This year’s “common read” for new students and the Evergreen campus community.

Radio producer Dave Isay, founder of the “StoryCorps” oral history project and author of “Listening Is an Act of Love,” spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of new students at Evergreen’s 2013 convocation last Monday. The students who have only just arrived on campus gave strong evidence of having read the book by peppering Isay with questions. By all accounts, it was a great start to the 2013-14 academic year.

The book, a compilation of conversations that have aired over the years on public radio stations, was the assigned “common read” for all incoming students and all faculty members. Common read seminars will go on throughout the academic year, uniting the campus community around issues such as identity, agency, the power of voice, and the impact of stories as cultural and historical milestones.

At a college known for encouraging students to chart their own individual educational experiences, the common read program serves as a touchstone, something students will experience as a community as well as in their own, individual ways.

Alumni are encouraged to read “Listening is an Act of Love” this year and share comments in this web log, on Evergreen’s Facebook page or with each other in conversation circles wherever Greeners gather.

Let us hear from you about this book, the Common Read program, or other related issues. For information on how to form a reading circle in your area, contact R.J. Burt in the office of Alumni Programs.