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Overview
The Cardinal Reads Committee is excited to announce two selections in support of the 2022-24 Common Theme of Common Ground: Strength, Resilience and Community. Copies of the Common Read are available in North Idaho College's Molstead Library. There are a limited number of FREE copies for faculty and staff and many more available for check-out by students and community members. We look forward to offering a number of events in the FA22 semester in support of The War For Kindness and we hope to see our entire campus community participate in the reading and discussion of the 2022-24 book selections and common theme!
The War for Kindness
Building Empathy in a Fractured World
Non-Fiction Selection
The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World was first published in 2019. Author Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. Using tools from psychology and neuroscience, he and his colleagues examine how empathy works and how
people can learn to empathize more effectively. This title explores the following:
"...empathy is not a fixed trait—something we’re born with or not—but rather a skill that can be strengthened through effort. He also tells the stories of...a former neo-Nazi who is now helping extract people from hate groups, ex-prisoners discussing novels with the judge who sentenced them, Washington police officers changing their culture to decrease violence among their ranks, and NICU nurses fine-tuning their empathy so that they don’t succumb to burnout." - Author's site
Author Jamil Zaki Discusses 'The War For Kindness'
The Night Watchmen
Fiction Selection
2021 Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction, The Night Watchman by author and enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe. Erdrich work is fictional account of rural rez life in the northern United States during in the 1950s:
"Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning
author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and
carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota
all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of
love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant
prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman." - Author's site
Author Louise Erdrich Discusses 'The Night Watchman'
About Cardinal Reads
The Common Read: Inquiry, Discussion, and Curriculum Design
What is the common read? The common read is a popular program at 2 & 4 year colleges across the U.S. According to the National Association of Scholars (2013), the common reading program maintains the following three goals: “to build community engagement, to explore a theme that fits with the mission of the college, and to set academic expectations” (p.91). The common read creates a shared experience which engages faculty and students into discourse about the same topic. Presently, about 300 colleges have some form of a common reading program.
Cardinal Reads at North Idaho College
The NIC common read program, Cardinal Reads, was established in 2014 to help support and fulfill the college's commitment to the core theme of diversity. The purpose of Cardinal Reads is to create a shared experience by engaging students, staff, faculty and the greater community in discourse on a shared topic with outcomes that develop cultural competence, increase global awareness, and support social justice and ethical responsibility. The Executive Committee of the Diversity Council develops a common theme every two years that is then adapted or explored through the lens of each diversity subcommittee. The theme and outcomes are utilized by the common read committee to solicit nominations and select a book to pair with said theme. Engagement is promoted through integration in course curriculum (INTR-250), group discussion (year one), and a lecture series (year two) and is measured through post-event and course assessment surveys.If you would like more information about the common read, please contact the Common Read Committee Chair Brian Seguin, or email us at CardinalReads@nic.edu.