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Skidmore College鈥檚鈥�First-Year Experience program鈥檚鈥痵ummer reading has been a centerpiece of FYE since its inception nearly two decades ago. Its purpose is twofold: to impress upon students that intellectual engagement should not be confined to classrooms or academic calendars and to provide a common intellectual experience that binds the first-year class together. 

This year, the reading committee chose award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi鈥檚 鈥淗ow to be an Antiracist鈥� as the Class of 2025鈥檚 summer reading. A memoir, the book details Kendi鈥檚 real-life encounters with racism and his advice on eliminating it.鈥� 

At the same time there has been encouraging news about public health in the United States, there continues to be troubling news about systemic racism in the United States. Committee members said it was important to explore the root causes of racism and possible paths toward racial justice as the U.S. economy reopens. 

鈥淥ne of the committee鈥檚 collective goals in selecting this reading was to engage community members to lean into the necessary and hard work of antiracist action, and to have a text that could provide us with a common language for learning and talking about race, racism, antiracism and related constructs,鈥� said Assistant Professor of Sociology Leigh Wilton. 

Assistant Professor of English Paul Benzon said that the way the book takes up the question of racism and antiracism was particularly relevant. 

鈥淭he how in the title embodies an interdisciplinary way of thinking that鈥檚 a huge part of FYE and what we do at Skidmore more broadly,鈥� Benzon said. 鈥淜endi thinks about race through history, political science, gender studies, Black studies and more, but it鈥檚 never just any one of those approaches. It鈥檚 always about how to think and act more broadly in relation to this urgent contemporary problem.鈥� 

FYE Director Amon Emeka sees the selection as hopeful and is excited about the opportunities for the Class of 2025 and the Skidmore community to have open, honest conversations. 

鈥淚t is a deeply interdisciplinary exploration of racism and its antithesis 鈥� antiracism 鈥� that will leave readers thinking in new ways about how they can (re) open our society in the most complete sense of that word,鈥� Emeka said.  

For more on 鈥淗ow to be an Antiracist,鈥� including interviews with Kendi and several committee members, visit the FYE Summer Reading 2021 website.&苍产蝉辫;鈥�&苍产蝉辫;