Penguin Random House Higher Education selected Paula Patch, senior lecturer in English and associate director for First-Year Initiatives in the Elon Core Curriculum, to join the seven-member board that advises the publisher and authors about trends and issues in Common Reading programs.
Paula Patch, senior lecturer in English and associate director for First-Year Initiatives in the Elon Core Curriculum, has been appointed to the Penguin Random House First-Year Reading Advisory Board. This board is composed of program directors from a variety of institutions, including large public universities, small liberal arts colleges and community colleges. This seven-member board’s chief role is to advise Penguin Random House and its authors about trends and opportunities in the marketplace.
The Common Reading, which first-year students are expected to read in the summer before they attend Elon, 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. This program has been in place at Elon since 1993.
Consistent with the Elon University mission of nurturing a rich intellectual community, the Elon Common Reading Program 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.