Ithaca College

Save the date! The First-Year Reading Initiative will be held on Tuesday, August 25, 2009, in the Hill Center from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.  There will be a facilitator information session on Thursday, August 20, in Textor 102 from 11:00 a.m to 12:30 p.m.

The First-Year Reading Initiative provides a common academic experience for incoming students, where they will read and discuss one book with their peers and faculty or staff facilitators.  This year’s book is President Barack Obama's autobiographical narrative, Dreams from My Father. 

Publishers Weekly called Obama’s recollections a “poignant, probing memoir” of a “lonely voyage to racial identity.”

Paul Watkins of the New York Times proclaimed:  “All men live in the shadow of their fathers – the more distant the father, the deeper the shadow.  Barack Obama describes his confrontation with this shadow in his provocative autobiography, Dreams from My Father, and he also persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither.”

President Rochon writes, “President Obama’s ruthlessly honest self-examination on issues of race and identity gives us an opportunity to lead students through what could be the most important conversation they will have during their freshman year.”

For more information, please visit the website: www.ithaca.edu/fyri.

We look forward to another successful First Year Reading Initiative session.  If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contacting Hillary Barrett at hbarrett@ithaca.edu.