NEWS

CHAPEL HILL -- Members of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Summer Reading Program Book Selection Committee today (Feb. 25) completed deliberations begun last fall by making "Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point" their choice for incoming undergraduate students to read and discuss next August.

As part of its summer reading program, UNC asks all new students -- about 3,500 freshmen and 800 transfers -- to read a book and come prepared to participate in small group discussions led by trained faculty and staff. The non-credit assignment, an academic icebreaker, is voluntary. This year’s discussion groups will be held Aug. 23, the day before fall semester classes begin.

UNC’s program focuses on discussion and dialogue, not the book itself. "Our responsibility to students is to provide an atmosphere in which they can deepen their sense of themselves and the complex, often contradictory, world around them," says Chancellor James Moeser. "That is what the summer reading program is designed to do. We want to create an intellectual climate in which students themselves can come to their own conclusions and turn information into insight."

Published in 2003, "Absolutely American" was written by David Lipsky, a Rolling Stone magazine reporter who chronicles the experiences of West Point cadets over four years. The nine-member selection committee of students, faculty and staff voted 5-4 for "Absolutely American," suggested by a UNC student responding to a campus email request for input from the committee. The other finalist was "Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age," by Bill McKibben.

"Our committee felt both books would be worthy selections and remain true to the central purpose of the reading program – to focus on discussion and dialogue," said Dr. Jan Bardsley, committee chair and associate professor of Asian studies. "While the experiences of UNC students and West Point cadets are different, our committee felt that the descriptions in ‘Absolutely American’ would be an appropriate springboard for exploring a wide range of timely topics in the discussion sessions for our new students."

Lipsky is completing an epilogue including the experiences of West Point graduates who have served in the war in Iraq. That book version is expected to be available for UNC participants in May.

"Absolutely American" and "Enough" were among five books the committee deliberated about as finalists. The others were "A Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind, "The Life of Pi," by Yann Martel and "The Middle of Everywhere: The World’s Refugees Come to Our Town," by Mary Pipher.

The selection committee started with a list of nearly 500 books covering a diverse group of topics, authors and viewpoints. The list represented suggestions over the life of the reading program from participants (students and volunteer discussion group leaders), members of the UNC community and others. The list also drew from books used by other colleges and universities for similar programs. Book recommendations from the campus community included more than 140 suggestions resulting from a campuswide email inviting input sent last November. A student responding to that request suggested "Absolutely American."

The committee’s criteria for selecting a book include finding a work that will be intellectually stimulating to 18-year-old students and provoke thoughtful discussion. Other priorities are that the book should be engaging, relatively short and easy to read and address a topic or them that students can apply to themselves, such as societal issues.

The committee’s meetings have been regularly attended by observers. Although the university's position is that the committee does not meet the criteria for being subject to the state’s Open Meetings Law, Moeser and UNC vice chancellors felt strongly that an open process was in the best interest of the university and the committee. They said an open process would help the campus community and the public better understand the care and thoughtfulness that goes into the choice.

A resource development group with faculty experts and other staff will identify resources for the reading program Web site and for use by new students and discussion group leaders. That group will also recommend related programs at Carolina during the early fall semester.

The reading program, now in its sixth year, was among recommendations from a faculty task force convened by the late Chancellor Michael Hooker in the 1990s to enhance UNC’s intellectual climate. Other recommendations implemented included a first-year seminar program, in which new students tackle academic subjects in depth for an entire semester with senior faculty, and an Office of Undergraduate Research.

Since 1999, the summer reading program choices have been "There Are No Children Here" by Alex Kotlowitz, "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horwitz, "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman, "Approaching the Qur’an" by Michael Sells and "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich -- all nonfiction.

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Contacts: Mike McFarland and the News Services staff, (919) 962-2091