Summer Reading Assignment for AUCA Freshmen 2012

July 25, 2012

Dear Class 2016, 

We look forward to meeting you during the orientation program on August 20-30th. We are proud to have you as our new student and welcome you into this community of friends, colleagues, and scholars. This is a new beginning for both students and family members; beginnings that we hope you are ready to explore.

An important part of your preparation this summer for the Orientation Program (and fall semester as well) is your summer reading assignment.  All first year students are expected to read and reflect on “The Allegory of the Cave” from one of the books of Plato’s Republic and Martin Luther King Jr.’s  “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. We’d like you to mark the text up: underline passages, make comments in the margins, and, on a separate sheet reflect on how these texts might relate to your own life at this time.  Bring these with you when you come to AUCA in August.  We will use your thoughts as the starting point for our conversations.  We hope that during orientation in August, this initial thinking about the texts will lead to larger conversations and that each of you will seize this opportunity to engage yourself in a dialogue with your peers and prospective professors. There will be lots of dialogue and fun, creative activities throughout Orientation week. 

In the fall and spring semesters, these two texts alongside other texts will be the common readings for all of you in your First Year Seminar course. As you begin your journey towards the completion of a liberal arts education at AUCA, these shared readings and other equally engaging and challenging texts will introduce you to and encompass the university’s values that will broaden your world, and increase and deepen your understanding of complex issues.  Engaging texts together will bring people of diverse backgrounds into community by creating a common ground for discussion with faculty, students, and friends during orientation, as well as throughout the year.

The reading texts and the Orientation Program is available on following links:

Allegory of Cave [pdf]

MLK [pdf]

Sincerely,

Mary Bernadette Conde

Director, Academic Orientation

<< go to news list