The Washburn campus in Topeka is about 200 miles from Smith Center, Kansas, where New York Times sportswriter Joe Drape moved with his family to get a community perspective on the small town football team with the nation’s longest high-school winning streak. The author is slated to speak at Washburn in September 2012.

The iRead common reading program is one component of Washburn’s First Year Experience curriculum. First-year students will read the book in IS 110: The Washburn Experience, a student success course that focuses on focuses upon information literacy, effective communication, academic integrity, and the transition into the college experience.

The broader goals of the iRead program are to:

• Enhance the campus community
• Uphold the university mission of “learning for a lifetime”
• Advocate the goals of the Washburn Transformational Experience
• Create a common experience for students
• Foster involvement and inclusivity as early as possible
• Enrich and expand the minds of students

Previous iRead books at Washburn include A Long Way Gone, Nickel and Dimed, and This I Believe. Click here to see the other schools that have adopted these books and other Popular Picks from Macmillan!

Our Boys • St. Martin’s Griffin • 320 pages

The book will be assigned reading in all sections of FYSS, a college transition course that most new students take in the fall semester. Though sections of the course are based on an array of interdisciplinary topics, appealing to a student body with broad academic interests, the book will be the common thread that links the whole class together.

Students will be asked to consider what lessons might be learned from these two “worlds” of service [military and humanitarian], as well as how they can make an impact on the world as college students.

—‘On the Way to War’ Author Speaks to SUNY Potsdam Freshman

The First Year Experience (FYE) program also has a Residential Life component; students enrolled in the same FYSS will live together on the same floor in one of two dorms. This way, freshman students making the transition to university life and academics can “go through it all together” with their peers. Students will also have the support of upperclassmen who live on each FYE floor and serve both as Academic Peer Mentors, providing general academic guidance, and as FYSS Teaching Assistants.

Rye Barcott will visit campus to speak on October 12.

Previously, P.M. Forni’s Choosing Civility was the common book at SUNY, Potsdam. Click here to see all the schools that have adopted these titles and other Popular Picks for first-year reading from Macmillan.

It Happened On the Way to War • Bloomsbury • 352 pages

Members of Class of 2015 are reading the novel before they arrive on campus for CAU Experience, the new student orientation program, which begins on August 17.  The author will facilitate several discussion sessions about this year’s book on campus during CAU Experience.

Throughout the school year, students will continue to discuss and write about Perfect Peace in the two-semester First Year Seminar, which is a required course for all new students.  The First Year Seminar at CAU “assist[s] students with the transition to the University . . . It also focuses on academic, personal and social issues relevant to college life.”

In previous years, the university has assigned other works by Daniel Black, including They Tell Me of a Home and The Sacred Place for the First-Year Seminar required reading. Dr. Black is an Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and Africana Women’s Studies at CAU, where he studied English as an undergraduate himself.

Perfect Peace • St. Martin’s Press • 352 pages

Class Matters was selected by Bryn Mawr’s Diversity Leadership Group, writes Michele A. Rasmussen, Dean of the Undergraduate College. The Diversity Leadership Group is “a committee of senior administrators and faculty [who] devise campus-wide diversity programming. Members of the committee were familiar with the book and thought it would be a particularly good choice for our students.”

The college purchased copies of Class Matters for the first-year class with a gift from Bryn Mawr’s Alumnae Association, which is also spreading the word about the book and encouraging its members to participate.

In fact, Bryn Mawr aims to involve as much of the college community as possible in this inaugural shared reading experience by “ask[ing] members of the campus community to suggest activities focused on the reading.” The college’s goal is to sustain an interdisciplinary conversation about socioeconomic class and its influences on individuals and society on campus throughout the 2011-2012 academic year.

That ongoing conversation and other related programming will evolve alongside the Diversity Leadership Group and Diversity Council’s year-long Class Dismissed? initiative. With a film series, collaborative community projects, on-campus speakers, and the common reading of Class Matters,  Class Dismissed? will serve as a platform for community engagement, awareness, and action related to the topic of socioeconomic class.

Class Matters • Times Books • 288 pages

First-year students will read, discuss, and write about the book in Freshman Composition; adoptions are also anticipated in other courses, especially those emphasizing rhetoric and composition, environmental studies, and sustainability (the university approved an interdisciplinary undergraduate Minor in Sustainability in April).

“[No Impact Man] has a rich personal narrative that is driven by conflict, both internal—within the author’s mind—and external—with his immediate and extended families and with consumer-driven society at large—making it a compelling read.”

—Raina Smith Lyons, Interim Director of the Program in Rhetoric and Composition and One Book, One Community Committee Member

Colin Beavan will visit in October to speak with students and faculty and deliver a public lecture on campus, and also meet with local book club members at the Fayetteville Public Library, which will be collaborating with the university on the OBOC program for the third year.

“The One Book committee wanted [a book] that could tap into students’ concern about the environment [and] the university’s and community’s sustainability efforts . . . We received a number of really excellent suggestions from the campus and the community, and I think we’ve found a book that will educate, entertain and stimulate some lively discussion.”

—Kevin Fitzpatrick, Jones Chair in Community, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice and Co-chair, One Book, One Community Committee

Already a leader in campus sustainability practices and principles, the University of Arkansas has established a mission to reduce its environmental impact:

—through education of students and citizens about environmental stewardship and sustainability
—through research to develop knowledge and technologies that facilitate sustainability and improved environmental stewardship
—by committing to become a carbon neutral institution as soon as it is practical
—by committing to become a zero-waste institution as soon as it is practical
—by serving as an exemplar of environmental stewardship for our community, Arkansas, and the world

With support from university departments and services like the Quality Writing Center, the Sustainability Council, the Applied Sustainability Center, and Facilities Management, the OBOC committee is planning a variety of interdisciplinary and interactive events that relate to No Impact Man and the 2011 OBOC theme: Creating and Living in a Sustainable World.  Plans include a September screening of the “No Impact Man” documentary, faculty panels, visual art and design exhibitions (like Master of Fine Arts candidate Szilvia Kadas’s showcase, Small Footprint) and student action projects that promote sustainable practices on campus and in the local communities.

Read about other schools that have selected No Impact Man for common reading initiatives and their No Impact Weeks and sustainability efforts here!

No Impact Man • Picador • 288 pages

Students will read the book this summer, and they’ll have the opportunity to enter the annual Common Reading Program Essay Contest by responding to this prompt:

In your own words, describe the purpose(s) of American universities. Then, using some of the philosophical perspectives examined in Michel J. Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? decide if these purposes are just.

The winners, who’ll be announced in the fall, will receive a $300 University Bookstore gift certificate!

In August, first-years will return to campus for Welcome Days, a time for new students, and returning upperclassmen, as well, to connect and reconnect with the Case community through academic and social programming.

In addition to Meet the Faculty seminars, practical campus info sessions, a community service day called Case Connects!, and social activities like a Welcome Back Dance and an all-campus concert, new students will gather in small groups to discuss Justice during their first Share the Vision event.

Share the Vision is an ongoing initiative to “promote a just and humane campus for all.”  For 21 years, Case has been striving, as a campus community, to:

• support the worth and dignity of each individual
• respect new ideas and encourage examination and discussion of differing opinions
• appreciate and enjoy our rich cultural, ethnic and racial diversity
• reach for excellence and integrity in teaching, scholarship, research and service
• promote justice and compassion on our campus and in our world

The author will visit Case and give the keynote address at University Convocation.  Here, Professor Sandel puts justice in terms of flutes, golf, and same-sex marriage at the TED2010 Conference in February 2010.

(For a quick snapshot of the twenty-minute lecture, watch at 7:30-8:45 when the audience joins Sandel in a debate about the 2001 Supreme Court case PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin.)

Last year, the Class of 2014 read Elizabeth Royte’s Bottlemania for the CWRU Common Reading Program.  The book tied in with the campus-wide Year of Water effort, during which the university implemented new and enduring water conservation measures and was recognized regionally and nationally for its accomplishments.

Justice • Farrar, Straus & Giroux Paperbacks • 320 pages

Those discussions will be lead by Foundation Seminar faculty from all areas of the university.  Foundation Seminars are small, writing-intensive courses that focus on a wide variety of topics, mirroring the themes of Bucknell’s seven Residential Colleges: Arts, Environment, Global, Humanities, Languages & Cultures, Social Justice, and Society & Technology.

Whatever the topics, [Foundation Seminars] are designed to cultivate the attitudes, skills, and knowledge necessary for students to benefit maximally from a Bucknell University education and to negotiate the complexities of the modern world. The seminars stress active, independent and engaged learning, and development of skills students need in order to engage in intellectual endeavors at Bucknell and beyond.

—Bucknell University Course Catalog: Foundation Seminar

Every first-year student enrolls in a Foundation Seminar; the discussion of This I Believe during orientation will be the first opportunity for them to meet with their classmates and instructor.  Emily Burnett, Class of 2015, shares her perspective on the Foundation Seminar at Bucknell’s student blog, A Year in the Life

The book will also be central to SLIF 99: Transition to College, a required student life workshop lead by a faculty member and a Peer Instructor.

Beyond the classroom, Bucknell invites all faculty, staff and students to submit an essay or a video about their own beliefs for a collective university archive online. Ten entries by members of the class of 2015 will be awarded $50 gift cards to the Bucknell University Bookstore.

Provost Mick Smyer isn’t eligible for that prize, but he did write an essay and recorded a video about his lifelong belief in the kindness of strangers:

This I Believe and This I Believe II, both collections of essays based on the NPR program of the same name, are two of Macmillan’s most Popular Picks for common reading.  Click here to see the other schools that have used the books.

This I Believe • Holt Paperbacks • 320 pages

Update: “This I Believe” Essay Contest Winners Create Video Essays

Bucknell has named the winners of the “This I Believe” essay contest! The top essays are published here: What Do You Believe? Winning Entries

In keeping with the multimedia traditions of the “This I Believe” radio program, several first-years recorded video essays. Hear the students read their essays here: Videos: This I Believe

Now in its sixth year, the campus-wide Book in Common initiative has become a central part of intellectual life in and around the Collin College community. Planning for this year’s programming is just underway. In previous years, the common book has inspired community service projects, writing workshops, and lecture series. The college has invited author and veteran Clint Van Winkle to speak at their campuses next Spring.

Though spearheaded by the Center for Scholarly and Civic Engagement, the Book in Common is truly a college-wide effort.  The Collin College Libraries participate by offering resources and support to students doing coursework or research related to the book each year.  Faculty members have collaborated to produce an interdisciplinary teaching guide that contextualizes the common book in various areas of study.  Student Life offices on each campus collaborate on related events and activities “that exercise camaraderie in the student body beyond disciplines.”

The program’s District Coordinator, English Professor Betty Bettachi, has said, “The students get so much out of [the common reading program], and they have started to look forward to the new book, asking what the new selection is going to be . . . They love to read the books.”

Watch this page for more details about Soft Spots at Collin College!

Soft Spots • St. Martin’s Griffin • 224 pages

Incoming first-year students will read Picking Cotton this summer so that they’ll all have the book’s content and context in common with one another, in the classroom and around campus, as soon as they arrive at ECU.  That shared reading experience helps “orient students to the academic community by encouraging intellectual dialogue and critical thinking.”

The book will be assigned reading in courses throughout the ECU curriculum, including first-year composition courses and the Freshman Seminar.  The Pirate Read committee has identified five themes to encourage and help guide discussion, writing, and other coursework that focuses on Picking Cotton: evidence, sexual assault and gender power issues, racism within the criminal justice system, memory, and forgiveness and recovery.

A series of co-curricular campus and community activities and events related to the book is in the works as well.  The authors will visit ECU to speak on campus in October.  The Pirate Read will tie in to ECU’s own annual Take Back the Night program, a week-long initiative held on college campuses and in communities nationwide—and around the world—to raise awareness about and take a stand against sexual assault and domestic violence. Learn more about Take Back the Night

Since the first Pirate Read in 2008, a committee of faculty has brainstormed a list of books and made the final selection.  This year, the committee expanded their process, accepting book nominations from ECU faculty, staff and students.  And, for the first time, current students served on the selection committee; their input made the case that Picking Cotton would be the best summer reading material for their incoming peers.

All five of the nominated books were interesting . . . [Picking Cotton] was the favorite . . . We had students who came back and said, ‘I don’t like to read but I couldn’t put this book down.’

—Mary Beth Corbin, East Carolina University Office of Student Transitions and First Year Programs, Co-chair of the Pirate Read Committee


To be considered, nominated titles must meet the Pirate Read committee’s criteria. This year, the committee sought a 300-page book that an 18-year-old could read and understand without guidance, that would promote discussions among readers, that is relevant to current issues, and whose author would be available to come and speak on campus.

For more information about Picking Cotton and authors, speakers, and activists Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton, click here and visit The Innocence Project.

Picking Cotton • St. Martin’s Griffin • 320 pages

Each year, the Common Reading Steering Committee invites college community members, faculty, staff, and students to nominate books for the following year’s program. From those, the committee identifies a few finalists and asks the Penn State Berks community to vote in an online poll for the best book for the next year’s freshmen. The committee named Choosing Civility a finalist based on the following criteria:

The book should:
—Act as a bridge between students and faculty
—Contain themes for discussion which touch on many different topics
—Appeal to young adults
—Prompt inquiry, reflection, and discourse
—Be available in paperback
—Be lively and engaging reading (highly readable, not too long)

Incoming first-year students are required to read the book before New Student Orientation in the fall. During Welcome Week, First Year Group Leaders will facilitate small group discussions about Choosing Civility and its themes, especially in the context of the Penn State Berks community.

When fall classes commence, Choosing Civility will be a featured text in the First-Year Seminar course, which all new students take in their first year at PSU.  Among the seminar’s core goals are: to set every student up for success at the university level with study strategies, research skills, a sense of academic integrity, and an understanding of PSU’s academic policies and resources; to develop and polish students’ communication skills and establish lines of “communication-across-the-curriculum”; and to promote skills and positive attitudes toward scholarship and seeking knowledge.

Each fall, students everywhere are embarking on a unique journey . . . Not only will you and other first-year students be sharing the joys, frustrations and adventure of attending college for the first time, you will also be drawn together in a more intimate common experience even before you enter the halls of Penn State.”

—Why a Common Reading Program?, Penn State Berks

The Common Reading program also incorporates a university-made study guide, guest speakers (including Choosing Civility and The Civility Solution author P.M. Forni, who will visit campus in December), community service and social activities all linked to the book’s content.  Because the shared reading experience is a link between new students and their peers in the classroom and in campus-wide activities, the Common Reading book becomes the foundation for “an intellectual community among first-year learners, returning students, faculty and staff.”

Choosing Civility is one of Macmillan’s Popular Picks for common reading! Click here to see the other schools that have adopted the book.

Choosing Civility • St. Martin’s Griffin • 208 pages