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First Year Common Reading: Next Year's Readings

A central hub for information about the First-Year common reading. Connect to resources, themes, and events.

Selection Process and Next Year's Readings

The process to select a First Year Common Reading begins with a call to nominate texts.  A volunteer Task Force with students, faculty, and staff narrows down nominees to a group of semi-finalists.  Next, a campus-wide vote identifies 2-3 finalists.  Finally, First Year Program instructors decide to use one or more of these texts with the next class of first-year students.

The 2024-25 First Year Common Reading will be drawn from the following books:

  • Callings- Available at the Library Service Desk; First Year Seminar instructors should contact the Library Director for their free copy
  • The Octopus in the Parking Garage- Free to the Manhattanville community as an e-book, also available at the Library Service Desk

Information on both texts follows below.  Instructor resources appear at the bottom. 

Callings

Selected Instructor Resources:

Octopus


One morning in Miami Beach, an unexpected guest showed up in a luxury condominium complex’s parking garage: an octopus. The image quickly went viral. But the octopus—and the combination of infrastructure quirks and climate impacts that left it stranded—is more than a funny meme. It’s a potent symbol of the disruptions that a changing climate has already brought to our doorsteps and the ways we will have to adjust.

Rob Verchick examines how we can manage the risks that we can no longer avoid, laying out our options as we face climate breakdown. Although reducing carbon dioxide emissions is essential, we need to adapt to address the damage we have already caused. Verchick explores what resilience looks like on the ground, from early humans on the savannas to today’s shop owners and city planners. He takes the reader on a journey into the field: paddling through Louisiana’s bayous, hiking in one of the last refuges of Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert, and diving off Key Largo with citizen scientists working to restore coral reefs. The book emphasizes disadvantaged communities, which bear the brunt of environmental risk, arguing that building climate resilience is a necessary step toward justice.

Engaging and accessible for nonexpert concerned citizens, The Octopus in the Parking Garage empowers readers to face the climate crisis and shows what we can do to adapt and thrive.
 

Selected Instructor Resources:  

About the book

About Climate Change and Climate Resilience