Common Reading Program

The Common Reading Program Selection Committee is pleased to announce the choice for the campus-wide reading:

Enrique's Journey, by Sonia Nazario

Enrique's Journey has a study guide provided by the publisher, Random House. The guides are downloadable from www.randomhouse.com/academic. Search for "Enrique's Journey" and then open up its descriptive copy page. You'll find Reader's and Teacher's Guides links on the right-hand side.

Building on last year's common reading experience:
Like last year's selection: The Omnivore's Dilemma, we are excited to bring to campus a book that holds many possibilities for discussion and relevancy across the curriculum on the important issue of immigration. As the 2008 freshmen will be the class of compassion, this book will certainly be able to foster an intriguing discussion on that value, tempered (of course) with justice, partnership, community, and truth - all of which come into play on this hot button issue. We plan to, once again, make copies available to student leaders, SOS guides, academic departments and a number of services so that a true campus-wide discussion can ensue. We also listened to the feedback from students last year, which highlighted the need for a less dense, more accessible summer read while still maintaining a solid level of college rigor. We are hopeful that a balance has been struck with this selection. And the experiment continues...

The Selection Process:
All the nominations for the common reading were considered by the First Year Experience Task Force, which narrowed that list to four titles. These four books were chosen based on the criteria for the common reading program that had been circulated with the nomination form. A selection committee of faculty, staff and students then meet to consider the "top four books" and select this year's choice.