Expand summer reading

Although the �shared intellectual experience� the summer reading promises for freshmen has great potential, the program would have a far greater impact if it were extended to the rest of the campus community.

This year, as part of freshman orientation, first-year students attended a panel discussion of the summer reading book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. The discussion was a new element in the University’s three-year-old summer reading program. Also, as part of the newly-expanded approach to summer reading, several professors in the University Writing Program plan to incorporate the text into classroom discussions.

Both of these efforts—extending the orientation aspect of the summer reading program beyond discussions with potentially uninformed First-Year Advisory Counselors and seeking to integrate the book throughout the year—will make summer reading more effective than it has been in the past, but the summer reading program still lacks any perceivable purpose and needs to be thoughtfully revamped in order to have the desired impact on students.

One of the stated goals of the summer reading program is to give all of the first year students a “shared intellectual experience.” The hope is that the students will have a common experience in reading the book and develop a shared vocabulary. In theory, the freshmen will be able to interact on a deeper intellectual level because they have all read the same book prior to coming to Duke.

If this idea is to have any merit, however, the program must be not be limited to freshmen. Instead, all students should be encouraged to read the book. That way the entire campus will have this shared experience instead of it being exclusive to one class. Also, if the discussion sparked from the summer reading is to have a place in the classroom, professors must also read the book.

Although incorporating the summer reading book into Writing 20 courses may prove to be a good use of the program, forcing discussions where they do not naturally occur would be detrimental to intellectual life on campus. If the themes and ideas brought up in the summer reading book are relevant to a Writing 20 course, or any other course for that matter, than by all means they should be discussed. One of the selling points about Writing 20, however, is the variety of themes offered, and the summer reading book is not going to fit seamlessly into all Writing 20 courses.

That said, having a common text that the entire University has read could do a lot to foster discussion in a number of areas—both academically and socially. The books should have relevance to a number of subjects, and professors and students should be able to pull the book into a lot of different disciplines. The books should function as an important reference that can be approached from a number of different directions. The books should inspire meaningful political and social dialogue on campus.

The University’s efforts to improve this program, which has a lot of potential, are respectable. In future years, however, the administration should try to create a program with a farther-reaching impact for the entire University. Otherwise, summer reading contributes little to the intellectual environment on campus.