Article

All Things Academic, 9 (1), March 2008.

What about a common reading program at the University of

Arkansas?

Sheila Burkhalter1, Kevin Fitzpatrick2, Karen Hodges3, David Jolliffe4,

Bob McMath5, Pat Slattery6 and Bob Smith7

“The practice of assigning incoming students ‘common

reading’—asking them to read the same book before they arrive on

campus—has gained popularity in recent years as colleges and

universities have sought new ways to improve the first-year

experience. Like similar public reading initiatives sponsored by

cities, libraries, and television and radio shows, campus common

reading programs rest on a simple idea: that reading the same book

brings people closer together as a community by creating common

ground for discussion.”

— Michael Ferguson

American Association of Colleges and

Universities (AAC&U) Senior Staff

Writer and Associate Editor of the

AAC&U Journal, Peer Review

A recent All Things Academic article on reading and life-long learning

(Fitzpatrick and Smith, 2007) sparked interest in a proposal that the University

consider adoption of a common reading program for incoming first-year students.

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This paper provides further elaboration of such a proposal developed subsequently

by the authors who wish now to share it with our community for possible

consideration and adoption.

Reading Program for First-year Students

Campus common reading programs have literally become quite “common”

in the United States (Ferguson, 2006, Lewin, 2007, Mantey, 2007, Twiton, 2007),

with program adoptions probably numbering in the hundreds at four-year colleges

and universities. Moreover, a 2007 survey involving 126 respondent institutions

suggests overwhelming satisfaction with common campus reading programs

relative to shared intellectual and community interest and engagement (Twiton,

2007).

In an earlier work (Fitzpatrick and Smith, 2007), the values of a campus

common reading program were described, and these values have been further

elaborated to include:

• Encouraging the exchange of ideas

• Fostering new appreciation for advancing reading “across the curriculum”

• Broadening campus and community partnerships and emphasizing learning

beyond classroom, laboratory and studio experiences

• Generating informed discussion

• Developing intellectual synergy

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• Assisting individual development of reading, writing and analytical and other

intellectual skills, including the understanding of narratives and their

influences on world views

• Augmenting individual storytelling abilities and qualitative research skills

The above features and values characterize many programs nationally and

were thus used as a backdrop in crafting of a possible plan for adoption at the

University of Arkansas—a plan that would not only incorporate best practices from

programs around the country, but also extend the power of common intellectual

engagement throughout our campus community. Key elements of the proposed

UA plan include the following:

• Selection of books that will promote intellectual synergy and the

galvanizing of ideas and conversations across the disciplines, including integration

of the selection with the possible adoption of yearly campus themes

• Integration of the common book read with teaching and mentoring efforts

throughout the first college year, including first-year experience courses, English

composition offerings (ENGL 1013 and 1023), an extended visit to campus by the

adopted book author, and possible local stage productions

• Broad engagement of community groups such as those connected with UA

staff or community organizations, libraries, and secondary school systems

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• Coordination with student organizations, especially those with on-going

reading initiatives

• Identifying and developing extramural grant and private gift-giving

opportunities that might lead to endowment of a model common campus reading

program

The following sections of this article provide elaborations on these aspects

of the plan proposed by the authors and offered to the UA community.

Selecting Books for Campus Common Reading Programs

There is a great deal of variety among the books chosen by colleges and

universities for their common reading programs. In the 2007 study alluded to

above (Twiton, 2007), 109 of the 200 colleges surveyed selected books different

from any other college’s choice and only five books garnered more than five host

colleges. The most popular selections in 2007 were (in order of most chosen):

Mountains Beyond Mountains: the Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would

Cure the World by Tracy Kidder, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-

Time by Mark Haddon, The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini, Long Way Gone:

Memories of a Boy Soldier by Ismael Beah, and The Glass Castle by Jeannette

Walls. As these selections suggest, the majority of books chosen for campus

common reading programs are contemporary works of fiction and nonfiction. But

some campuses in 2007 were reading older classics ranging from I Know Why the

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Caged Bird Sings to Frankenstein, from On Liberty to In Cold Blood. How did the

colleges and universities choose the books for their campuses to read?

The Twiton survey (2007) cited earlier asked respondents “What qualities do

you look for in books for your program?” The top two responses marked

“extremely important” were for books that:

• Students might enjoy reading

• Stir discussion

Also rated as important criteria were books that:

• Have literary value

• Provide perspectives on diversity

• Present intellectual challenges

Many of the nation-wide campus common reading programs list book

selection criteria on their websites and invite students, faculty, and staff to submit

via an electronic form names of books to be considered. Texas Tech University’s

Summer Reading Program Book Proposal Form is a typical example. Potential

nominators are advised to follow these “Key Book Considerations” in proposing a

particular book:

• Length (less than three-hundred pages)

• Interesting to students as a summer reading

• Relevant topics for incoming students

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• Potential for integration in other areas of the curriculum

• Cost (less than fifteen dollars/book)

• Any genre, but not discipline-specific

Also important in the selection of campus common reading program books is the

availability of authors to make campus visits.

Once members of a college or university community submit names of books

that fit certain criteria, who does the actual and final selection and what is the

process followed? According to Ball State University’s Freshman Connections

website (2008), the selection process has these steps:

• Suggested titles are compiled into a list and compared to selection criteria

• A reduced list along with synopses and links to reviews for each book are

presented to the selection committee

• Committee members identify their top picks; books on this narrowed list

are researched to confirm author availability and affordability as well

as book cost

• Committee members are assigned particular books to read; the top three

choices are posted on the university website for comment and sent to

Freshman Connections Coordinating Council

• The Council researches further the logistics of the potential authors’ visits

and makes the final selection

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At the University of Texas at Arlington a Conversations Team (OneBook

Program, 2008) solicits proposals for both a book and a theme taken from that

book that will elicit year-long campus conversations from many disciplinary

perspectives. The Conversations Team, which also makes the final selection of

book and theme, is co-chaired by an English professor and the director of academic

advising and student success programs. Other members of the Conversations Team

are the provost, vice president for student affairs, director of freshman English,

director of community service learning, director of the office of international

education, the president of the student government, and representatives from the

library, assessment, housing, and the First Year Experience (FYE) Program.

Almost all institutions surveyed follow this same practice of making sure that the

book selection committee has representatives from all areas of campus life.

Sometimes the members rotate; sometimes members of a particular selection

committee nominate their successors for the next year.

During our efforts to develop this article, we observed frequently the notion

of a campus common reading program being integrated into various aspects of the

academic life of a higher education institution. Thus, we offer some additional

thoughts on this topic—just below.

A Proposal For Integrated Efforts

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One of the most important reasons university faculty and administrators cite

for establishing a common reading program is that it provides students with a

shared intellectual experience, a “center of gravity” for thoughtful conversation

that, ideally, mirrors the kind of informed discourse that the university promotes.

In order for this conversation to take hold, common reading proponents maintain,

the program needs both to be situated in a particular course and, at the same time,

to transcend the boundaries of a single course or curriculum. The best common

reading programs are integrated throughout the university, so that different

departments, programs, physical spaces, and even virtual spaces “speak” to the

ongoing conversation about the book.

Indeed, Laufgraben (2006) in a recent work notes:

"A simple definition [of first-year reading experiences] is that

common reading programs are educationally purposeful programs that

engage students in a variety of in- and out-of-class academic and

social experiences. Despite this definition, a misconception exists that

these programs involve little more than selecting a book and asking or

requiring students to read it. In fact, many common reading programs

do consist of students reading an assigned book over the summer and

then discussing it with their peers and teachers when they arrive on

campus for the start of their first year. Yet, other programs have

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grown to include library exhibits, film series, theatrical performances,

and grant-funded faculty development experiences.”

One university with a particularly successful common reading program is

the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh (UWO), where the reading program is a

part of their larger Odyssey Program (2008). At UWO, all incoming students, both

first-year and transfer, read the same book, selected by a committee of faculty and

academic staff members, during the summer before matriculation. In 2006, the

book was The Mercury 13: The True Story and the Dream of Space Flight by

Martha Ackmann; in 2007, it was A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. The

selected book is the subject of the first assignments in freshman composition,

which at UWO is taught in courses called Writing-Based Inquiry Seminars. In

addition, the theatre department at UWO mounts a back-to-school production of a

play that is related thematically in some way to the common text, and first-year

students are required to see (and discuss and write about) the play during the

second week of the fall semester. Moreover, about fifty faculty members at UWO

agree to hold aptly named “conversations with faculty,” raising issues not only

about the common text but also about their particular fields and university

intellectual life in general. UWO students are required to take in some—a

relatively small but specific number—of these conversations. Finally, where

appropriate, different departments on the UWO campus have offered panel

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discussions and public symposia about issues raised in the common text. For

example, during a year when the common reading was Alan Lightman’s novel,

Einstein’s Dreams, the physics department sponsored a panel discussion on

quantum physics for non-scientists.

As in the case of UWO, we propose that all incoming students at the

University of Arkansas—transfer students as well first-year students—participate

in the common reading program. If the UA program kicks off in 2010, first-year

students would read, and discuss and write about, the common text with their peers

and instructors in Composition I, Composition II, and First-Year Experience

courses during the spring semester. In addition, under the proposed schema, UA

students, faculty, and staff would have the opportunity to attend on-campus

discipline-specific discussions about the text led by faculty members from a variety

of departments and to participate in literacy activities available through the

Arkansas Union, Mullins Library, the residence halls, and online forums

coordinated by writing instructors. An extended visit to the UA campus by the

author of the adopted book would also be planned.

Although an all-university program at UA might not officially start until

2010, the English Department and the Honors Program are committed to

coordinating a pilot experimental program starting in the fall of 2008 in which

students in selected sections of Composition I, Composition II, and First-Year

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Experience courses will work with a common book. Other dimensions of the pilot

program could include study of overall community engagement efforts, including

coordination with student organizations, as described below.

Coordination with Student Organizations

A basic tenant of Astin’s theory of involvement (Astin, 1984) is that the

more students are involved in both the academic and social aspects of the

collegiate experience, the more they learn. An involved student is one who devotes

considerable energy to academics, spends much time on campus, participates

actively in student organizations and activities, and interacts often with faculty

(Astin, 1984).

A common reading experience would afford UA students’ unique

opportunities to bridge the academic and social aspects of their collegiate

experience. What follows is a sampling of UA co-curricular traditions and student

involvement opportunities that could easily be incorporated into a common reading

experience to further enhance the overall student learning experience:

• Academic Convocation. Academic Convocation, the UA’s official

academic welcome for first year students—attended by over 2,200 first-year

students and almost 150 faculty and staff in fall 2007—might provide an

excellent forum for the introduction to and engagement of a critical mass of

first-year students around the common reading experience. For instance, it is

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not uncommon for the author (or a related speaker) of a common text to be

incorporated into an institution’s academic welcome as a keynote speaker.

• Hog WILD Welcome Week. Hog WILD (Welcome, Involvement,

Leadership, Diversity) Welcome Week is a calendar of events offered at the

beginning of each semester—providing first-year students with immediate

opportunities for connection and engagement to other students and the UA

campus community at large. Formal and informal discussion forums, which

center on the common reading, would be a natural addition to the Welcome

Week schedule.

• Registered Student Organizations (RSO). There are over three hundred

RSO at the University. The group emphases include: special interest,

service/honorary, governing, Greek-affiliated, international/cultural,

professional, and religious/spiritual. As common reading themes are

explored, connections with relevant student groups and their activities

should be considered.

• UA Distinguished Lecture Series. Student activity fees, the Associated

Student Government, and the University of Arkansas support the UA

Distinguished Lecture Series. One speaker per semester is selected by a

committee composed of student and faculty volunteers. Currently there is

no theme or connection between the speakers selected. Collaboration

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between the proposed common reading experience and the Distinguished

Lecture Series would allow for the simultaneous selection of the text and

coordination of the book author and/or related speakers.

• University Housing’s CORE (Community, Opportunity, Respect and

Excellence) Connections Program. The Faculty Associates portion of the

CORE Connection Program matches faculty and students with similar

interests to explore topic areas through a variety of initiatives and media.

The five topic areas include: Arts and Culture in Society, Civic Engagement

and the American Community, Engineering in Life, Wellness and Health

Professions, and Spirituality and Religion. Students and faculty involved in

this program might read the assigned common reading text, and then

faculty—from their disciplinary foci—would engage students in activities

and programs related to the reading.

• University Programs Video Theatre. University Programs operates a

video theatre on the fourth floor of the Arkansas Union. The theatre is free to

all students and faculty and shows newly released videos on a large screen

television with state-of-the-art sound. The films and movies offered through

this venue could be chosen to complement the content or storyline of a

common reading text.

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• Volunteer Action Center. The Volunteer Action Center seeks to engage

and inspire students through volunteer experiences for the enhancement of

their overall educational learning while providing awareness, support, and

access to service opportunities. Integration of a common reading text into

students’ pre-immersion experience and post-service reflection would add

value to the service work while simultaneously helping students to make

meaning of their experience.

As the merits of a common reading experience are considered, inclusion of

both curricular and co-curricular forms of student engagement will ensure

students’ ability to maximize their learning. As the common reading experience

proposal progresses, we will further explore additional opportunities for involving

the Division of Student Affairs and student led-groups and organizations in co-

curricular activities related to a common reading.

As we think about engagement in an emerging reading program, we do not

want to neglect interactions with our larger community. Let’s take a look at this

aspect of a common reading program.

Community Engagement

Scholars engaged, as a concept, suggests in the larger context—making a

difference and showing an interest in the social, political, economic, and cultural

climate of home communities. That may be a picture that looks dramatically

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different from the earlier twentieth century academic holed up in the ivory tower.

Nevertheless, the twenty-first century image of the engaged scholar is becoming

more attractive and popular on campuses across the country (Peters et al., 2005).

Whether engaged through “service learning,” “civic mission,” or “outreach,”

professional scholars are finding new ways to integrate their scholarship with the

needs and challenges facing local communities.

In the context of the engaged scholar, it is important to recognize that the

relationship between campus and community is reciprocal. Finding ways to

incorporate the community into the scholar’s work, reaching out when planning

campus activities, and continuing to renew a commitment to actively engage in

meaningful long-term efforts are all important in sustaining this kind of

relationship. In turn, communities consult with experts and scholars to assist in

planning, developing, and implementing a wide range of programming often aimed

at improving the quality of life while at the same time enhancing a community’s

cultural capital.

As we enter into a conversation about a common reading program, it seems

appropriate that we look beyond the campus and engage the larger community in a

discussion of how best to design such a program that reaches out to the larger

Northwest Arkansas region. Fortunately, the Fayetteville Public Library has been

working on large, community-outreach focused reading programs and may be one

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of several organizations that the campus can partner with in a joint effort to pilot a

community-wide reading program in the larger Northwest Arkansas community. In

fact, the entire public library system in the multi-county Northwest Arkansas

region would be a great collective partner in this type of community-focused

program.

While the specifics of the campus/community-wide reading program are in

their gestational stage, having a vision that includes as many community partners

as possible, not only broadens the appeal of the program but also its impact.

Engaging with partners in the public and private school systems, local businesses,

non-profit corporations, and a wide range of other local and regional organizations

(e.g., Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, among others) can only increase the

attractiveness of such a program. Can you imagine all of Northwest Arkansas

reading, meeting, and engaging in a regional conversation about the same book?

Creating opportunities for the larger community to engage in such a conversation

enables the academic environment to facilitate as well as experience first-hand a

learning process that takes us out of the boundaries of our classroom and into a

dynamic, inspiring, sometimes controversial, and often limitless learning

environment.

As the overall common reading program develops, another important partner

in the campus-community link could be the local high schools. Akin to the

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required reading for freshman composition classes on the UA campus, local high

schools could be encouraged to develop a comparable addition to their curricula.

A community-wide reading program could become a starting point for

conversation to help bridge the gap between secondary and post-secondary

students, teachers, and administrators. Establishing such relationships through a

community-wide reading program also opens doors for expansion of already active

outreach programs to find new and innovative ways to engage students across

curricula, age groups, and institutional boundaries.

One further opportunity connected with a common reading program relates

to extramural support that would assist in all of the efforts elaborated above. This

developmental opportunity is explored in the section following.

Opportunities for Grant and Gift Support

“What are you reading?” How many times have you heard that question? If

you have had similar experiences to those of the authors, you have heard it often.

Moreover, it happens to be a question that is frequently associated with

professional development events in one’s career (e.g., employment interviews).

Accordingly, the relationship of reading and professional development, especially

career development, should provide a wonderful “hook” in the development of gift

and grant proposals. In short, gift proposals for a common campus-reading

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program should have a “naturally attractive appeal” to professionally successful

benefactors of the University.

Beyond private gift development efforts, government agencies (e.g., the U.S.

Department of Education, especially through its FIPSE [Fund for the Improvement

of Postsecondary Education] program) and non-profit corporations and foundations

may be attracted to relevant grant proposals but with one caveat. Given that many

common campus-reading programs have already been developed, we imagine that

grant proposals to government and non-government agencies would probably

require educationally unique elements. However, some of the ideas proffered in

this paper might serve as a basis for such elements, and we offer our ideas to

potential grant proposal developers.

Summing Up

Summarizing this article, we have crafted a proposal for consideration of a

campus community first-year student reading program that incorporates best

practices of many parallel programs in the United States. The plan also includes

some novel outreach efforts for engaging the broader campus and civic community

groups. We ended with some ideas on possible development plans and efforts that

might lead to a permanently endowed campus community reading program. We

hope that the ideas and suggestions contained herein—particularly the possible

adoption of a pilot reading program in 2008-2009—will be considered seriously

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and that ultimately, the University of Arkansas will embrace a universal (i.e., for

all first-year students), significant and unique community reading program.

As is our practice at All Things Academic, we welcome comments and

constructive criticisms alike. If you are so inclined, please contact us at

bobsmith@uark.edu. The recipient (Bob Smith) will see that all authors have a

chance to respond.

Epilogue

While this paper was in preparation, the National Endowment for the Arts

(NEA) issued its report: To Read or Not to Read (2007). In it, the following

troubling observations are offered by NEA Chairman, Dana Gioia:

• The story the data tell is simple, consistent and alarming. Although there

has been measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the

elementary school level, all progress appears to halt as children enter

their teenage years. There is a general decline in reading among

teenage and adult Americans.

• Most alarming, both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have

greatly declined among college graduates. These negative trends

have more than literary importance. As this report makes clear, the

declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural and civic

implications.

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• With lower levels of reading and writing ability, people do less well in the

job market. Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of

employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement.

• The deficient readers are less likely to become active in civic and cultural

life, most notably in volunteerism and voting.

• To Read or not to Read is a call to action. The general decline in reading

is a serious national problem. If at the current pace, Americans

continue to lose the habit of regular reading, the nation will suffer

substantial economic, social and civic setbacks.

Given the above observations, and other information in the NEA’s most

recent report, what better impetus could one imagine for the institution of a campus

common reading program at the University of Arkansas? The authors of this

paper would echo: “Let’s get on with it.”

Bibliography

Astin, Alexander W. “Student Involvement: A Developmental Theory for Higher

Education.” Journal of College Student Personnel 25 (1984): pp. 297-308.

Ferguson, Michael. “Creating Common Ground: Common Reading and the First

Year of College.” Peer Review 8, no. 3 (2006);

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http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-su06/pr-su06_analysis2.cfm (January 13,

2008).

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Academic 8, no. 4 (2007); http://libinfo.uark.edu/ata/v8no1/default.asp

(January 13, 2008).

Freshman Connections, Ball State University, Muncie, IN;

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http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/articles/070607/7summer.htm?s_cid=rs

s:7summer.htm (January 13, 2008).

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http://www.uwosh.edu/odyssey/index.htm (March 5, 2008).

OneBook Program, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX;

http://www.uta.edu/uac/onebook-home (March 5, 2008).

Peters, Scott J., Nicholas R. Jordan, Margaret Adamek, and Theodore R. Alter,

(eds.). Engaging Campus and Community: The Practice of Public

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Kettering Foundation: Dayton, OH, 2005.

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__________________________________________________________________

1 Sheila Burkhalter is Director of First Year Experience Programs at the University of Arkansas

in Fayetteville

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2Kevin Fitzpatrick holds the Jones Chair in Community in the Department of Sociology at the

University of Arkansas in Fayetteville 3Karen Hodges serves as Director of Remediation and Retention Activities in the Fulbright

College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville 4David Jolliffe is Professor of English and Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of

Arkansas in Fayetteville 5Bob McMath is Professor of History and Dean of the Honors College at the University of

Arkansas in Fayetteville 6Pat Slattery is Associate Professor of English and Director of Composition at the University of

Arkansas in Fayetteville 7Bob Smith serves as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of

Arkansas in Fayetteville