First-Year Reading Program

“Between the World and Me” by acclaimed writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, is the 2016 First Year Reading Program selection. Written as a letter to Coates’ teenage son, the book is both a tender memoir and a biting polemic that explores America’s long and persistent history of racial injustice. All first-year students will participate in a discussion about the book this fall.

National Book Award finalist “Citizen: An American Lyric,” by Claudia Rankine, has been chosen as the 2015 First Year Reading Program selection for incoming students of Washington University in St. Louis.

Part memoir, part legal analysis, the First Year Reading Program book “Covering” explores how we all “cover” to fit into the American mainstream.

During her recent visit to campus, First Year Reading Program author Eula Biss had many opportunities to discuss her book of essays, Notes from No Man’s Land, with students. Here, she leads an informal discussion at Ursa’s Fireside on the South 40.

4,000 glow sticks, 50 academic progams, 100 First 40 events make the start of the school year special for new students.

Staff are invited to join a small group discussion of the critically acclaimed essay collection, Notes from No Man’s Land, by Eula Biss. The book, a provocative exploration of race and identity, is this year’s selection for the First Year Reading Program.

Author Wes Moore visited campus Sept. 4 and spent the day talking with groups of students and faculty, before giving an Assembly Series address. His book, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, is the 2012-13 selection for the First-Year Reading Program. Winners of the reading program essay contest had a special opportunity to sit down with the author in the Whittemore House.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates is the 2012-13 selection for the First Year Reading Program. The book focuses on two men with the same name who grew up in similar Baltimore neighborhoods, but ended up on much different paths. One is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence; the other is a decorated veteran and Rhodes Scholar. The book provides a shared intellectual experience for incoming students.

Nearly 50 first-year students at Washington University in St. Louis created their own chapter to the novel The Cellist of Sarajevo, as part of the First-Year Reading Program Contest. Five contest winners were treated to lunch with author Steven Galloway, including Juliet Kinder, who won the grand prize and a $250 gift certificate to the Washington University Campus Store.