EKU Reads 2008
Ron Suskind
Author
A Hope in the Unseen
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EKU Reads 2008
The Summer Reading Assignment is designed to provide new students with
a common introduction to academic life at EKU. All incoming freshman receive
a free copy of the book at Orientation. Each Fall semester, EKU engages
in a campus wide discussion of the book. First year English courses and
orientation courses also utilize the book in class discussions throughout
the semester. Other faculty members are also encouraged to feature the
book in their classes, as well.
Note: Campus computer labs are equipped with the computer requirements listed below. If you plan on going to a lab to view these presentations, please bring head phones! If you are viewing them on off campus or personal computer, viewing the stream requires Windows Media Player and a broadband internet connection. Upon clicking the link, Windows may not initially play the video, but ask the user if they want to activate the Active X controller for the player. Choose YES. Depending on which version of windows the user has, a yellow bar may appear at the top of the browser window. You can activate the Active X controller by right-clicking on the yellow bar and choosing to activate the controller from the pop-up menu.
Parents may purchase the book and start the book discussions at home
prior to the start of the semester. The EKU bookstore will be selling
the book to parents and guests at a discount during orientation. An
appearance by the author and a book signing is also featured as part
of the reading assignment project.
The 2008 book selection is A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind.
From the back of the book: "It is 1993, and Cedric Jennings is a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington, D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate is well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boast an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric has almost no friends. He eats lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through extra work he has asked for, knowing that he’s really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition—which is fully supported by his forceful mother—is to attend a top-flight college.
In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realizes that ambition when he begins as a freshman at Brown University. In this updated edition, A Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years of high school, follows him through his difficult first year at Brown, and now tells the story of his subsequent successes in college and the world of work."
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Reads from Previous Years
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