Rice University Common Reading

Welcome to Rice University's Common Reading program for 2009. Now in its fourth year, the Common Reading was established to welcome students to the Rice intellectual community, stimulate conversations across the campus community on pressing issues of the day, and introduce new students to the critical inquiry, scholarship and civility they will encounter — and learn to practice — at Rice.

This year's selection, The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper, diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, offers a compelling vehicle for advancing these objectives. In Sugar Beach, Cooper tells the gripping story of her coming of age in Liberia during the 1970s. A member of one of Liberia's most prominent families whose roots led directly to the first American freemen who settled in the country in the 1820s, Cooper enjoyed a privileged life — including servants, a 22-room beach house, and a villa in Spain — that unraveled quickly and violently during the coup of 1980. Forced to flee Liberia, she found herself adrift as an immigrant in the American South, struggling both to understand her new life and forge her identity.

We believe Ms. Cooper's story will be meaningful to new students (and other readers) not only because it offers insight into the United States' connection to Liberia but, in particular, because it illuminates the challenges of transitioning from something familiar to something foreign. Navigating uncertainty and forging identity while adapting to a new culture is an experience common to all new students, regardless of their background. In this year when the Rice community itself is growing and testing uncharted territory, with the addition of Duncan and McMurtry Colleges, my colleagues and I believe that engaging students in an examination of identity, culture and community — how we define and, more importantly, how we become a part of the latter — is a natural and potentially powerful part of the first-year experience.

In addition to providing the foundation for new students' first intellectual activity at Rice, the Common Reading will provide the foundation for a series of exciting events throughout the fall semester, including the faculty welcome address during Orientation and an opportunity for new students to meet and hear Ms. Cooper speak when she visits campus on September 3. So, I warmly encourage students, faculty, and staff alike both to read The House at Sugar Beach before O-Week and to participate in the conversations that this wonderful memoir will inspire.

Sincerely,                                                

Robin Forman                                       
 Dean of Undergraduates                         

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*New students were provided a free copy of the Common Reading in June. A limited number of copies are available for purchase in the Office of the Dean of Undergraduates. It is also available in alternate digital formats. If you wish to purchase one of these alternate formats, you may do so at your own expense from the following links:

• E-book for Kindle (Amazon.com)

• E-book for PCs, Mac and PDAs (Ebooks.com)

• Audio Book (iTunes)