Common reading controversy continues

By Cindy Dinh     4/17/08 7:00pm

As Orientation Week advisers prepare to leave campus next month for summer break, they will tuck away a copy of next year's common reading book. A selection committee of students, a faculty member and Advisor to the Dean of Undergraduates Matthew Taylor met earlier this month to narrow down their list to two contenders: Allen Raymond's memoir, How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative and Greg Mortenson's novel, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . One School at a Time.Both non-fiction works have been selected for their relevance to current events, Taylor said.

"The response from How to Rig an Election has been really passionate," he said. "Just the subtitle really engages people's political feelings."

He said the book is not ideological but gives readers a behind-the-scenes view of the political process and addresses ethical issues, which may help prepare students to discuss the upcoming presidential election.

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Students' various reactions to How to Rig an Election were raised when Taylor introduced the book to O-Week advisers, with some students suggesting the subject content might polarize people.

"I'm not worried about that," Taylor said. "In a university setting, it's okay to disagree. The university has complete faith in O-Week advisers and upperclassmen to help new students learn how to talk about things that might be difficult."

Taylor is more concerned with how the community outside of Rice will feel.

"I think folks outside of Rice who haven't read the book will look at the title only and say Rice is bashing the Republican Party," Taylor said. "If we choose this book, we're thinking of how best to present it to the world outside of the hedges."

The other possible selection, Three Cups of Tea, focuses on the author's strategy to fight terrorism by building schools in tribal Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"It's a story about how Westerners can engage Islam in a humanitarian way," Taylor said.

Taylor said the committee is leaning toward selecting How to Rig an Election but logistical complications may prevent it from doing so. Since the book is only available in hardback, it would be double the cost of Three Cups of Tea and make distribution difficult, Taylor said. The school is planning to purchase about 1,300 copies to give for free to incoming freshman, O-Week advisers, college masters and other faculty members. Taylor is working with the publishers to receive the books before students leave for the summer.

The purpose of the common reading book is to engage the Rice community in open dialogue. The first attempt to establish the common reading initiative was this year's book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert. Taylor said the book was a success.

"We really raised issues of sustainability and global warming to higher visibility on campus," Taylor said. "We'd like next year's book to move the campus in a similar way."

Various forums to discuss the common reading book and similar topics will be planned for the upcoming year, including film screenings, panel discussions and debates.

"If we decide on the Raymond book, we're hoping to possibly get the author to come as a featured speaker," Taylor said.

Other possible speakers could be local politicians who represent each political party and faculty experts who are knowledgeable on elections and voter fraud, he said.

The selection committee felt confident that How to Rig an Election will engage the campus in dialogue in time for the upcoming election, Taylor said.

"From the context of the presidential campaign, it made all of us take a second look at the content of politics from what we were hearing from candidates to what we were reading in the news about how candidates were conducting their campaign," he said.

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