The 2020-2021 Common Reader Program has been expanded to engage faculty, students, and staff across campus. In doing so, our hope is that the Common Reader program will unite the entire Lewis community in conversation about the important issues facing our community and culture. Importantly, this change to the program will enable faculty, students, and staff across campus to bring their disciplinary expertise to the issues explored in the reader. We’re hoping that the Common Reader can be the inspiration for student research projects, Celebration of Scholarship presentations, and/or Arts and Ideas events led by members of the Lewis community.
This year, the Common Reader will unite the entire Lewis community in conversation about important issues facing our community and culture. Specifically, the Common Reader will focus on how we at Lewis can continue to center ourselves as an inclusive and diverse community in response to the evolving circumstances of the pandemic, social justice and recent racial justice activism, climate change and our uncertain political climate.
All the included texts in this year's Common Reader are accessible through this guide. Each topic page includes the relevant materials, organized by their format (text source, video, podcast, creative performance).
The 2020-2021 Common Reader program will enable us, as a Catholic and Lasallian institution, to “scrutiniz[e] the sign of the times” (Gaudium et spes) and respond in light of our Mission values of Knowledge, Fidelity, Wisdom, Justice, and Association.