Stronger Than I Found It
Reflections on My DRP Presidency
The night before the final symposium of my term as president of USC’s Directed Reading Program, I was putting certificates in presentation order. I had designed and printed them myself, and now I was arranging them so that, when each group finished speaking the next evening, I could hand everyone their certificate without making them wait. At the start of my term, I could have changed almost everything about the program. This was one of the things I chose to do with that freedom.
I first came to DRP in the fall of my third PhD year, when Lily, who had been in my Calculus III and Linear Algebra discussions, invited me to her presentation. The program brought students together to read mathematics throughout a semester, then share what they had learned at a symposium. I knew about it, but I had never been involved. So I went to the fourth floor of KAP Hall to hear her speak. She did a wonderful job, and afterward, I stayed for the other talks. The evening was organized like a small mathematical workshop, with food nearby and one group after another sharing something they had spent weeks trying to understand. I had come because I knew one of the speakers; by the end, I wanted to be part of what had brought them all there. I loved it.
The following spring, Will, another student from my discussion sections, asked me about opportunities to explore research. Around the same time, Brian Fan, the DRP president, was recruiting mentors, so I asked Will whether he would like to join with me. He agreed, and we spent the semester reading statistics together, beginning with the material he was studying in his course. On the form, we were a mentor and a mentee. In our meetings, I thought of us as collaborators.
I had already questioned the word apprenticeship when I encountered it in a departmental description of academic advising. It seemed to settle too much before two people had even begun working together, as though one would possess the knowledge and the other could only receive it. Where, in that picture, was the room for an unexpected question to change the direction of both? In “The Purest Form of Being an Educator”, I wrote: “I’ve never seen the relationship with my students/mentees as an apprenticeship, and I never will. We’re equals, and I’m not the authority.” Equality leaves room for differences in experience, but I resist allowing those differences to prescribe the whole relationship. Just like any great human connection, it should have the chance to develop before its name tells us what it can become.
When Will opened the spring symposium with a presentation on analysis of variance, I stayed for all the talks again, before heading back to Santa Monica. I really enjoyed them. By the time the opportunity came to run for DRP president, I wanted to help make that experience possible for others. I finally took over in my fourth PhD year. Brian gave me access to the website and explained what he had learned, including why he had changed arrangements that had not worked well. His detailed answers gave me something more useful than a set of instructions: reasons. I could understand the decisions I was inheriting, and he left me free to make my own.
I am usually drawn to that freedom. In teaching, I have often wanted to rethink the experience from the beginning, and I knew how to give the website a more artistic identity. But when I looked at DRP, I could see why people already liked it. I was one of them. More importantly, participants would arrive with expectations. Returning students knew the rhythm of the semester, while new students would join because someone had described the program to them. To them, a change I found exciting might mean losing part of the experience they had chosen. My authority to change it did not make their expectations less important. I did not want to let them down.
Therefore, I kept most of the conventions. Students and mentors would agree to work together, choose their reading, and arrange their meetings, with the semester ending in talks. I adjusted the dates and clarified the instructions while leaving the partnerships room to become their own. I wanted to protect the freedom I had enjoyed with Will, now for people whose meetings I would never attend.
That freedom was also the program’s vulnerability. There was no committee supervising the weekly meetings, and I had no wish to sit above them asking everyone to report their progress. At the same time, I knew some partnerships in previous semesters had ended when people stopped showing up. When everything around a voluntary program felt casual, I worried that people could mistake flexibility for an absence of commitment. As president, my voice helped set the tone for the whole program. Since the meetings already supplied the informality, I wanted to strike a balance by bringing more formality to the website, the recruiting messages, the forms, and the check-ins. I could not make the meetings meaningful on their behalf, but I could make the program around them dependable. Participants should feel that their questions would be answered, their effort would be recognized, and the experience would lead somewhere.
At first, professionalism seemed to describe what I was doing. But it could not explain why I behaved so differently in my discussion sections. As a TA, I write mathematical poems, draw cats on formula sheets, and sometimes sing. I make a deliberate effort to be approachable because I know that a student can feel intimidated before asking a single question. A little playfulness can make it easier to begin. The DRP, on the other hand, needed a more formal presence so that its freedom would feel supported. I put deliberate effort and care into both experiences, yet found myself moving in what looked like opposite directions. Calling one approach professional and the other unprofessional would miss the reason for both. A carefully prepared class with a poem and an unprepared class may look equally casual to someone passing the door, yet one begins with attention to the students’ experience while the other leaves them to absorb the consequences of someone else’s convenience. The surface resemblance tells us very little about the care underneath.
In the Nameless Theory, I call the movement toward that underlying purpose proxy zooming-in. We begin with a word such as professionalism, then ask what we actually need it to accomplish. Clear instructions matter because they save someone confusion; preparation matters because someone has entrusted us with their time. Keep asking why those things matter, and I arrive at love for the people the role exists to serve. There is a difference between loving a role and loving its people. I could take pride in being president, insist on my authority, and make everything look professional without ever asking whether anyone was having a better experience because I was there. Once I asked that question, however, the title could no longer answer it for me. I had to look at what my decisions were doing to other people’s lives.
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That is why I could make my discussion sections more playful and the DRP website more restrained without feeling that I had changed my philosophy. In mathematics, different presentations can preserve the same underlying structure. Here, the invariant was whose experience I was trying to improve. The style had to answer to that purpose, even when it required me to set aside the style I personally enjoyed. Warmly professional came closer to what I wanted. The warmth was essential: if making the program more orderly also made people feel less welcome, I would have lost the reason for doing it.
During the first semester, however, there were students for whom even a warm invitation was not enough. They wanted to join, and I could not find enough available mentors for all their interests. After the general invitation, I wrote to graduate students individually, across cohorts, using their names because I wanted each message to be a real invitation. I asked people in person and contacted friends in computer science. Many were already stretched between teaching and research, and I understood why they could not take on more. But I still had to answer the students waiting to join, some of whom I had been a TA for. They had taken the step I encouraged people to take: they had asked. Now I had no suitable mentor to offer them.
Meanwhile, the groups that did form were working together wonderfully. I received no complaints, and watching them reach the symposium filled me with gratitude. I wanted to tell them, You guys are amazing. They were making time for one another and carrying their work through without my having to stand over them. Still, I could be proud of what they had accomplished and feel disappointed for the students I had never been able to bring into the program.
For the spring, I began with those students in mind. I spent much longer on the recruiting email. Mentors were also people whose time I needed to respect, so I wanted to explain what the experience could give them: a chance to understand advising from another side, a meaningful connection with a student, and recognition for the work. I introduced completion certificates and made the commitment clear. This time, more mentors came forward. One of the people I had contacted in the fall was able to join in the spring and ended up mentoring a former student of mine. I was glad I had kept the conversation open, and even happier that another student would have someone to read with.
Meanwhile, I wrote again to my former students. Many who had been freshmen in my Calculus I discussion sections were now approaching graduation. I wanted to share the opportunity with them, but as I wrote, I also wanted to say something I had never had a chance to say to the people behind the warm, anonymous messages in my course evaluations. The email was called “Opportunity (and Continuity).” After the invitation, I wrote: “Being your TA has been a privilege, and it constantly reminds me that teaching is never a performance, but a promise. If I could do it all over, I would choose the same paths I walked as an educator, and with every one of you along the way.” I ended with a wish: “May your critical points always be local maxima.”
By the time the spring symposium approached, we had a problem I was much happier to face. There were more presentations to accommodate. Brian suggested a poster session, but I wanted to keep the talks. I remembered Lily and Will, and the pleasure of listening to them explain what they had learned. Besides, someone could give a talk at the board without preparing slides, whereas a poster would mean another whole project just before finals. I did not want to add that burden at the end of an experience they had already chosen. So I extended the evening, beginning at five, with dinner and breaks between the presentations. Each group only needed to be there for its own time window, although everyone was welcome to stay.
With so many groups, I wanted the arrangements to be clear and effortless for the participants. I shortened the submission form and asked for one response per group, from either person. The presentation order followed registration order, so everyone knew the same rule applied to them. That made the schedule easier to accept, while leaving groups free to agree on a switch. Within their own time, they could decide how to present together, and I would keep an eye on the schedule.
Dinner, on the other hand, needed to feel easy, so people could relax between the talks and feel welcome even when they came alone. I kept it casual, with food in the tea room and choices that accommodated the dietary requests. People could take a plate and talk or listen as they wished. I invited my friend Erick, a math major who had already graduated, to help with the food and photography. I knew he enjoyed math talks.
The certificates had begun as a promise in the recruiting email. At first, I was going to send digital copies, but as the symposium approached, I wanted to give people something they could take home that evening. So I bought the paper, covers, and seals, and printed the certificates in the graduate lounge. The next evening, I finally got to hear what the groups had been working on and congratulate them together. After each presentation, I gave out the certificates while Erick took a photograph. There were more talks than I had ever had to organize, but the evening went super smoothly. Afterward, I shared the photographs and put them on the website. I also sent digital certificates to the fall participants and offered printed copies. I had thought of the idea too late for their symposium, but I wanted them to have theirs.
I was very happy that DRP had grown stronger during the year, and proud to hand it over to Louis-Simon Cyr, the next president. This time, I had been a keeper more than a reformer, and I was glad to have done that work. I’m confident Louis will make it even better. I hope someone walks into the next symposium to hear a friend and ends up staying for everyone.
Ivan Z. Feng
Sep 6, 2026
