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Common Reading Experience

Richard M. Smith Common Reading Experience

The Richard M. Smith Common Reading Experience is designed to: establish the ideas of scholarship and academic expectations through a common learning experience; begin student understanding of differences in the context of the Albion College community; provide an entry for students into the ideas of global citizenship.

The Richard M. Smith Common Reading Experience is an integral part of the First-Year Experience at Albion College. All first-year students are given a work of literature and asked to read it over the summer and participate in discussions about the work when they come to campus in the fall. Some years the creator of the work is able to visit the campus to speak with the first-year students and give a convocation presentation. Additional events may be scheduled through the year that are directly related to the common reading.

The 2011 Common Reading Experience selection is: "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot.

Past common readings include:

  • "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan (2010)
  • "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama (2009)
  • "Thank You for Smoking" by Christopher Buckley (2008)
  • "Darfur Diaries:  Stories of Survival" by Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain, and Adam Shapiro (2007)
  • "Confluence: A River, The Environment, Politics & The Fate of All Humanity" by Nathaniel Tripp (2006)
  • "West of Kabul, East of New York" by Tamim Ansary (2005)
  • "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James Houston (2004)
  • "The Laramie Project" by Moises Kaufman (2003)
  • "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich (2002)
  • "An American Story" by Debra Dickerson (2001)
  • "A Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind (1999 & 2000)
  • "The Other Side of the River" by Alex Kotlowitz (1998)
  • "Life on the Color Line" by Gregory Williams (1997)
  • "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison (1996)
  • "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol (1995)
  • "Black Ice" by Lorene Cary (1994)
  • "A Typical American" by Gish Jen (1993)
  • "Linden Hills" by Gloria R. Naylor (1992)
  • "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston (1991)