Common Reading at Elon

The Elon Core Curriculum and the Elon Common Reading Committee are excited to announce that the 2024-2025 Common Reading is The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Oppression to Protect People + Planet by Leah Thomas.

Accessing the Common Reading

Every first-year student will be provided with a free electronic copy of the Common Reading! Look for more information here and via your Elon email in early summer about how to access your copy. If you prefer to purchase a print copy, please do! You’ll be able to opt out of the digital version.

About the author

Leah Thomas is a celebrated environmentalist, founder of the non-profit, Intersectional Environmentalist, and author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet. She has been recognized for her work in outlets like Harper’s Bazaar, W Magazine, CNN, ABC News, and NBC, among others, and has been honored on lists including EBONY Power 100, TIME100 Next, and INSIDER’s Climate Action 30. She is based in Los Angeles, CA.

Thomas will deliver an in-person keynote on the evening of Thursday, September 19. Other opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and the community to discuss the book and learn from Thomas will also be available throughout the year.

About the Elon Common Reading Program

The Common Reading marks the beginning of the Elon Core Curriculum, the shared courses and experiences that put knowledge into practice and enable the integration of learning across the disciplines.

Consistent with the Elon University mission of nurturing a rich intellectual community, the Elon Common Reading Program (ECRP) challenges students, faculty, and staff to examine themselves and the local and global worlds they inhabit through reading. The readings and related discussions aim not only to encourage critical reflection about important issues but also to invite consideration of how our individual actions affect these issues.

The ECRP will:

  • Offer diverse perspectives and commentary on key issues affecting our lives;
  • Provide forums to question and discuss these perspectives in depth;
  • Encourage integration of these ideas and perspectives in other aspects of the Elon experience;
  • Foster critical thinking by offering multiple opportunities to examine and reflect upon the reading throughout the year.