Looking to join a club, make some new friends, or hear different insights on a particular subject? You can get all of that and more from the common reader book club. This club is deigned to give students the opportunity join a community and hear other individuals opinions as well as voicing your own on a particular subject. This semester the book chosen by the faculty members is \u201cHeads of the Colored People\u201d written by Nafissa Thompson-Spires. This book is filled with many short stories about black lives and the struggle and injustices they experience. Following reading the book, students, faculty, and sometimes a guest speaker will meet in a classroom and have a campus wide discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really the idea of trying to figure out ways to try to help us come together as a community so that we can meet each other, so that we can have these conversations,\u201d said Doug Julien. The common reader book club is a way to take a break. Take a break from the day to day work and do something fun. Students will get the opportunity to meet other people from outside their major and see different perspectives on the same topic in a way that maybe they wouldn\u2019t have even thought about to look at it before. This year, they have a large focus on transformative text and social responsibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you bring a group of people together and give them a topic to study, it is likely that someone will have been able to pick up on or see something in a different light than another did. \u201cShe saw something and the way she answered made me see something in the text that I hadn\u2019t seen,\u201d said Julien. That is the amazing thing about a club like this. We often can be very narrow minded and taking a moment to listen to others and listen to how they interpret something gives us a chance to be a little more open and less narrow in our thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The faculty members have taken an older idea and branched it out into something new. This is actually the first time that they are trying out this idea as a book club. Prior to this semester, it was a class that freshman were required to take called IS 1100 class. With it being new the attendance is spotty and always ranging in numbers. Julien hopes to expand and make it more well known. In order to do that he would like to place a whiteboard at the front of the main buildings with a list of the days events. All of them, not just based off the common reader book club. With having a whiteboard with the days events it is more targeted. People are able to just focus on what is going on that day, rather than having all of this \u201cnoise\u201d distracting them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One challenge this club faces is the time it occurs at. Julien mentions it being during a time when students and faculty are able to take a lunch break. Some people don\u2019t mind having something to do during that time, but he does feel like that is a part of the lack of participation. He also feels like it is already difficult to get people to come to classes and events in general. If a communal meeting area like a pizza place or a coffee shop were to be brought to campus, the club would probably move to a place like that to create a more casual environment. Another challenge for the members is figuring out a way to more incorporate the zoom students into the discussion and bridge the gap between the zoom and the in person experience. They do plan to get theses kinks worked out to where everyone can partake equally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether you commute or live nearby there is options to attend. They offer this club on zoom and in person. \u201cThe language that I sort of adopted over time is like, try to be a merchant of opportunity, I\u2019m selling opportunities, not successes, not any of those kind of things,\u201d said Julien. Take this opportunity to try something new, to branch out, or just as a learning experience. Join us in UC 210 from 12:20 to 12:50 every Tuesday! Anyone is welcome. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Looking to join a club, make some new friends, or hear different insights on a particular subject? You can get all of that and more from the common reader book club. This club is deigned to give students the opportunity … Continue reading