Tyrone N. Butts
APE Reporter
UF assigns its faculty summer reading about race relations
The University of Florida is recommending some summer reading -- for its faculty.
In a twist on familiar freshman summer assignments and community-wide read-alongs, President Bernie Machen asked UF's 4,000-plus professors and instructors to delve into Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race. The 1997 book by psychologist and college president Beverly Daniel Tatum examines racial identity and social dynamics.
While c
lleges and communities around the country have experimented with similar "one book" projects, UF believes it's the first to focus on faculty members.
"We were trying to think of
a way to link faculty to discussing issues of diversity, race and curriculu
m," explains Katheryn Russell-Brown, a law professor who runs UF's Center for the Study of Race & Race Relations. Tatum's book, she thought, would "create some inroads" toward sometimes rocky territory.
"Talking about race is not easy," Russell-Brown said. " ... Here, we have a framework for discussion."
That discussion is set for Sept. 9, along with a talk by the author, who now heads Spelman College in Atlanta. The gathering is among a range of public events marking Machen's inauguration.
Campuses, cities and entire states have read en masse since an attention-getting initiative in Seattle in 1998. The Library of Congress counts at least 250 "one book
" projects, including ones in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, as well as Orlando.
Enthusiasts say such endeavors reinforce reading while getting people on the same page.
"It promotes community dialogue, community interaction ... [and promotes literacy] by making reading something everybody's doing and talking about,"
said Darlene Kostrub of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County. The group helps organize Read Together Palm Beach County, which recently wrapped up two months of activities surrounding Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. The event spawned at least 54 discussion groups, 6,800 sales of the 1937 book and 2,900 library check-outs, Kostrub said.
A "common reader" at the University of Central Florida provided some common ground for first-year students last fall, says undergraduate dean John F. Schell. Professors with freshman classes were encouraged to use the 21-page reader on Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that struck down school segregation.
About 2,600 of the 6,000 freshmen studied it in class, and some attended lectures, plays and discussions on the theme, Schell said
"It helped to create a unique UCF experience," he said. "And when we're dealing with 43,000 students, we're looking for a way to create a unique experience... some esprit de corp
s, some community."
Still, efforts to unite around a book can end up dividing. Several students and the Family Policy Network, a conservative Christian group, sued the University of North Carolina over a freshman reading assignment in 2002. They objected to Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations, by Michael A. Sells, a religion professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.
The university prevailed in federal courts, only to find itself facing further criticism last year for assigning Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. A conservative student group, state legislators a
nd others blasted journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's book as inappropriately leftist. UNC's assignment this summer: Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, by Rolling Stone writer Dav
id Lipsky.
********************
These idiot diversity celebrators would learn more about race by reading New Nation News for two weeks.
T.N.B.
The University of Florida is recommending some summer reading -- for its faculty.
In a twist on familiar freshman summer assignments and community-wide read-alongs, President Bernie Machen asked UF's 4,000-plus professors and instructors to delve into Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race. The 1997 book by psychologist and college president Beverly Daniel Tatum examines racial identity and social dynamics.
While c
lleges and communities around the country have experimented with similar "one book" projects, UF believes it's the first to focus on faculty members.
"We were trying to think of
a way to link faculty to discussing issues of diversity, race and curriculu
m," explains Katheryn Russell-Brown, a law professor who runs UF's Center for the Study of Race & Race Relations. Tatum's book, she thought, would "create some inroads" toward sometimes rocky territory.
"Talking about race is not easy," Russell-Brown said. " ... Here, we have a framework for discussion."
That discussion is set for Sept. 9, along with a talk by the author, who now heads Spelman College in Atlanta. The gathering is among a range of public events marking Machen's inauguration.
Campuses, cities and entire states have read en masse since an attention-getting initiative in Seattle in 1998. The Library of Congress counts at least 250 "one book
" projects, including ones in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, as well as Orlando.
Enthusiasts say such endeavors reinforce reading while getting people on the same page.
"It promotes community dialogue, community interaction ... [and promotes literacy] by making reading something everybody's doing and talking about,"
said Darlene Kostrub of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County. The group helps organize Read Together Palm Beach County, which recently wrapped up two months of activities surrounding Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. The event spawned at least 54 discussion groups, 6,800 sales of the 1937 book and 2,900 library check-outs, Kostrub said.
A "common reader" at the University of Central Florida provided some common ground for first-year students last fall, says undergraduate dean John F. Schell. Professors with freshman classes were encouraged to use the 21-page reader on Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that struck down school segregation.
About 2,600 of the 6,000 freshmen studied it in class, and some attended lectures, plays and discussions on the theme, Schell said
"It helped to create a unique UCF experience," he said. "And when we're dealing with 43,000 students, we're looking for a way to create a unique experience... some esprit de corp
s, some community."
Still, efforts to unite around a book can end up dividing. Several students and the Family Policy Network, a conservative Christian group, sued the University of North Carolina over a freshman reading assignment in 2002. They objected to Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations, by Michael A. Sells, a religion professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.
The university prevailed in federal courts, only to find itself facing further criticism last year for assigning Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. A conservative student group, state legislators a
nd others blasted journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's book as inappropriately leftist. UNC's assignment this summer: Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, by Rolling Stone writer Dav
id Lipsky.
********************
These idiot diversity celebrators would learn more about race by reading New Nation News for two weeks.
T.N.B.