Alumni & Friends
Community Outreach
What can Andrew Cuomo’s language tell us about effective leadership?
Camilla Vásquez, Ph.D., Professor of Applied Linguistics, Department of World Languages
May 20, 2020
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, people around the globe are looking to their political
leaders for both information as well as guidance. In the United States, New York Governor,
Andrew Cuomo, is being widely praised by the mass media and laypeople alike for standing
out as a great leader in this time of uncertainty and adversity. This presentation
discusses five key language features of Cuomo’s daily press briefing that help enact
effective leadership in the face of crisis.
Social Connection Despite Social Distance
Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D. and Fallon Goodman, Ph.D., Department of Psychology
May 14, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has fractured social support systems and the effects of loneliness
will likely be magnified during social distancing, especially among those with pre-existing
psychological vulnerabilities, such as depression and anxiety. In this video, Dr.
Jonathan Rottenberg and Dr. Fallon Goodman discuss their work on a project to document
and analyze the impact of COVID-19 on psychosocial and physical well-being and work
to develop new tools and solutions to help vulnerable people maintain social connections
while adhering to social distancing guidelines.
KREMLIN DISINFORMATION AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Golfo Alexopoulos, Ph.D., Professor and Director of USF Institute on Russia
May 6, 2020
The United Nations Secretary-General stated that “Our common enemy is COVID19, but
our enemy is also an ‘infodemic’ of misinformation.” The COVID-19 “infodemic” has
involved not just false information and rumors, but foreign adversarial disinformation
or information warfare. In the past, the Soviet KGB pushed out false stories calling
HIV-AIDS a bioweapon created in CIA laboratories, and in recent years Russian disinformation
tried to instill fear of an Ebola outbreak in the CDC’s home of Atlanta. During the
coronavirus pandemic, Kremlin disinformation has targeted the United States and its
European allies, undermining efforts to safeguard public health. This research project
examines Kremlin disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to understand
its content, motives, and impact, in order to better protect the public health.
I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT VIRUSES, BUT HERE’S WHAT HISTORY CAN TELL US ABOUT CRISIS
Alex Levine, Ph.D., Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy
April 10, 2020
The crisis presently facing our society is unprecedented, but crises themselves are
not. Historical precedents—like accounts by Athenian historian Thucydides of a plague
sweeping through Athens in 430 BC, can help us to understand them, to shed light on
our present situation, and to cope.