From getting lost in Dwinelle Hall to mentoring 1,000 students, this Rhetoric alum is proving that at UC Berkeley, success is only the beginning. Service is the goal.
Interview by Ammie Giang; article by Ashley Villanueva
For many UC Berkeley students, Dwinelle Hall is a labyrinth of confusion. For Terry Allen, getting lost in those hallways was the first step toward finding himself.
“I like to say that I was admitted to Berkeley, but I was shaped and formed by my degree in rhetoric,” Terry says. “I found rhetoric through getting lost in Dwinelle. It taught me that writing and language were not just soft skills. These are hard skills that move people and change institutions.”
Today, Terry is an Assistant Professor at the USC Gould School of Law and the USC Rossier School of Education. He is a legal scholar, an attorney, and a mentor who has guided over 1,000 students. His journey spans the White House, the Ivy League, and the front lines of policy change. And it began with the distinct feeling of feeling "alive" on Sproul Plaza.
The Berkeley era: Beyond the degree
Terry chose Berkeley because it was the top public university in the country, and he stayed because of the "sense of mission" the campus instilled in him. While a student, he balanced a rigorous Rhetoric major with a minor in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, a combination he credits for his success in the classroom today.
“Rhetoric gave me the tools to build an argument through writing, but theater taught me how to deliver one,” Terry explains. “Rhetoric made me fall in love with words – the cadence of a sentence, the placement of a comma, the way language can sharpen thought or even soften it. Words have energy.”
“Theater taught me audience and delivery…not just how to say something, but how to move a room or move readers. At Berkeley, I learned to approach writing the way an actor approaches rehearsal…drating and redrafting papers in different tones, from different angles, until I understood how it would land with an audience,” Terry shares.
That sensitivity to language still shapes the way he teaches, writes, and mentors every single day as a law professor. “Writing is never just about an argument,” Terry says. “It’s about making someone stay with you long enough to feel it.”
It wasn’t just the classes that shaped him; it was the mentors who "protected his ambition." From Professor Brandi Wilkins Catanese in the African American Studies department to staff members in Greek Life, Terry learned a vital Berkeley lesson: “I did not get here alone, and I was never meant to go forward alone either.”
The work: Making research feel like home
Terry’s career is a testament to the Berkeley ideal of being "Fluent in the Future." His work lives at the urgent intersection of education and policing, a topic that isn't just academic for him, but deeply personal.
“I study the intersection of education and policing because, in my lived experience, those worlds were never separate,” he says.
While pursuing his PhD at UCLA and his JD at UCLA Law, Terry joined the Million Dollar Hoods project. His research helped contribute to a monumental policy change: stopping the arrest of children under the age of 13 in Los Angeles schools. For Terry, this was the moment research "felt alive to me…when I realized that the way to tell a story through data can influence how institutions understand and respond to injustice.”
“At Berkeley, success by itself felt too small,” he reflects. “You had to be excellent in service of something bigger than you. I’ve carried that with me in the way I approach my very own research, teaching, and the communities I hope my work reaches.”
The next chapter: A legacy of 1,000 yeses
Now, as a law professor, Terry ends every lecture with the same reminder to his students: Teaching is not a job; it’s an honor.
He is currently working on a book manuscript documenting the human and physical costs of school policing, specifically how surveillance shapes the psychological futures of students. His most proud achievement isn’t a publication, it’s a milestone of mentorship. This year, Terry will hit the mark of having mentored 1,000 students.
“I am obligated,” Terry says, “Not as something I think about in the abstract, but as something I live. It is my responsibility. Someone once answered that call for me when I needed it most. So I try, in every way I can, to answer it again and again and again.”
When asked what advice he has for current Golden Bears looking to create social change, Terry’s answer is simple: “The way you honor what has been given to you is by giving it to someone else. Don’t treat your gifts like something you should hoard. Let what you’ve learned become someone else’s opening.”
Terry Allen came to Berkeley to get a degree. He left with a responsibility. And in the present day, he is ensuring that the doors of opportunity stay open for everyone following in his footsteps.