Previous Summer Book Club Selections

2025 - The New College Classroom by Cathy N. Davidson and Christina Katopodis

This summer, the Faculty Center invites you to join a flexible, go-at-your-own-pace book club centered on The New College Classroom by Cathy N. Davidson and Christina Katopodis. Grounded in learning science and practical pedagogy, the book offers concrete strategies for rethinking lectures, assessments, and classroom dynamics across disciplines. Whether you're new to active learning or seeking to deepen your practice, it helps you reimagine your classroom with equity, engagement, and purpose in mind.

Designed to fit your summer rhythm, this no-pressure offering welcomes inspiration, reflection, and connection. As part of a Communities of Practice (CoP) approach, groups may range from 2 to 10 members and can include faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators engaged in teaching, learning, and advising.

2024 - Summer Communities of Practice Summer Book Club

A summer learning experience around the theme of “Teaching Self/Teaching Others.” The two streams for the year’s theme were: (Communities of Practice (CoP) approach)  Note: Need to log in with Rowan credentials

Teaching Self: Marginalized Faculty & Staff Identities

In this thread, practitioners can select from a variety of literature on faculty and staff identity in teaching and student-facing work, with a focus on equity, empowerment, and support for faculty and staff with marginalized identities. Your community of practice may choose to allow individuals to explore the area(s) of most interest to them, or may choose a common focus area of which to explore different aspects.

Curated reading list   Note: Need to log in with Rowan credentials

Teaching Others: Antiracist Pedagogies  

In this thread, practitioners can select among a range of recommended materials to become familiar with some of the overarching principles and best practices in antiracist pedagogy, or your community of practice may choose to delve deeper into a particular topic therein.

Curated reading list Note: Need to log in with Rowan credentials

2023 -  No-Strings-Attached Summer Book Club

Participants chose among:

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Code by Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski

Inciting Joy: Essays by Ross Gay

Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom by Kelly A. Hogan and Viji Sathy

Ungrading: Why Grading Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) by Susan D. Blum 

2022 - "The Flourishing Teacher: Vocational Renewal for a Sacred Profession" by Christina Bieber Lake

Sometimes being a faculty member leaves you burned out, due to all it's commitments. This book offers advice on how to flourish when teaching; how to find work/life balance; fit in time for research and writing; how to navigate the challenges of being a female faculty member; and more.

2021 - "Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times" by Katherine May

Explores the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

2020 - No book

2019 - "Brown White Black: An American Family at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion" by Nishta J. Mehra 

Brown White Black is a portrait of Nishta J. Mehra's family: her wife, who is white; her adopted child, Shiv, who is black; and their experiences dealing with America's rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality.

2018 - "Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness" by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein 

Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones.

Rowan Common Reading 

This initiative started in 2012 and ended in 2017. The Faculty Center held Summer Book Club sessions for faculty and staff to discuss these books.

2017 - "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History" by Elizabeth Kolbert 

Powerful account of humans’ role in the accelerating extinction of species in the modern era.

2016 - "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah chronicles the stories of high school sweethearts in Nigeria who, in the face of military dictatorship, emigrate to the United States and London, where they encounter a new conception of race as well as discrimination and xenophobia. 

2015 - "Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash" by Edward Humes

Challenges us to think about humans’ impact on the environment. People in many cultures - especially the United States - produce enormous amounts of trash; the health of our oceans, lands, and communities are suffering.

2014 - "This I Believe II" edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman 

This collection of personal essays reveals the diversity of content and origin of people's belief systems and values. 

2013 - "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity" by Katherine Boo

This book shares the lives and experiences of the residents of a slum, Annawadi, near developing Mumbai, India.

2012 - "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

Intrigued by a casual remark in an introductory biology course at a community college, the author relentlessly tracked down information about Henrietta Lacks, her family, and her cells, which have traveled around the globe and even into space.

Updated 3/17/26