Shared Reading Program engages students’ intellects

Shared Reading Program engages students’ intellectsJuly 26, 2004

Launched in 2003, the Shared Reading Program at Syracuse University is designed to bring new students together through a shared connection to the academic challenges they will face. In a recent letter to students, Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah A. Freund discussed the program; her remarks are reprinted here as a service to the University community.

Syracuse is replete with traditions-the University Lectures, the Syracuse Symposium and the color Orange, to name a few. Each school and college has selected a book or other materials for you to read before your arrival on campus. These reading projects will be discussed during Syracuse Welcome 2004 and in the beginning weeks of your classes. Each reading was selected to encourage you to consider important areas of inquiry. Through this experience we hope you will begin to feel a connection to your school or college, your faculty, your classmates and your University.

The Shared Reading Program signifies the importance Syracuse University places on learning as the center of our purposes. At Syracuse you will find a community of scholars with whom you will create a common intellectual experience and with whom you can feel comfortable and share ideas. We want you to reflect on a topic of considerable significance and in so doing on your own values and views of life. We believe that the process of thinking about and discussing this project with your faculty and peers will prepare you, not only for your days ahead at Syracuse, but also for your life thereafter.

During the summer, each school and college will send new students information about their shared reading program and how to acquire the selected books or materials. Reading assignments are as follows:

School of Architecture: Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities” (Harvest Books, 1978).

The College of Arts and Sciences: Henry Louis Gates Jr., “Colored People” (Vintage, 1995).

School of Education: Julie Otsuka, “When the Emperor Was Divine” (Anchor Books, 2002).

L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science: Readings on hydrogen economy.

College of Human Services and Health Professions: Paul Rogat Loeb, “Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time” (St Martin’s Press, 1999).

School of Information Studies: Kurt Vonnegut, “Player Piano” (Delta, 1999).

Martin J. Whitman School of Management: Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg, “Nuts!” (Broadway Books, 1998); and selected sections from The Wall Street Journal.

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications: Neal Gabler, “Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality” (Vintage, 2000).

College of Visual and Performing Arts: Tobias Wolfe, “Old School” (Knopf, 2003).