What is this year’s common text?

Each year, SU’s incoming first-year students are asked to read a book before they arrive on campus for Welcome Week. This year’s text is Tulalip from My Heart: An Autobiographical Account of a Reservation Community by Harriette Shelton Dover. Told through the narrative of the author’s voice, Tulalip invites readers to consider issues of class- and race-based assimilation, educational experiences of students of color, impacts of colonialist behaviors, and justice and injustice in our community. 

A committee of 15 faculty, staff, and students selected the text from a lengthy list of finalists. They also selected a text for next year, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. 

Among other purposes, the common text “introduces students to an Ignatian-inspired process of inquiry that emphasizes meaning-making, risk-taking and asking deep questions,” as outlined on the program’s website. The text is part of a yearlong series of programs that integrate themes from the book. 

Students will have the opportunity to discuss this year’s text with faculty and staff at the end of the First-Year Student Convocation, which takes place on Tuesday, Sept. 25 (9 a.m.-noon, Redhawk Center North Court). 

The Common Text program is led by Susan Meyers, associate professor of English, and Michelle Etchart, senior director of Student Outreach and Success.