History of UWMC’s Shared Reading-Shared Thoughts Program

UW-Marathon County’s first shared reading program and associated events, kicked off in September of 2006, have been the product of more than a year of planning. The idea for the program came from then-Campus Assessment Coordinator Brett Barker (Assistant Professor of History) in the spring of 2005. Barker spent the next summer looking into other shared reading programs in the UW Colleges and identifying factors linked to their success and submitted a report laying out all of this for the campus Steering Committee. The Steering Committee then agreed to propose a shared reading program and assembled a Shared Reading Committee comprised of a book selection subcommittee and an events/activities subcommittee. Soon a project steering committee was added. The campus Collegium approved the program in November of 2006, giving the book selection subcommittee the green light to start looking for appropriate books for our first text.

The book selection committee (comprised of a student, Jeralyn Klopotic, Paul Whitaker (Associate Professor of Biological Sciences), Holly Hassel (Assistant Professor of English), Connie Sexauer (Assistant Professor of History), Lou Pech (First Year Experience representative and Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences), Greg Venne (Wausau Homes Writing Center director), and Ann Herda-Rapp (Steering Committee chair and Associate Professor of Sociology) began by putting out a call to all campus members for book suggestions. Forty-four books were suggested. The committee read excerpts of each book and evaluated them using the following criteria:

Criteria for first book selection:
The book should be:
 Engaging – remember, we want students to read it.
 Readable – remember, students will be reading it.
 Cross-divisional in its applications – this first book must have important science applications if this program is to succeed.

Additional considerations:
 Does it offer critical examination that might spur discussion?
 Does it offer a cultural critique?
 Is it controversial? Again, might it spur informed and important discourse?
 Will it engage the community?
 Does it suit the campus culture and interests, perhaps as an indicator of faculty and student interest and engagement?

The committee then created a “short list” of approximately a dozen books to look into further, with two or more committee members assigned to read and report on each book. Soon, the committee reduced the list to three books: Affluenza by John De Graaf, David Wann and Thomas Naylor; Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser; and Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter. In December 2005, campus members were then asked to vote, selecting one from the three. The vote was split evenly between Affluenza and Our Endangered Values. The committee then asked the campus community to vote for one or the other. Affluenza came out on top.

The events subcommittee (Judi Wittkopf, director of university relations; Vickie Richmond-Hawkins, director of continuing education; Jean Greenwood, Lecture & Fine Arts coordinator and English lecturer; and Paul Whitaker, as committee chair) along with Lisa Seale, then leaped into action, beginning the work of planning events and activities. At Dean Veninga’s urging, the subcommittee dreamed big, contacting prominent authors, scholars and think tanks to anchor our campus and community discussion of over-consumption. Much of that planning continued through the summer under the direction of the project steering committee (Lisa Seale, special assistant to the dean and Professor of English; Shannon Chronister, student activities coordinator and advisor; Paul Martin, campus assessment coordinator and Associate Professor of Mathematics; Vickie Richmond-Hawkins; Jean Greenwood; Judi Wittkopf; Paul Whitaker; Ann Herda-Rapp).

Financial support for the program has been crucial. Committee members Jean Greenwood and Holly Hassel wrote a successful UW Colleges GISE grant and requested funding from UWMC’s Student Life and Interest Committee support to purchase 500 copies of the book, to ensure all students would have access to the book. And, over the summer, Lisa Seale, Dean Veninga and others wrote a grant application for a significant grant through the Wisconsin Humanities Council. While that grant is still pending, our program has also received financial support from:

• B.A. & Esther Greenheck Foundation
• Harvey Nelson Charitable Trust
• Clyde F. Schlueter Foundation
• UW Colleges
• UWMC Foundation
• UWMC Student Life and Interest Committee
• Wisconsin Public Television
• Support for this project is also provided through the North Central Health Protection Plan Fund of the Community Foundation of North Central Wisconsin

And, in the fall of 2006, the book selection committee is starting the process all over again, gearing up for Year 2 of Shared Reading - Shared Thoughts.