Category: 2011-12 Common Read: A Hope in the Unseen

Now that the excitement of fall New Students Orientation (NSO) is behind us, it’s perhaps a good time to reflect on the 2011 Common Read and begin looking ahead to next year’s project as well.  Ron Suskind’s A Hope in the Unseen was the University’s first summer reading assignment for all entering students.  Thousands received the book during summer NSO and were asked to read it before returning to campus; and hundreds of faculty, staff, and upperclass students read and talked about the book throughout the spring and summer.

We were lucky to have the book’s protagonist, Cedric Jennings, speak at Freshman Convocation on September 2.  Later that day, faculty from across campus led small discussion groups about the book with new students.  A Hope in the Unseen was a focal point for the entire orientation process.

And we’re not done yet!  Cedric returns to campus this coming week, September 21, for more events.  And the book continues to generate discussion in classrooms, residence halls, and conference rooms throughout UMass Amherst.

As you look back at the Common Read, feel free to share comments on the project here.  And if you have ideas for 2012, let us know about them as well!

In the meantime, as principal blogger for the Common Read, I wanted to thank Vice Chancellor Jean Kim, NSO director Jeanne Horrigan, and others for their work on this project.  Special kudos go to Tom Fleenor for help getting the blog started and to guest bloggers Anita Abure, Sabrina Durand, and Peggy Woods for their posts.  And thanks to all the students, faculty, and staff who read and responded to this blog!

Cedric Jennings is clearly the central “character” of A Hope in the Unseen, but the book has lots of other interesting figures in it, some of whom have shown up in previous posts to this blog: Cedric’s mother, for example, and his roommate Rob.

One intriguing character whom we haven’t discussed much so far is Zayd Dohrn, who plays an important role in the second half of the book.  With his own somewhat mysterious past, Zayd becomes Cedric’s first real friend at Brown (200), though their relationship is far from simple.

Zayd is memorably described by author Ron Suskind as “the embodiment of an ethos that, more than anything, defines merit around this campus: constant, fearless, rigorous experimentation – both social and intellectual.  The more daring, the better” (220).

The contrast to Cedric in this regard could not be sharper.  Remember the scene in front of their peer counselor’s door, as the two stare at an envelope overflowing with condoms and latex gloves, “a sort of low-rent safe sex dispenser” (200)?  Cedric is uncomfortable talking about certain sexual acts, but Zayd shrugs away squeamishness: “Hey, I’ll try anything.”

Of course, we see over the course of the book why Cedric’s “ethos” is so different from Zayd’s.  After all, it is Cedric’s single-minded refusal to stray from the path he has set for himself that is probably the main reason he’s made it as far as he has.  And yet it wouldn’t be fair to call Cedric tame or timid.  In many ways, he is every bit as bold as Zayd Dohrn, even bolder.

Are you more like Zayd was his freshman year: the embodiment of an ethos of “constant, fearless, rigorous experimentation,” a person ready to try anything?  Or are you more like Cedric: reserved, hesitant, a little dubious of the world around you?

If the former, do you also see how ceaseless experimentation can sometimes create problems for yourself and others?  And if the latter, do you sometimes wish you were more open to trying new things?  to occasionally opening your door and venturing out into uncharted territory?

During UMass Amherst’s upcoming Fall Orientation for new students, Sept. 1-5, there will be multiple events and activities centered on this year’s Common Read.  The protagonist of A Hope in the Unseen, Cedric Jennings, will be a featured speaker at New Students Convocation on Friday morning, Sept. 2; and later that day, there will be Common Read discussions facilitated by UMass Amherst faculty.  Then, on Sept. 20-21, Cedric will return for more events and activities.

Meanwhile, several groups and offices here have been brainstorming ways to integrate the book, and the issues it raises, into campus life during the coming year.  This blog is just one example of how, as a community, we can use this shared intellectual experience as a way to foster dialogue and reflection among students, faculty, and staff.

Another way the Common Read might “live on” after Fall Orientation is through research projects.  One difference between our sponsoring a “common read” like this and other institutions doing so (institutions like liberal arts colleges and local cities and communities) is UMass Amherst’s status as a research university.  This is, after all, a world-class research institution, with the faculty, resources, and experience to conduct ground-breaking inquiry into almost any problem or issue we select, inquiry that can lead to new knowledge, that can further human understanding, that can solve complex problems in the real world.

With faculty members from nearly every department, college, and school on campus reading the book this summer, it’s possible that A Hope in the Unseen will be mentioned in one or more of your classes during the coming year.  And with so many fellow students and university staff also reading the book, it’s likely that the conversations started around this book will “live on” long after Orientation.

From this point of view, the Common Read is not just a book to read, discuss, and then forget.  It’s a dialogue that we hope will echo throughout the year – in dorm rooms and hallways, class meetings and faculty office hours, student organization programs and events.  Further, it’s hoped that the issues raised by the book might turn into actual research projects for some of you, projects that could be pursued with all the resources and expertise of this research university.

For example, if you’re troubled by the inequality in opportunities and outcomes that this book reveals in our public schools, maybe there will be a chance this year to actually pursue that issue as a research project – by looking at the history of public education in this country, or the geography of inequality in the United States, or the politics of school reform.

Of course, every reader of this book will approach it in a unique way, and the problems and issues that it raises will no doubt differ by reader as well.  What issues did the book raise for you?  What research ideas did it prompt as you were reading?  Are there questions implicitly asked by this book that you would like to try to answer one day?  Or problems revealed here that you would like to help solve?

This post was written by Peggy Woods, the Assistant Director of the Writing Program here at UMass. She teaches College Writing (Englwrit 112) and experimental creative writing courses. She is also a fiction writer.

There were times when I was reading A Hope in the Unseen when I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a novel. Now, I’m not saying this because Cedric’s life and struggles seemed “made-up.” That was far from the case. I found Cedric’s story to be very believable. I’m saying this because of the way author Ron Suskind chose to write this book. As a writer and a teacher of writing, I am very interested in how different genres of writing are constructed. I’m also interested in the choices writers make when they write a particular piece. Usually a book like A Hope in the Unseen (a non-fiction biography) tells us the story of someone’s life. It seemed to me that for most of the book Suskind didn’t simply tell us about Cedric’s struggles in high school and at Brown; he used techniques authors use when writing novels to show us Cedric’s life. For example, Suskind tells us Cedric’s story through a series of scenes, he uses the present tense to give the reader the sense everything is happening right now, and he makes heavy use of dialogue and description.

However, Suskind does something else that makes this non-fiction book seem like a work of fiction. Usually in a book like this we would expect to be told the story through the perspective of the main character. In this case, I expected to see everything through Cedric’s point of view. This is Cedric’s story, and it is only his thoughts, his feelings, and his views that I expected to see.  But this is not the case. Throughout the book we get many people’s perspectives—Cedric’s mother, his father, Rob, Zayd, teachers, etc. Often we are shown what these other people are thinking, what their thoughts and feelings are independent of Cedric. It was during these moments in the book that I forgot I was reading a non-fiction account of someone’s life. In a work of fiction, the writer knows what all the characters are thinking because he/she made them up. But how did Suskind know that “Rob understands that it’s an odd time as the unit dissolves, as people bump into each other with their glazed ‘outa here’ looks and waxen smiles, and that Cedric, like everyone else, must be feeling a jumble of unruly emotions” (339)? How does Suskind know that “Zayd loves it when Cedric asks innocent question like that; they draw out memories or feelings that Zayd has shelved as unsophisticated” (245)? Was Suskind making this up? Did Suskind just assume this is what Ron and Zayd were thinking and feeling? Or is this really what Cedric thought they were thinking and feeling?

It wasn’t until I read the “Author’s Note” at the end of the book that I understood how Suskind knew what Rob, Zayd, and the all the others in Cedric’s life were thinking. He had conducted extensive interviews with all of these people, and he had asked many of them to read their sections for accuracy.

However, this still makes me wonder about the choice Suskind made to use fictional techniques to tell Cedric’s story. I can see how in some ways these techniques worked to make this a compelling story. There were moments when I couldn’t put the book down. However there were moments when I was reading that I started to wonder about Suskind and whether he was telling us a “true” story or a “good” story.

What did you think as you were reading the book? Did you find the shifting points of view distracting? Did the fictional techniques enhance your reading?

This post was written by UMass Amherst undergraduate Anita Abure, a rising junior from Marietta, Georgia. Anita is double majoring in Biology and Psychology. She is very active on the UMass campus, currently serving as the Vice President of the African Student Association.

College can be a life changing experience. It can also be a frightening, even nerve-wracking, experience.  It may be one’s first time away from home or one’s first time living in a community with many different kinds of people. In such a place, one may not have something in common with every single person one meets. Fortunately, UMass Amherst’s Common Read gives incoming students the opportunity to have at least one thing in common with all their new classmates.

Some readers of A Hope in the Unseen may be able to relate to every aspect of Cedric’s life. Others may not have a single thing in common with him – or at least think they don’t. Quite frankly, many of the students reading this book will have come from a very different world when comparing their lives to Cedric’s life. A vital lesson that can be learned from reading this book is that one may not always be able to relate easily to another person. Cedric went through many hardships in the book, such as being an African American male growing up in the “hood.” This is something I personally cannot relate to. And yet I can at least try to understand it.

To make this sound less confusing, let me put it this way: a person should always try to understand problematic situations even if he or she cannot relate to those situations. The definition of understand, after all, is to perceive the significance, explanation, or cause of (something). The definition of relate, on the other hand, is to have a connection, relation, or reference to (something). As a college student, you will encounter many situations, as well as many other people, whom you may not have anything in common with.  Having the ability to listen and honestly reply, “I understand,” to that person or situation will be a trait that will make you stand out.

While reading A Hope in the Unseen, rather than worrying about not being able to relate to the book, or the characters or events in it, try rather to understand those characters and events.  For example, even if you think you can’t relate to Cedric, you can at least try to understand the difficulties he goes through and how those experiences affected his future. Starting off with a little step like this, trying to understand something even if you can’t always relate to it, will give you the upper hand in being able to handle complex situations in the “real world.”

In many ways, Cedric’s home life – the family, friends, and faith that surround him in Washington, DC – is an obstacle to his success in college, at least during his first year there.  In earlier blog posts, we saw, for example, how Cedric’s pastor back home, Bishop Long, openly scorns the worldly striving so central to the middle class ethos of this country – and to getting good grades at a place like Brown.  And, according to author Ron Suskind, Cedric himself, at the beginning of spring semester freshman year, muses about the deep chasm that seems to separate his two worlds: “Spending so much time over the holiday in church, where everyone is ranked according to sacrifice and faith, and then returning to Brown, where everyone is ranked strictly by achievement, has sparked a real shock” (275).

And yet it’s possible to draw the difference between these two worlds too starkly.  Take Cedric’s mother Barbara, perhaps the second most important character in the book.  A high school dropout, single mother, low-paid government employee, devoted congregant in Bishop Long’s church, she nonetheless supports without reservation Cedric’s academic success in high school and beyond.  Although her ability to help out financially is limited, and she clearly feels less at home on a college campus than other parents portrayed in the book, Barbara is nonetheless a stalwart supporter of Cedric’s “worldly” success.  In fact, she’s remarkably astute in helping him find his way in college.

Near the end of the book, for example, she offers perhaps the best advice of anybody concerning the fraught relationship between Cedric and roommate Rob.  Surprised to learn that the relationship is still strained at the end of the year, Barbara offers this piece of wisdom: “It’s a test, Lavar, like I said a while back.  But now I’m thinking that if you don’t work this out with Rob, there will be another Rob right behind him.  That’s the way the Lord works.  He keeps putting up the same test, until we get it right” (342).

If you don’t work this out with Rob, there will be another Rob right behind him. “That woman’s no fool,” Cedric thinks.

How would you characterize the relationship between Cedric’s “home” culture and the world of college?  In what ways are they compatible?  In what ways are they at odds?  And how would you characterize the relationship between the two worlds in your own case?  Where might there be rifts between the two?  Where might they join seamlessly?

Like last week’s entry, this post was written by Sabrina Durand, a third-year doctoral student in the Educational Policy Leadership and Administration in Higher Education track here at UMass Amherst.  Her research interests include access, success, and performance of underrepresented students in higher education.  Sabrina was a member of the Common Read committee.

“You know, Rob, if you and Cedric weren’t roommates, I bet you’d have become friends . . . You’re the kind of person that gets along with anybody” (338).  Caroline’s sentiment to Rob unfolds in the context of observing the continued demise of her good friend’s relationship with his roommate Cedric. Irrespective of their differences, Rob and Cedric could have been among the best of friends; unfortunately, for both, it turned out to be quite the opposite. I think an important theme to consider when reading A Hope in the Unseen is the nature of friends and friendships. What really happened in the course of that first year of college that made the relationship of these two potential friends turn out as it did?  While it is true that Cedric and Rob were in some ways – at least if we are to account for racial, social and economic factors – from two different worlds, this was also the case with Cedric and Zayd. What was it about the relationship between Zayd and Cedric that gave ferment to their friendship in a way unlike that of  Rob and Cedric? Are roommates just more likely to be “friendemies”?

Here again, in reading A Hope in the Unseen, I cannot help but think of my college roommate experience many years ago. Heather and I had had a brief phone conversation in the summer between high school and college to introduce ourselves and take care of roommate business. She had a small refrigerator as well as a television set, which she gladly offered to share, so there was no need for me to bring those. Heather was from a suburb in the Midwest, I was from a suburb in the Northeast. She attended a prestigious boarding school; I did not. We both served as captains of our high school varsity volleyball teams, and we both considered ourselves to be the type that got along with anybody. She seemed like a nice person, yet I considered my college roommate to be a snob (as she also did of me) almost immediately after speaking with her—though she had given me no tangible evidence to believe that she was. In the end, as nice we were, or thought ourselves to be, Heather and I just could not get along – at least not as roommates – and spent most of our first year of college avoiding each other. This definitely does not make for the best college experience.

As I reflect back on my first year living away from home, in light of Cedric’s experience, I believe that it was not our  “differences” that got in the way of me and Heather’s friendship as it was our similarities—our pride, stubbornness and self-conceit. We were too stuck in our own ways to give space to the other to express her ‘self.’   I wonder if this might have been the case with Rob and Cedric as well.

What do you think?

This post was written by Sabrina Durand, a third-year doctoral student in the Educational Policy Leadership and Administration in Higher Education track here at UMass Amherst.  Her research interests include access, success, and performance of underrepresented students in higher education.  Sabrina was a member of the Common Read committee.

Although it’s been some years now since I first left home for college, the memories of that time period are still surprisingly vivid and have become even more so after reading A Hope in the Unseen. College is an exciting time of discovery, and I was eager to leave home to start my journey. Like Cedric, I was a first-generation college student and in some ways treated my college admission as an opportunity to make an indelible mark on my family history. What pressure! There had never been any doubt in my mind that I would go to college; in fact, it was expected of me.  And so, when the eagerly anticipated time for my departure finally arrived, I was ecstatic. Since I was the first in my immediate family to attend college, I naturally had some anxieties about my overall ability to make a successful transition from high school to the academic rigors of college life. While there was little doubt that I was smart enough to get into college, like Cedric, I sometimes worried about my ability to thrive in college.  My high school years had been rich with curricular and co-curricular experiences, balanced by great friendships and a supportive, albeit strict, home structure.  Would not all of these elements taken together contribute to any student’s ability to succeed? What was it going to take for me to thrive in college?  And so for some time, the excitement of my going to college, of making new friends, of taking strange and exciting classes and the wealth of other opportunities were eclipsed by doubts about my ability to succeed in college.

After reading A Hope in the Unseen, I cannot help but think of the experience of other first-generation college students. Unfortunately, for such students, particularly those from traditionally underrepresented groups, the odds of college success are greatly stacked against them.  As I read A Hope in the Unseen, I was struck by the ongoing tension of this theme—the likelihood that Cedric, who came from a largely public urban high school, might not be able to compete with his more affluent peers.  Did his public school education and social economic class automatically place him at a disadvantage?  We see and feel this tension throughout much, if not all, of A Hope in the Unseen: The idea that while Cedric may be smart enough to get into Brown, questions about his ability to engender long term success loom large.  So strong is this tension that Cedric is not only led to constantly second guess himself but the sincerity of those around him.  In his experience, success in college seems to take on a competition of a different kind—an individual quest for survival at all costs.  Was this quest for survival what college had become, or has it always been this way?  Does every college student have the same opportunity to thrive once they arrive on campus irrespective of their gender, racial background, SES, or geographic location?  Does a student’s chance for success matter whether or not he or she is the first to attend college or is from a family with a long history of college attendance?

Some of the most poignant moments in A Hope in the Unseen concern Cedric’s struggles (and successes) making friends at Brown.  He spends so much time alone, behind closed doors, that we can’t help but smile when he “ventures out” (see, e.g., p. 198) to strike up a conversation with his unit mates.

Most readers, of course, will sympathize with Cedric – his background is so different from that of his new peers that we understand his difficulties fitting in.  And besides, he has good reason to distance himself from the partying going on around him.  Still, Cedric can be stubbornly standoffish even when new friends go out of their way to include him.

Fortunately – haltingly, fitfully, gradually – Cedric learns to come out of his shell.  The budding friendship with Zayd makes for an especially moving story in the second half of the book – all the more striking in that it’s a tale of male friendship that’s completely unrelated to sports!

In thinking about the theme of friendship, what episodes or scenes in the book stand out for you?  Why is making friends so difficult sometimes?  And how does college life make friendship – real friendship – both thrillingly accessible and yet frustratingly complicated at the same time?  What lessons does this book offer for navigating the social life of a residential university?