June 11, 2009

Online form, calendar available for Common Reading curricular/co-curricular activities

The faculty, staff and students working with the University’s Common Reading Program encourage their counterparts at Purdue to share how they plan to incorporate the selected book, "Stealing Buddha's Dinner" by Bich Minh Nguyen, into their courses, events, and programs during the upcoming academic year.

To facilitate this, and to help promote events that are open to the public, a Web submission form has been created at www.purdue.edu/sats/commonreading/eventsubmit.html

Submitted events that are open to the public will be posted to a Google calendar on the Common Reading Program Web page, www.purdue.edu/sats/commonreading, and will be incorporated into other marketing materials.

Members of the Common Reading committee are available for suggestions/discussions on how to incorporate the book into courses, college/department activities, or student organization events. Interested faculty and staff should contact Andrew Koch, co-chair of the Common Reading committee, at akkoch@purdue.edu for more information.

"The committee looks forward to working with the University community on a successful inaugural year focused on 'Stealing Buddha's Dinner,'" says Koch. "The themes in the book serve as source material for curricular and co-curricular efforts that will meaningfully shape our newest students' first-year experience."

Nguyen is an associate professor of English at Purdue.