Erica Correia
Contributing Writer
College campuses have a way of opening people up to the possibility of new things.
For example, new interests like a club or organization or new friends.
Having a campus that makes its students comfortable with opening themselves up is always ideal, however, it has to be done the right way.
One Book, One Campus is a program that ESU started to steer conversation across that entire campus.
The purpose was to get all students, staff, and faculty communicating so that there was always something to talk about to break the ice.
The plan was for students and staff to have discussions through the classroom, in a group setting, club activities, and everyday conversations.
While the concept itself came from the right place, the program didn’t work out so well, in my opinion.
The idea was to get students to talk to each other, but even though we are in an academic setting, no student wants to talk to someone whom they’ve just met about a book they were forced to read.
Discussions about the book were kept between freshman when discussing their next assignment, not between upperclassman who are more worried about graduating on time.
The only time that students actually had to read the book was freshman year when they were getting tested on it in their University Studies class.
After that, the program becomes pointless as upperclassman have no real reason to read the book if they aren’t getting tested on it.
They have more important things to worry about than talking about a book they didn’t pick for themselves to read.
The program didn’t really do the job of staff talking to students about it as well because they have their own coursework to get through and do not need to discuss a book with a student when they could be discussing the next assignment.
The staff has no reason to read a book to discuss with their students instead of preparing them to take on life outside of college.
While I understand the concept and the idea behind the program, I believe that the school could go about it in a different, better way.
There are other ways that the school could bring the campus together.
They could organize debates between the staff and the students where everyone would be encouraged to talk about topics that plague today’s society.
They could organize more events like a homecoming that involves students and staff working together.
They could create a program with a competition of sorts that involves students of different years working together.
The possibilities are endless in the world we live in and I believe that this school can do better than having everyone talk about a book.
I believe that while the One Book, One Campus program was created in good faith, the program itself isn’t useful and doesn’t do what it was intended.
Email Erica at:
ecorreia@live.esu.edu
