Finding aid for the What Matters to Me and Why recordings 5366

Bo Doub and Lindsay Anderson

USC Libraries Special Collections

2021 May

Doheny Memorial Library 206

3550 Trousdale Parkway

Los Angeles, California 90089-0189

specol@usc.edu

URL: http://libraries.usc.edu/locations/special-collections

Contributing Institution: USC Libraries Special Collections

Title: What Matters to Me and Why recordings

Creator: University of Southern California. Office of Religious and Spiritual Life

Identifier/Call Number: 5366

Identifier/Call Number: /repositories/3/resources/3083

Physical Description: 1.25 Linear Feet 2 boxes

Physical Description: 74 Gigabytes 284 computer files and 3 computer folders

Date (inclusive): 2002-2022

Abstract: "What Matters to Me and Why" is a monthly talk and discussion series featuring USC faculty and administrators. The series encourages reflection about values, beliefs, and motivation in the lives of those who help shape our university. Presenters are encouraged to talk about choices made, difficulties encountered, and commitments solidified. Susan Laemmle, former USC Dean of Religious Life, started WMMW circa 1999. Claude Zachary, University Archivist began recording the talks on audiocassette tapes in 2002. When Varun Soni succeeded Rabbi Laemmle in 2007, Zachary continued to produce audio recordings until 2009, when Dean Soni began to have students create video recordings. Some of the recordings in the collection were copied from DVDs or downloaded from YouTube. The WMMW program was paused in 2020. The What Matters to Me and Why recordings hold audio and video recordings from the monthly talks and discussions.

Language of Material: English .

Scope and Contents

"What Matters to Me and Why" is a monthly talk and discussion series featuring USC faculty and administrators. The series encourages reflection about values, beliefs, and motivation in the lives of those who help shape our university. Presenters are encouraged to talk about choices made, difficulties encountered, and commitments solidified.

WMMW also represents a creative solution to an important and often unrecognized problem in the university setting: the separation of intellectual life from personal and spiritual issue. For some time, students have been asking for more informal contact with faculty. They have expressed their desire to encounter faculty and administrators as rounded human beings, professional models, and mentors. The people who shape USC, who teach students the ways of their particular disciplines, and who help them develop marketable skills also have a great deal to pass on in terms of worldly wisdom, moral guidance, and sources of spiritual strength.

At each WMMW session, the featured guest spends about twenty minutes addressing the topic "What Matters to Me and Why," and then the floor is opened to informal dialogue for the remainder of the hour. Just as there is no one way to address the topic, so there will be no one direction in which dialogue will proceed. The WMMW program maintains an arena in which people can talk about important, personally charged questions in an open, mutually respectful way.

Susan Laemmle, former USC Dean of Religious Life, started WMMW circa 1999. Claude Zachary, University Archivist began recording the talks on audiocassette tapes in 2002. When Varun Soni succeeded Rabbi Laemmle in 2007, Zachary continued to produce audio recordings until 2009, when Dean Soni began to have students create video recordings. Some of the recordings in the collection were copied from DVDs or downloaded from YouTube. The WMMW program was paused in 2020.

The What Matters to Me and Why recordings hold audio and video recordings from the monthly talks and discussions.

Conditions Governing Access

The analog material in this collection is stored off-site. Advance notice is required for access to the analog material. The digital files described under the series titled "Digital audio and video recordings" are publicly accessible via the USC Digital Library. Each digital folder- and file-level record in this finding aid includes a link to the corresponding USC Digital Library asset.

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Collections at specol@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Rights Statement for Archival Description

Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Claude Zachary, University Archivist, began preserving the files in this collection in 2002. Description of the collection in ArchivesSpace began in 2021.

Preferred Citation

[Box/folder no. or item name], What Matters to Me and Why recordings, Collection no. 5366, University Archives, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California

Subjects and Indexing Terms

Lectures and lecturing -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources

Speeches, addresses, etc. -- Archival resources

Born digital

Moving images

Sound recordings

University of Southern California. Office of Religious and Spiritual Life -- Archives

Box 1, Box 2

Audio recordings on CDs and audio cassette tapes /repositories/3/archival_objects/677678 circa 2002-2010

Digital audio and video recordings /repositories/3/archival_objects/677679 circa 2010-2022

What Matters to Me and Why digital recordings - USC Digital Library