Incoming Freshmen Get Summer Reading Assignments
Jackie Mantey: U.S. News and World Report/Academic Impressions
Issue date: 6/7/07 Section: National News
Many of next fall's first-year college students have thrown their tasseled caps in the air and are ready to pick up the sunscreen and surfboards, but there may be another item to put in the beach bag: a book assigned by the university.
In an attempt to welcome students to the college classroom experience before they even move into the dorms, a growing number of universities are dishing out summer reading assignments to their first-year students. The reading programs differ from school to school but commonly include group discussions during orientation weeks that continue throughout the fall semester.
Michael Arnush-director of first-year experience at Skidmore College, which started its summer reading requirement a decade ago-says the goal is to engage students early with a "proactive discussion of challenging reading."
Other colleges are giving that philosophy a try now, too. In Indiana, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's class of 2011 will be the school's first to participate in such a reading program. Their Common Read is intended to ease the intellectual and emotional transition newcomers make when they arrive on campus, says Donna Gustafson, Rose-Hulman's associate dean of student services.
"These students are starting all over again, and the readings will be a catalyst to get discussion started, make new friends," she says. "Also, this is the beginning of a new intellectual level on a different plane." The popular novel the Life of Pi by Yann Martel is Rose-Hulman's first Common Read book.
The themes of books chosen for such programs generally parallel issues students confront daily in news and popular culture, such as the Middle East, the environment, poverty, and social justice.
Here's a rundown of some universities' summer reading choices:
Case Western Reserve University The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler
The Working Poor discusses poverty in America, starting with the smaller communities that make up the whole of Cleveland (the place Case calls home).
In an attempt to welcome students to the college classroom experience before they even move into the dorms, a growing number of universities are dishing out summer reading assignments to their first-year students. The reading programs differ from school to school but commonly include group discussions during orientation weeks that continue throughout the fall semester.
Michael Arnush-director of first-year experience at Skidmore College, which started its summer reading requirement a decade ago-says the goal is to engage students early with a "proactive discussion of challenging reading."
Other colleges are giving that philosophy a try now, too. In Indiana, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's class of 2011 will be the school's first to participate in such a reading program. Their Common Read is intended to ease the intellectual and emotional transition newcomers make when they arrive on campus, says Donna Gustafson, Rose-Hulman's associate dean of student services.
"These students are starting all over again, and the readings will be a catalyst to get discussion started, make new friends," she says. "Also, this is the beginning of a new intellectual level on a different plane." The popular novel the Life of Pi by Yann Martel is Rose-Hulman's first Common Read book.
The themes of books chosen for such programs generally parallel issues students confront daily in news and popular culture, such as the Middle East, the environment, poverty, and social justice.
Here's a rundown of some universities' summer reading choices:
Case Western Reserve University The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler
The Working Poor discusses poverty in America, starting with the smaller communities that make up the whole of Cleveland (the place Case calls home).
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