REDIRECT

REDIRECT

8452 school/unit website *
https://dworakpeck.usc.edu/news/social-work-alumnus-awarded-fellowship-to-expand-work-first-openly-transgender-elected
Story Headline and Deck – USC News *
Social work alum breaking transgender barriers

Tyler Titus, DSW ’20, is the first openly transgender elected official in Pennsylvania, and focused on expanding opportunities in government for the transgender community.
Body Copy *
The experiences, accomplishments and goals of Tyler Titus, who received his Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work in 2020, share a common theme: expansion. As the first openly transgender elected official in Pennsylvania, Titus (they/them) expanded the idea of who could be included in government. They also incorporated a social work lens into who government should serve and how. Following their tenure as president of the city’s school board in Erie, Pennsylvania and an initial campaign for city council in 2021, Titus won the primary election for Erie City Council earlier this year and is currently running unopposed in the November general election.

“I think social workers should be elected at every level of office,” Titus said. “We apply a human perspective to legislating people’s lives and how they can or cannot thrive. I hope to bring a social worker’s ability to analyze policy and budget programs, use data to inform systems, and take innovative approaches to addressing the ‘wicked problems’ of our community in order to create sustainable change for all of my constituents.”

Titus’ barrier-breaking accomplishments have been recognized with the prestigious David Bohnett Leaders Fellowship from the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. The Fellowship brings together a cohort of up-and-coming LGBTQIA+ elected officials from across the country for a three-week executive education program in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Titus is excited for the opportunity to collaborate with other LGBTQIA+ leaders and continue to create meaningful change in the community they love.

Fostering a learning experience at home

Titus has a long history of working on behalf of underprivileged youth, first with child protective services and subsequently in private practice as a licensed professional counselor. This career choice was inspired by their parents’ decision to widen the definition of family by fostering and adopting underprivileged children in rural Pennsylvania. The Titus family went from five children to 13 nearly overnight, and the experience changed their perspective from typical self-absorbed teenager to understanding the needs of those in the community who can be easy to overlook. By the time Titus left home, it was clear they wanted to work with youth who were in the foster care system and had suffered complex trauma.

“Your worst day is the best day that they could have thought of,” Titus said. “Watching how the systems were failing these youth that were coming through our house, and the struggles that would play out because of trauma responses, changed me.”

Titus credits the experience in the DSW program at USC with making many of their recent career accomplishments possible. The methodology of the DSW curriculum offers a rigorous, systematized and iterative approach to program design that challenges the status quo, which Titus found to be ideal as an elected official trying to identify and meet the needs of a varied constituency within established government structures. As part of their capstone project, Titus founded a nonprofit focused on transgender youth suicide prevention, applying the principles and processes they learned to create and implement more effective solutions.

“The design thinking approach was transformative,” Titus said. “I was able to analyze systems and policies from a whole new perspective, to ask simple questions that we, as leaders, often forget to ask. The process demands you show up and view things differently because what you thought you knew, you knew through a very specific lens. It’s both humbling and empowering.”

Gender identity not the focal point

While Titus is proud to have blazed a path for the transgender community in government, their identity is rarely a topic in their present campaign for Erie City Council elections. In fact, Titus is no longer the only openly transgender elected official in Pennsylvania, which pleases them even more. Instead, Titus is focused on the myriad issues facing the nearly 100,000 residents of Erie, and how they can improve the quality of life in this Rust Belt community where Titus has lived, worked and raised a family for two decades. They are paying particular attention on the needs of children across the community. As a parent and small business owner, Titus’ platform reflects the same concerns as many of Erie’s residents — addressing the needs of children, creating more economic opportunities and building a strong community that is supportive and inclusive.

Titus notes that while they do not often talk about transgender issues in the campaign, they appreciate the significance of gender identity not being the focal point for Erie voters either.

“More people see me just as ‘Tyler’ than as ‘the trans person,'” Titus said. “And yes, who I am is part of the elections in the sense that people are forced to have conversations. But at the end of the day, in my 2021 campaign, we had the highest voter turnout that Erie has ever seen. That means 30,000 people showed up to vote for me as my full authentic self. I’m looking forward to expanding that support even further in November.”

The post USC social work alum is breaking transgender barriers appeared first on USC News.

Trojans at the University of Southern California honor the many cultures and backgrounds that make up the Trojan Family by recognizing heritage months. As some of the most significant symbols of the university’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, these commemorative events are celebrated with community engagement, discussions, music, dance and food.

In April, USC held its largest Arab American Heritage Month celebration, with more than 200 people kicking off festivities at Hahn Plaza.

USC’s Bovard Auditorium had a rapt audience of more than 1,200 people when Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and creator of The 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones talked about the legacy of slavery and the ways it still influences contemporary life in the United States. The event was part of USC’s Black History Month celebration.

Nationwide, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is observed in May, but at USC, where 24% of USC’s undergraduate students and more than 16% of its graduate and professional students identify as AAPI, the celebration takes place throughout April when all students are still on campus. Pictured are members of USC Troy Philippines performing a traditional Filipino folk dance known as tinikling, involving bamboo poles.

Nicole Pompilio (left) of USC Dornsife’s Center for the Political Future joins students Gabe Romero (center) and Jamilah Muhammad (right) for a quick photo session during the wrap-up of USC’s Black History Month observance in February.

Student Syrah Johnson (center) competes in double dutch during the University’s closing celebration of this year’s Black History Month.

Trojans sported every color of the rainbow at Holi, inspired by the Hindu spring festival celebrated in many parts of southern Asia and other parts of the world with significant populations of Hindus or people of Indian origin. Participants doused each other with dry powder and colored water; some used water guns or water balloons, resulting in a fun, multicolored mess. Holi was presented by USC’s Association of Indian Students.

In October 2022, Noche de Cultura closed USC’s Latinx Heritage Month at Founders Park with a powerful dance by Danza Azteca Toyaacan followed by joyful music from Mariachi Los Troyanos de USC. The event drew more than 1,200 attendees, who watched performances, visited various community booths, participated in raffles, and enjoyed free food, desserts and aguas frescas.

Hannah Gardiner performs in drag as Daisy Darling during LGBTQ+ Student Center’s PrideFest in September 2022.

Amelia Jasti (left), Jazmin Gallegos (center) and Mel Persell (right) pose for a picture at one of the booths in September 2022, when the first live LGBTQ+ History Month festival since 2019 featured drag performers and a safe space for all.

Singer Alondra Santos performs with Mariachi Los Troyanos de USC at the Amy King Dundon-Berchtold University Club of USC at King Stoops Hall. Mariachi Los Troyanos de USC is heavily booked, with gigs on campus, at major city events and on television.

The post Heritage at the Heart of Trojan Life — In Photos appeared first on USC News.

Editor’s note: Title IX — the landmark legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funding — was signed into law on June 23, 1972. In recognition of this anniversary, we’ll be profiling Trojan trailblazers throughout the year.

A version of this story originally published on Dec. 2, 2022.

To some who knew her, Rosalind “Roz” Wiener Wyman was ahead of her time. To others, she was a stalwart, a go-getter and even an icon.

She was absolutely a trailblazer. In the 1950s, just a year out of USC, she became the youngest person and only the second woman elected to the Los Angeles City Council — years before the women’s movement of the 1960s or the enactment of landmark Title IX legislation banned sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funding. She laid the groundwork for the women who followed her.

But perhaps most importantly, to her son Bob Wyman, she was simply “Mom.”

“Looking back, I was probably in college when I realized how different my experience was and the extent of what Mom did,” Wyman said. “As I got older, I had a broader perspective from outside the house that this was a remarkable woman.”

The USC alumna spearheaded the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles during a time when few major professional sports teams played on the West Coast and brought a wave of other professional sports teams west.

But her contributions to sports only tell a fraction of her story. A dedicated public servant, she served on the City Council for more than a decade before becoming an influential voice in the Democratic Party, serving as chair and chief executive officer of the 1984 Democratic National Convention.

In a public statement issued after Wyman passed away in October 2022, then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Wyman “a godmother of the Democratic Party” who “nurtured young people, mentored candidates and helped elect dozens of women to office.”

One of those women is former U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, who served California’s 36th congressional district from 1993 to 1999, and from 2001 to 2011.

Iconic is such a great word for Roz, iconic to the city and iconic to women.

Jane Harman, USC Price scholar-in-residence

“Iconic is such a great word for Roz, iconic to the city and iconic to women,” said Harman, Presidential Scholar-in-Residence at the USC Price School of Public Policy and an honorary USC trustee.

“Back in the day, it’s hard to imagine how a woman could have done what she did. I can’t imagine another woman that I know, including the most powerful, that at age 22 could have done what she did.”

Roz Wyman: Early life, path to USC and political career

A native Angeleno, Wyman attended Los Angeles High School, where she was a student government leader. She became well known by the vice principal for regularly presenting “crazy ideas,” like bringing lonely students together for lunch mixers and hosting school dances for those who couldn’t afford country club gatherings.

After high school, Wyman majored in public administration at what was then called the USC School of Citizenship and Public Administration, graduating in 1952. A year later, she was elected to the L.A. City Council at only 22 years old, making her the youngest elected legislator in a major U.S. city.

While running for office as a student at USC, Wyman recruited numerous student volunteers and used her own living room as her campaign headquarters. That early experience would prepare her for not only her role on the City Council, but also when she served as acting mayor of L.A. She then led a campaign to create more parks in the city and became the first woman to run a national political convention.

Roz was a force of nature.

Nancy Pelosi, former U.S. House speaker

“Roz was a force of nature: breaking down barriers for women in California politics, while forging new ways to bring people together through politics, the arts, and baseball,” Pelosi said. “Her leadership helped draw her beloved Dodgers to Los Angeles — and my Giants to San Francisco — so that California families could experience the thrill of America’s pastime.”

According to Wyman’s son Bob, that love for baseball was engrained in his mother from the moment she was born. The story goes that his grandmother, originally from Chicago, asked the doctor one question when Roz was born: “What’s the Cubs score?”

“I assume that’s where my mother’s love of baseball was inherited,” he chuckled.

Bringing pro sports to L.A.

One of her biggest campaign promises when she first ran for office was to bring major league sports to L.A., during a time when the West Coast was still an untapped market.

“She always felt that major cities needed major sports,” her son said.

She contacted then-Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, who initially refused to speak with a young city council member from across the country.

“I didn’t quit,” Wyman told USC News in 2018.

Ultimately, Wyman was able to convince O’Malley to visit L.A., where during a helicopter tour of the city the latter saw the perfect site for a baseball stadium. O’Malley moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn, and the team played its first game in L.A. on April 18, 1958. A year later, construction began on the new stadium — not without controversy from the surrounding community — and in 1962 Dodger Stadium opened to fans.

O’Malley and Wyman remained lifelong friends, and when the former died in 1979, his family — at his request — gifted Wyman a key that fits into every door at Dodger Stadium.

“Tommy Lasorda would yell at Mom from the dugout,” Bob Wyman said. “That’s a pretty cool experience for a young kid.”

Her efforts also had a ripple effect that saw the New York Giants move to San Francisco in 1958. Two years later, L.A. received another pro franchise when the Lakers moved to town from Minneapolis, another project Wyman had a hand in.

Remembering L.A. icon Roz Wyman

In addition to Pelosi, other well-known political figures and celebrities paid their respects to Wyman on social media after her death.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Wyman a friend and “someone who made a real difference for Los Angeles and for Democratic politics.”

“Roz was a real force of nature whenever she set her mind to something,” Feinstein said. “Whether it was politics or dragging a baseball team 3,000 miles across the country, Roz had a passion that was infectious, and she really got things done.”

Tennis legend and activist Billie Jean King took to Twitter to pay respect to a friend and source of inspiration.

“One of my Sheroes has passed away,” King said in a tweet.

“Roz Wyman was the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council, at age 22, in 1953 and the reason we have the @Dodgers in LA. May she Rest in Power. Thank you, Roz.”

Harman hopes that Wyman’s impact can continue into the next generation of women in politics, and that Los Angeles remembers the icon it lost.

“She was my role model in politics,” Harman said. “She was just the North Star, not just to me, but to so many people.”

The post Trojan trailblazer Roz Wyman made her mark in government and sports appeared first on USC News.