Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/832212
58 CINEMONTAGE / Q2 2017 ACE, the Television Academy — where she served two terms on the Picture Editing Peer Group — and the Editors Guild on committees, panels and as a subject for the Oral History Program. Utilizing her roots as a teacher, Lillian is especially active in education. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and has been a regular guest lecturer at numerous institutions, such as New York University, Stanford University and Columbia College, Hollywood. Norman Hollyn, ACE, then Head of the Editing Track at USC, invited Lillian to teach there. "Her editing credentials were impeccable, so there was no questioning that aspect of her teaching," Hollyn attests. "Many great editors aren't great teachers because they cannot create those supportive, positive connections with students. Lillian, it seemed, could. A year or two later, I was teaching a class that was later in the curriculum than Lillian's was, and several of the students in that class had been in her class. Every single one of them had an enthusiasm and a glowing approach to their work that could not have been a coincidence. Their attitude and positivity looked very much like Lillian's." She also has plenty of practical advice to offer new editors, including how to quit a job without burning bridges or bruising egos. Lillian carries her commitment to education outside the classroom. At ACE, Troy Takaki, ACE, who is part Japanese, started a diversity program after Lillian's informal count found there were fewer than 25 people of color among the active membership of more than 400. She became co- chair of the ACE Diversity Committee, founded in 2015, as Takaki explains, "to create a more diverse editing community that includes more women and minorities." The ACE Diversity Mentorship Program, one of the committee's projects, builds on the original, almost 25-year-old ACE Internship Program, and accepts applications from any post assistant starting