CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
for the 10th Annual Harman Academy for Polymathic Study
Student Retreat on Catalina Island
at the
USC Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability
March 13 - 15, 2026
(first weekend of Spring Break)
and / or
The Dilemma of Coexistence and Incompatibility
The USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study is excited to welcome students to the Spring 2026 Catalina Student Retreat.
At the core of this year’s theme, and / or, is a question of what (or who) can co-exist and what cannot. In an age of incredible creation and contention, we are constantly considering, challenging, and constructing boundaries both abstract and material. Can these boundaries be blurred, or are they fundamentally impermeable? The normalization of artificial intelligence and the explosion of social media compels us to wonder whether these advanced forms of technology are compatible with what makes us human, or whether there really is a point of no return. The animated polarization of politics forces us to confront issues of inclusion and exclusion in the case of physical borders and issues of tolerance and intolerance in the case of ideological ones. The porous membrane between reality and fiction in literature pushes us to wonder how imagination shapes our world. In quantum physics, the categories we conveniently built—solid, definite, and predictable—fracture at the smallest scales, where behavior no longer obeys the boundaries we draw. And in neural architectures, the line between human reasoning and machine inference flickers, as if the two are beginning to think through one another.
Over the course of this retreat, we will interrogate these and other questions with rigor and empathy, employing perspectives that span numerous areas of study in sessions and workshops. And in reconciling seemingly oppositional fields, we will collectively examine what is to be reconciled, what is to always be opposed, and what exists in the liminal spaces, the in-betweens…
APPLICATIONS ARE DUE MONDAY FEBRUARY 9th 11:59 PM PST
TO APPLY click HERE
POLYMATHIC STUDENT RETREAT CONCEPT
The Harman Academy offers a variety of programming that encourages an integrative approach to problem-solving that draws from across the disciplines. The annual Student Retreat lets students take the lead in identifying a topic for discussion and in formulating a weekend retreat at USC’s Catalina facilities. In spring 2016, twenty-five students grappled with a variety of issues under the rubric, “Narratives and Environments” the 2017 retreat explored ideas around “Generating the Future” the 2018 retreat approached “Perception” as a polymathic concept, and our last retreat interrogated “Consonance and Dissonance” as the framework for inquiry.
At these retreats, students and more than a dozen faculty discuss and interrogate multiple modes of inquiry through structured daytime and evening sessions, outdoor activities such as kayaking, hiking, and games, and late-night continuing vibrant discussions. All events are free for USC students.
If you have any questions about the retreat application, please feel free to reach out to Dr. Karin Huebner at khuebner@usc.edu
This program is open to all eligible individuals. USC operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.