What is the point of the UF Common Reading Program?
Colleges around the country have started similar programs that try to get first-year students involved.
According to the Dean of Students Office website, the Common Reading Program at UF is "designed ... to stimulate discussion, critical thinking and encourage a sense of community among students, faculty and staff."
That all sounds fine and good, but the books that the program has selected over the past few years seem so far removed from the concerns of college students that one has to wonder whether this program is accomplishing its stated goals.
For one thing, are students even reading these books? Unless professors require these readings for their classes, it seems unlikely that students will take the time out of their last summer before college to read a book, especially the ones the schools have chosen.
The books are also just plain depressing.
For the 2009 to 2010 school year, students were required to read "The Devil's Highway," a book about immigrants who try to cross a harsh stretch of desert on the Mexico/Arizona border to enter the United States. Only 12 of the 26 men survive the journey.
OK, so the program was trying to get students to think about immigration. While immigration is an important issue, would it not be more helpful for students to read about the history of immigration policy and receive perspectives from both sides of the issue? This seems like a better way to foster any sort of discussion.
The reading for next year is called "The Dressmaker of Khair Khana." This book, while possibly good and enjoyable to some, hardly seems relevant to an incoming freshman.
The program claims that it tries to offer books that are "interdisciplinary, global, recently published and relatable to both first-year students and the UF community."
But how is a book about a dressmaker in Afghanistan "relatable" to an incoming UF student?
These topics may be important for some students to learn and discuss, but they hardly seem interdisciplinary. A book about immigrants might be enjoyable to a political science or journalism major, but it is doubtful that a chemistry or physics major would find it as interesting. Regardless of the poor choice of book topics, the goal to create a sense of community among students is a little ambitious and misguided.
Creating community among students within their individual colleges or departments is important, but trying to achieve some sort of campus-wide sense of community will probably only occur in the football stadium.
