said were needed to understand China. “Within just one generation, people went from riding on horseback to bicycles to cars,” he said.

In the 40 years since former President Richard Nixon visited China, Wu said the country has moved from a bamboo curtain to an open door. Not only do millions of Chinese travel overseas – a number expected to reach 100 million by 2015 – but income per capita has risen from under $100 U.S. dollars in 1978 to more than $4,000 in 2012.

“China came from an era when there was material deprivation for decades, and obviously there was economic scarcity,” Wu said. “Up to the early 1980s, these were typical scenes, [such as] people waiting in line to buy basic things, food in particular. Today you see people queuing up for Louis Vuitton bags in Shanghai. China collectively is very rich.”

While the country’s overall economy has slowed – because of a decrease in exports and a slowdown in government spending – consumer spending, particularly on luxury goods, is on the rise, according to Wu. McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting firm, said that China is on pace to top Japan as the world’s largest market for luxury goods. The company estimated an annual sales surge of 18 percent, which would translate to $27 billion by 2015 – a fifth of the worldwide total and up from $10 billion in 2009.

“Self-confidence has risen to an unprecedented level,” said Wu, before offering cautionary comments about doing business in China.

“It’s wrong to assume consumers are homogeneous, especially not within the younger group,” he said. “China is not just one country but many subcultures, with varying [cultural] tastes and likewise for consumer goods.”

While the top 10 cities for retailers remain stable, Wu said distribution is by far the biggest challenge of doing business in China.

Despite the challenges, Wu said that the country will remain a market of growingly sophisticated consumers.

“In China, luxury consumption in the past was totally unaffordable, reachable only for the very top rulers,” he explained. “Today we see extraordinary pent-up demand and explosive capacities for such consumption, but we already know that the new generations will become more demanding and selective.”

His expertise was demonstrated on April 26 for USC’s National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Event’s Distinguished Speakers Series held at the USC Sol Price School of Policy. The 50-minute CREATE talk was titled “The Long Campaign: What Have We Learned about War and Ourselves since 9/11.”

“So much of what we do in counterterrorism is driven by the headline of the moment, driven by the politics,” Jenkins said. “CREATE has translated real data in a way that can inform policymakers and decision-makers about security measures, the allocation of resources and the impact on society of the things that we do.”

Jenkins started his presentation by stating that homeland security centers help in overcoming the fact that the United States “simply cannot protect everything, everywhere all the time.”

A former Green Beret, Jenkins was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security and served as an adviser to the National Commission on Terrorism. He stressed a measured approach to homeland security that respects the principles of the Constitution, emphasizing that the United States cannot become a security state.

“Terrorists aren’t going to bring down the republic,” Jenkins said. “Only we can do that.”

Jenkins provided highlights from his book, The Long Shadow of 9/11: America’s Response to Terrorism, which was published last year in advance of the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Assessing terrorist threats, Jenkins said that “the al Qaeda that we face now is largely a spent force. It still got a kick, but it is not what it was 10 years ago.”

Instead of focusing on terrorist threats nationally, Jenkins suggested focusing attention on individual communities. The large number of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, for example, has created what he described as a “stressed community” that is fertile recruiting ground for al Shabab.

Jenkins is not convinced that the Internet is a vital ground for terrorist recruitment.

“Certainly the Internet allows a lot of people access to this ideology, but that also means that it allows individual as opposed to group activity,” he said.

To advance his argument, Jenkins said that in the pre-Internet days of the 1970s, domestic terrorists set off 50 to 60 bombs each year. While instructions to build a bomb readily are available on the Internet, Jenkins said there are fewer terrorist explosions in the United States today than during that era. To punctuate that point, he recalled Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, a “lone wolf” whose attempt to detonate a car bomb in 2010 was unsuccessful.

In the 10 years following Sept. 11, 2001, Jenkins said there have been 96 cases of homegrown terrorism, but local and national intelligence efforts have foiled most plots.

At the conclusion of the speech, Jenkins answered questions from the audience, which was composed of faculty, staff, students and members of the security industry.

Erroll Southers, a homeland security instructor at USC Price and associate director for research transition at CREATE, served as emcee of the event. Jenkins was introduced by USC Price dean Jack H. Knott.

Interests and conflicts resonate on a global scale, such as the unprecedented uprisings that recently swept the region. Not to mention it’s the birthplace of three of the world’s major religions – Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

Launched in fall 2011, the Middle East Studies program at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences offers students a chance to dig deeper into the area through a major or a minor.

“There’s hardly a single country in the region that hasn’t been in the headlines in the last year,” said program director Kevin van Bladel, associate professor of classics. “The program provides students an opportunity to explore the area in a critical way from a variety of perspectives.”

Students can choose from courses in American studies and ethnicity, anthropology, classics, economics, history, foreign languages, international relations, Judaic studies, linguistics, political science and religion. Eighteen faculty members from 12 departments teach within the program.

For freshman Caitlin Wilhelm, the wide range of offerings in a variety of disciplines was central to her decision to select Middle East studies as her major. She said she’s naturally drawn to the humanities and is especially interested in learning about history, culture and foreign languages. The program lets her combine all of her interests.

“I love the spectrum of classes,” said Wilhelm, who has a second major in linguistics. “They allow me to get a diverse background in the Middle East and gain a fuller understanding of the region.”

In high school and middle school, Wilhelm studied Arabic, German, Japanese, Spanish, French and Mandarin. In the Middle East program, she intends to add Hebrew and Persian to her repertoire while continuing to build her skills in Arabic at USC Dornsife.

Wilhelm also is taking a course offered through the department of history and American studies and ethnicity called “Arabs in America,” which looks at Arab immigration and acculturation in the United States. By combining her language experience with cultural studies, she’s gaining deeper insight in her scholarship, she said.

“Having a background in the language of a culture is so valuable for understanding more about the people and history of the culture you’re studying,” Wilhelm said.

For example, formal Arabic and colloquial Arabic are different from each other and understanding the language offers a window into the culture, said USC scholar Sarah Gualtieri, who teaches “Arabs in America.”

“There’s a difference between the formal, classical language of Arabic – what you’d read in a newspaper or hear if you turned on Al Jazeera. Then there’s the colloquial language – the language of everyday speech. And this can differ between Egyptians, Palestinians and Lebanese, for example,” said Gualtieri, associate professor of history and American studies and ethnicity.

“I’ve seen how Caitlin picks up on these nuances. Some of the films we watched in class are partly in Arabic and partly in English, and I could sense her being drawn into the films in a deeper way because of her study of Arabic,” Gualtieri said.

The program also hosts a number of events that take learning beyond the classroom.

“Taking Stock of the Arab Uprisings,” a recent lunchtime discussion,  assessed the revolutions that have taken place over the past year throughout the Arab world. Students and guests crowded into a classroom to hear professors from USC Dornsife and the USC Sol Price School of Policy parse through the significance and impact of the events unfolding against authoritarian regimes throughout the region.

Shams Hirji, an accounting major and classics minor, attended the talk to gain perspective on what he described as a “once-in-a-lifetime” revolt.

“It helps to hear what USC scholars have to say about what’s going on,” Hirji said. “It’s a great filter about a real-world event.”

Hirji’s participation meets a goal of the Middle East program.

“We want students to interact with professors,” van Bladel said. “At an event such as the discussion on the Arab uprisings, students can jump into a live conversation with experts on what’s happening right now in the Middle East.”

The program also hosts mixers to give students and faculty an opportunity to get to know one another and make academic connections. Sophomore Ramy Rashad said one such gathering, where he met professor Laurie Brand, was particularly fortuitous for him.

As a result of the meeting, the two developed an independent research project for Rashad, a neuroscience major with a minor in Middle East studies. Rashad will travel to Egypt this summer and study how the presidential election to replace former president Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years, unfolds in Cairo.

Rashad plans to meet with a former Egyptian ambassador to Iran and Afghanistan. He also intends to interview civilians about the occasion.

Brand, Robert Grandford Wright Professor and professor of international relations, is Rashad’s adviser on the project. Their collaboration has been extremely beneficial, Rashad said. “The professors themselves open so many doors for us students.”

Study abroad programs organized through the Office of Overseas Studies housed at USC Dornsife also are a good way for students to experience the Middle East, van Bladel said. Programs are available in Jerusalem, Israel, Cairo, Egypt and Jordan.

“We hope our students will take every opportunity they can to go experience the region firsthand,” van Bladel said. Students also can pursue research in the region through other avenues.

In addition, the Middle East program is a member of organizations, such as American Schools of Oriental Research and the Center for Arabic Study Abroad – partnerships that give students access to additional benefits and opportunities for scholarship.

Van Bladel encouraged students to give their input on ways for the program, which was developed in response to their requests for more courses on the Middle East, to grow.

“When students have interests and want to pursue a topic related to the Middle East not found in existing courses, they should contact us and let us know so we can find ways to facilitate their requests,” he said. “We aim to provide a space for everybody interested in the Middle East to come together and learn from one another.”

For Wilhelm, it’s a chance to explore her interests in a program that will help lead to a career.

“Studying languages, history and culture has given me so many options to consider when I choose what I would like to do with the rest of my life,” she said.

The group will build a minimum of three houses and transport more than 2,000 pounds of supplies for orphanages and schools as part of the May deployment of Hope Force International, an organization that specializes in quick-strike disaster relief. The players will depart for Haiti on May 14 and work there until May 19.

Quarterback Matt Barkley and his family spearheaded the cause, which his teammates rallied behind. Fellow captain T. J. McDonald leads the list of volunteers joining the Barkley family.

The student-athletes can receive help to pay for the trip. Those who would like to make a donation can visit hopeforce.org

“This is something I’ve talked about with Matt since I was a freshman,” said Devon Kennard, who will graduate in May. ”I just wanted the opportunity to serve people in need alongside some of my closest friends. It’s going to be a blessing to those Haitian people, but this experience will be just as valuable for us.”

The Trojans will be aiding the Sous Savanne community in Haiti, which in many cases has been relegated to living under tarps as the only shelter. Houses, bathrooms and supplies are of vital importance.

The USC student-athletes know that this will not be a vacation, and they are looking forward to a week of hard work in a part of the world foreign to most of them.

“I have never been out of the country,” Kennard said. ”I have to get a passport. I don’t know what to expect, and that’s what is kind of exciting.”