Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 6:56 PM
Subject: Common Read for Fall 2020
To: All Faculty<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nI\u2019m writing to let you know about the Common Read for Fall 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nJeannette Smith and I were asked to select a Common Read back in February, in combination\n with programming designed to help the campus\nprepare\n for the November presidential election. We asked faculty who are on the election committee for recommendations;\n we also considered a student proposal.\nJeannette did some amazing legwork and managed to secure donor money associated with\nthe Evergreen Student Civic Engagement Institute (ESCEI)\nto purchase books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nOur decision-making process, like everything else, ground to a halt with the onset of the pandemic, and we\u2019ve only recently landed on Rebecca\n Solnit\u2019s A Paradise Built in Hell:\n<\/em>The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster<\/em>, a suggestion from Zolt\u00e1n Grossman. Zolt\u00e1n noted in a recent\n message to me that the book has gained increasing relevance in the current moment \u2014 in light of the devastating crises of the pandemic, racial injustices, and the repression of public unrest: \u201cThe book\u2019s overall message promotes more hopeful and community-based\n \u2018mutual aid\u2019 responses to disasters. So\n the book is relevant not only to spring 2020, but also to summer 2020, and whatever comes next.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \nEirik Steinhoff\n \u2014 who has graciously agreed to work on the Orientation\nWeek\n(O-Week)\nSyllabus again\n \u2014 made the excellent point that it\u2019s late in the game to be asking faculty to prepare to teach a book of this length.\nSo\n we\u2019ve come up with a proposal (approved by the Student and Academic Life leadership team)\n to detach the book seminar from the \u201cconvocation seminar\u201d specified in the\nfaculty\nCBA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \nFaculty will still be asked to\nfacilitate\nO-Week\nseminars for new students.\n But the focus will be on the orientation essay and on welcoming students to Evergreen, rather than on getting a handle on a whole\n book. Eirik and I will organize a separate interdisciplinary panel, including small group writing\nworkshops,\n to give students access points to the book.\nFor students participating in ESCEI, there will be some additional book club type events, facilitated by student mentors.\nThe whole menu of offerings is still under construction, so\ndo\nsend your good ideas and questions along.\nAnd please\n stay tuned for more details about O-Week, including the syllabus of required seminars and the schedule. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThanks for giving us as much COVID grace as you can while we seek to provide\n meaningful learning opportunities for our students under challenging conditions! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Elizabeth — Elizabeth Williamson, Ph.D. (pronouns: she\/her) The most startling thing about disasters, according to award-winning author Rebecca Solnit, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy. That joy reveals an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work that disaster often provides. A Paradise Built in Hell<\/em> is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster\u2019s grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become-one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local. [excerpted from the authors website, http:\/\/rebeccasolnit.net\/book\/a-paradise-built-in-hell\/<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear colleagues, From: Williamson, ElizabethDate: Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 6:56 PMSubject: Common Read for Fall 2020To: All Faculty I\u2019m...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7161,"featured_media":1865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[11],"tags":[52],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1864,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions\/1864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Dean of Faculty Hiring and Development<\/p>\n\n\n\nAbout the book<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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