Community Read
Community Read is a program of the Faculty Senate's First Year Experience Committee (co-chairs Kristin Poling and Michael McDonald), similar to the NEA's Big Read. Students, especially those new to our campus, engage with topics across disciplines.
The reading for 2023-2024 is Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging, edited by Ghassan Zeineddine, Nabeel Abraham, and Sally Howell. Hadha Baladuna is a 2023 Michigan Notable Book award winner.
Hadha Baladuna (This Is Our Country) collects creative nonfiction on a diversity of Arab American experiences, from a 1920s Lebanese peddler to an Iraqi-Lebanese poet inspired by Tupac Shakur. Topics include family, history, religion, immigration, music, gender, healing, and political activism. This book is linked to our campus by faculty editors Zeineddine (English) and Howell (History), and by UM-Dearborn alumni authors Teri Bazzi, Mai Jakubowski, Yasmin Mohamed, and Hanan Ali Nasser.
Please consider using book selections in class and encourage students to participate. For resources, see the Mardigian Library Subject Guide on Hadha Baladuna. Additional teaching ideas and resources were generated at our May workshop.
Hadha Baladuna is freely available as an ebook with a UM login. If you prefer a hard copy of the book to facilitate teaching, please ask Kristin Poling ([email protected]) or Anne Dempsey ([email protected]).
On deck for 2024-2025 is Verified: How to think straight, get duped less, and make better decisions about what to believe online, by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg. Do you have an idea for a great future Community Read? Help the FYE Committee by completing this survey! Please reach out to the Faculty Senate First Year Experience Committee with any questions or ideas.
Our reading last year was All We Can Save, 60 essays and poems related to the climate crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson. The anthology is part of the All We Can Save Project. In 2021-2022 we read William D. Lopez's Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid, which traces economic, social, psychological, health, and educational fallout from a 2013 ICE raid in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Dr. Lopez is assistant professor at the UM School of Public Health.
The 2020-2021 book was How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi. Faculty members created videos on book chapters for class use, now on the UM YouTube playlist, and the Mardigian Library listed antiracism resources. In 2019-2020, we read Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, on the woman whose famed HeLa cells underlie countless medical breakthroughs.
Teaching Workshop for Faculty
Thursday, May 25, 2023, 2:00 pm, Virtual: Zoom
At this event, faculty will have the opportunity to have a conversation with some of the book’s editors and several faculty on campus who are already using the book in the classroom to help you develop ideas for how to incorporate the book and its themes into your own teaching as you plan your fall classes. The first 20 people to sign up for the event will also receive a free hard copy of the book to use in their teaching planning. Please register
Faculty Small Grants Program, through April 2024.
Small grants assist faculty with activities, projects, and assignments on themes in Hadha Baladuna. Use this application form. Please send inquiries to Kristin Poling ([email protected]) or Amy Finley ([email protected]).
Thursday, November 9, 2023, 4:00 to 5:30 pm, Mardigian Library, First floor event space
Authors of Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging read excerpts from the book, followed by insights into their writing process, and a Q & A session. RSVP for this free, open event: VictorsLink.
Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Thursday, April 11, 5:30-7:30 pm
Mardigian Library, Room 1211
This year's campus read, Hadha Baladuna, highlights local authors and stories of the Arab American community. The edit-a-thon extends our spotlight to Wikipedia. We will train new editors and make improvements to existing pages on contributions of Arab Americans to literature, poetry, academia, journalism, and theater.
- Co-chair: Michael McDonald, Academic Affairs: CASL Composition & Rhetoric (Term expires 08/31/2025)
- Co-chair: Kristin Poling, Academic Affairs: CASL History (Term expires 08/31/2025)
- Anne Dempsey, Academic Affairs: Student Engagement Librarian, Mardigian Library (Term expires 08/31/2025)
- Tian An Wong: Academic Affairs: CASL Mathematics (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Anys Bacha, Academic Affairs: CECS (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Natalie Sampson, Academic Affairs: CEHHS Environmental Health (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Jennifer Coon, Academic Affairs: COB (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Nicholas Iannarino, Academic Affairs: CASL Communication (Term expires 08/31/2026)
- Lynda Dioszegi, Student Affairs, Senior Advisor, START, ex officio
- Amy Finley, Student Affairs: Dean of Students, ex officio
- Jennifer Kowalczyk, Student Affairs: Coordinator, Campus & Family Programs, ex officio
- Kevin Lewtschanyn, Enrollment Management: Director of EM Communication and Events, ex officio
- Alma Fawaz, Student Government: ex officio (Term expires 05/2024)
October 14 and 15th: Students planted trees with the Wildlife Habitat Council, Friends of the Rouge and National Fish and Wildlife Service.
October 28, 9:00 am to 1:00 pm: Dearborn-SHINES schoolyard garden project. Student volunteer activities included weeding, painting, spreading mulch, and topping soil at selected Dearborn Public Schools.
November 10, 7:00-8:30 pm: Film and Panel Discussion: In the Land of Palm Oil. This virtual webinar was organized by Palm to Palm: a student-led, tri-campus initiative dedicated to ending exploitation of humans and wildlife in tropical regions. Panelists included: Emmanuela Shinta (Indonesian social activist), Denise Dragiewicz (film director), Jocelyn Zuckerman (author, Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything―and Endangered the World), Dr. Anne Russon (York U psychologist and primatologist), and Dr. Andrew J Marshall (UM anthropologist and primatologist). About the film. About Palm to Palm. About Ranu Welum Foundation, an Indonesian NGO purchasing land to protect endangered species from palm oil development:
November 17, 7:00-8:30pm: Virtual webinar panel discussion on the revival of the River Rouge, sponsored by the Environmental Interpretive Center and the Friends of the Rouge. Panelists included: Orin Gelderloos - Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies, UM-Dearborn, John Hartig - Visiting Scholar, University of Windsor's Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Sally Petrella - Monitoring Manager, Friends of the Rouge, and Cyndi Ross - Restoration Manager, Friends of the Rouge.