1. About
  2. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  3. DEI Programming
  4. The Common Read

The Common Read

The Common Read programming provides a venue for learning, sharing diverse points of view, fostering open discussion, and building respect for each other and new and different ideas.

Each year, the Diversity Action Committee (DAC), in consultation with school community members, chooses a book to serve as the Common Read. The Common Read is a signature school-wide initiative that provides opportunities for discussion, introduced through an annual Fall Common Read Kick-Off event, Common Read overview for all new and returning students at fall orientation, a brief discussion at the annual faculty retreat, and on-going workshops presented over the fall semester that are open to faculty, staff, and students. Faculty are encouraged to incorporate the subject matter into their courses throughout the year.

Beyond the Common Read is a suite of annual programs, designed and co-sponsored by the Office of DEI and Out and Allied Educators, that complement the themes of each year’s Common Read. These programs are a way for our community, in EHD and Grounds widely, to learn more and engage the topics and issues brought up each year’s Common Read.

An image of the book cover, "What the Bones Know" by Stephanie Foo, 2024-2025 Common Read book selection

This Year's Common Read

In What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma, author Stephanie Foo recounts her story–from being abused and later abandoned by her parents to her C-PTSD diagnosis—to understand how her past continued to affect her present. Researching C-PTSD and interviewing psychologists and scientists, Foo investigates the effects of immigrant trauma and how they are passed on through generations. Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

The Common Read

  • 2023-24: The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
  • 2022-2023: Life Isn't Binary: On Being Both, Beyond, and In-Between by Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi
  • 2021-2022: Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong (2020)
  • 2020-2021: The Privileged Poor by Anthony Abraham Jack (2019)
  • 2019-2020: Educated by Tara Westover (2018)
  • 2018-2019: Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism by Ron Suskind (2014)
  • 2017-2018: Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum (2017)
  • 2016-2017: Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam (2015)
  • 2015-2016: Waking Up White (and finding myself in the story of race) by Debby Irving (2014)
  • 2014-2015: Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard by Nora Ellen Groce (1988)
  • 2013-2014: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck (2006)
  • 2012-2013: Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude Steele (2011)
  • 2011-2012: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010)

DEI Events

All EHD Events

Upcoming Common Read and DEI events.

Safe Zone Training Part 1

  • - EDT
  • Holloway Hall (Bavaro Hall 116)
RSVP

Politics in the Classroom: A Faculty Workshop

With Professor Rachel Wahl, associate professor and director of the Social Foundations of Education Program School of Education and Human Development

  • - EDT
  • Ridley Hall 206
RSVP

Safe Zone Training, Part 2

  • - EST
  • Holloway Hall (Bavaro 116)
RSVP

Contact Us

Have a suggestion for future Common Reads?