Field notes on Field Notes
This year’s common reading program went much better than last year’s, although there is certainly still room for improvement (see story, Page 6). We are glad to see that the worthwhile program was not abandoned after its dismal inaugural year, when no more than 20 students total showed up for the discussion sessions, and that the reading played a more prominent role in this year’s Orientation Week than last year’s.
We suggested this change and others last year (“Common reading: Good idea, needs improvement,” Sept. 8, 2006). And we have a few more ideas to continue the positive trend in new students’ engagement with and enjoyment of the common reading program. This time, it is up to O-Week staff to improve new students’ common reading experiences.
Advisers and Peer Academic Advisers this year were expected to be familiar with the common reading book, Field Notes on a Catastrophe, and to discuss it with new students. Additionally, some colleges invited Academic Fellows to participate in common reading discussions. A dinner devoted to such discussion was scheduled during O-Week, and the success of individual discussions depended largely on upperclassmen’s abilities to guide the conversation and hold new students’ interest.
The ability to educate oneself on and maintain an intellectual conversation about a current issue are two skills all Rice students should have. These should be fundamental skills O-Week coordinators seek in their advisers. In fact, it would be an easy addition to adviser applications to require that applicants agree to read the common reading, guaranteeing the first skill. And it would be an easy addition to adviser interviews to ask intellectual questions and seek out the second.
The integration of common reading discussion into O-Week is a big step in right direction toward building an open and welcoming intellectual culture during students’ first week at Rice. This year’s mixed success showed many new students are willing to do their part — over two-thirds of the matriculating class responded that they read at least most of Field Notes, according to Sept. 4 results from this year’s O-Week summary survey. The rest is up to the upperclassmen; it is their intellectual culture, too.
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