On the morning of Thursday, May 15, a few hours before USC’s main Commencement ceremonies at the L.A. Coliseum, the USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study inducted its 22 newest fellows in a ceremony in Doheny Memorial Library.
USC Libraries dean Melissa Just welcomed the inductees and a supportive crowd of family members and friends to the ceremony by describing why the Academy offers a special home for university students: “The Academy remains wonderfully unique. It has no peer at any other college or university. Where else can students from across USC—including students in computer science, media studies, philosophy, psychology, and public policy and with many different life experiences—get together to design and build a chatbot? How else could our students gather together for a weekend retreat on Catalina Island to discuss the philosophy of sound and what it means to share ideas—and truly learn from each other?”
Academy director Tara McPherson, a professor in the USC School of Cinematic Arts, congratulated the students for their work over the past year: “Harman students are the kind of students who spend spring break talking about complex ideas. They draw connections between disciplines that don’t often speak to each other. The faculty are there to frame the conversations, but the real intellectual work takes place among the students. They come together from different majors, different life experiences, and different belief systems, and their thinking and insights bring us all together in powerful ways. They are truly polymathic and curious about the world.”
McPherson applauded the students’ achievements, addressing them directly: “What makes each of you so impressive is your deep love of learning, the joy you find in intellectual pursuits, and your eagerness to think about life’s meaning and your place in the world.”
The new fellows are:
Georgia Helena Burki
Chase Leyton Davidson
Will Dolan
Jaiv Doshi
Paulina Flores
Linda Gist
Sachin Kumar Gupta
Katelyn Sara Hsu
Audrey Joachim
Ava Kalenze
Sophia Mager
Robert Joseph Miles III
Anna Ruitong Ng
Caleb Palka
Liam Rafaty
Yana Savitsky
Kristina Shea
Michael James Sipes
Isadora Swann
Isabella Gonzalez Villarreal
Major Yang
Rikke (Kuan-Lu) Yeh
As part of the ceremony, several newly inducted Academy Fellows spoke about their time at the Academy.
Isadora Swann ’25 (Dramatic Arts, NGOs and Social Change) described how “The academy has provided us a space to collaborate, be curious about one another’s specialties and stretch our imaginations and hearts. Within this room, all is possible, and as we graduate today and are inducted into this incredible academy, it is my wish that each of us carries with us the empathy, compassion, and resilience it takes to look past differences in perspective, language, history, or educational background. May we all embrace the pillars of the academy: critical and integrative thinking, appreciation for the polymaths before us, the tapestry of humanity, and rich communication.”
Finally, McPherson was joined by Academy director of programs Karin Huebner, Ahmanson Lab director Curtis Fletcher, and professor of philosophy and English Ed McCann to present the inductees with certificates and academic stoles.