In Becoming a Scholar each professor assigns their class a text they want their students to read. Here are what some of the 2019 BaS professors chose for their class.
Crystal Sellers Battle — “The Pursuit of Happyness” by Chris Gardner
Associate Professor of Music Crystal Sellers Battle
“I choose this book to connect with this year’s civic engagement theme of ‘Living Your Best Life.’ I wanted to look at what we consider to be the best in our lives, and the sacrifices that many have to make in order to achieve what we consider to be success or happiness.”
“I was hoping to accomplish the idea of how one often makes sacrifices whether big or small to achieve ‘success.’ I also tend to choose a book that has become a movie to connect with how a story’s focus can shift in order to fit the big screen. I hope that the students were able to see that difference.”
Heidi Mercer photo by Nathan Heinze
Heidi Mercer — “The Giver” by Lois Lowry
“This is my all-time favorite book. When I was a social worker in practice, I would gift it to field students and I always thought it would be brilliant to use this book for a class. When the BaS instructors were given an option of selecting a book, this was my chance!”
“ I knew coming into this that many of the students would have already read this in school. My hope was for them to have a second look at the book and the life lessons it has for us. I wanted them to consider all of these lessons; the significance of memories, what it means to be a community, what are your true values, what happens when those values are challenged.”
Assistant Professor of Spanish Emily Buckell. Photo by Nathan Heinze
Emily Buckell — “Almost a Woman” by Esmeralda Santiago
“I chose this book because it discusses a young woman and her search for identity as she processes her life experiences.”
“I hoped to give students a book that looks at somebody else at a similar age figuring out who she is and what that means. Esmeralda is Puerto Rican and moved to NYC in her early teens. She then has to figure out what it means to be Puerto Rican and American, what it means to be the eldest daughter in her family, and how to cope with the blending of the cultures she’s exposed to throughout her life.”
“It’s a book I read in the past, and I’ve had other sections of BaS read the first of her memoirs. I thought students might relate better to the book that addresses Esmeralda’s life at or near their age.”
Kathryn Spike — “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas
“If you aren’t familiar with the book, it follows a high school student named Starr who loses two of her childhood friends to gun violence one to a drive-by when they are ten, and the other during the story who is shot by police even though he is unarmed and not a threat. The story deals not just with these events, but with how Starr deals with her life both before and after these horrible events and how she navigates her own identity. I chose this book because it is well-written and compelling and really gives readers a chance to experience life through Starr’s eyes. We hear a lot on the news about gun violence and police violence against members of our Black communities, but this book builds a relationship between the reader and this one young woman who witnesses her friends’ deaths.”
“This is a hard topic for a lot of people, and I wanted students to have the chance to engage with the topic in a personal and more private way by living through these losses along with Starr. Because this is fiction (however based in reality it may be), students have the safety to discuss the characters and situations —everything from violence, gangs, drug abuse to how we form family personal identity, and community. What I wanted to do was open a dialog about tough issues in a safe way — talking about fictitious rather than real events. I also wanted to let literature do what it does best: create empathy in readers by allowing us to experience along with the characters. I was introduced to the book two or three years ago by students of mine who had read it. I read it, shared it with my daughter to read (she’s currently a sophomore at Lima Senior), and then spent a long time talking and thinking about it. I also asked a few upper-class students at Bluffton if they thought it would be a good choice for BaS, and the answer was overwhelmingly, ‘yes.’ ”
Randy Keeler. Photo by Aubrey Bartel
Randy Keeler — “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
“I read the book in college for a class and was significantly moved by it.”
“I hope to encourage them to think about their own meaning and purpose in life. As Frankl suggests, one can survive any situation in life if they have a “why” to live. Life will inevitably have difficult challenges because of the nature of the human condition. If one has a why to survive that gives meaning and purpose to his or her existence, he or she can persevere through any tragedy. For me, that has been my faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. For the student, it could be a broad range of things, but I hoped they would at least consider what meaning and purpose their faith has for their life.”
Paul Weaver — “Through the Eyes of Santiago” by Pedro Salazar
“I chose this book because my class includes six international students, and this is the story of a student from Peru who came to the US for a year in high school.”
“I hope this book helps students reflect on their first year at Bluffton and their first year at college, whether they are from the US or from another country.”
Stephen “Tig” Intagliata photo by Day’Vion Smith
Stephen Intagliata — “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller
“I used the book with a group of students several years ago and they enjoyed reading it and found it helpful in thinking about spiritual questions about God and what it means to be a Christian. Much of the book takes place on a college campus so I feel that the context and themes relate well to our students here at Bluffton.”
“The book is about a college student whose faith is challenged and stretched, and I hope that it will inspire my students to wrestle with the big questions of life that have to do with faith, wherever they are at on their faith journey. I also hope that the book will lead to good, honest discussion about God and faith in class.”
Marathana Prothro — “The New York Times”
“I chose ‘The New York Times’ for a few reasons. First, as BaS faculty, we are encouraged to choose something that we’re passionate about or that intersects with our discipline. I also wanted the text to be connected with the course theme of discovery, so the Times made sense because it gave us an entry point to discover what is happening in the world around us and how to discern whether the information we’re seeing and consuming is actually news and whether it’s reliable. Plus, anyone with a .bluffton.edu email address gets a free subscription, so it was nice to save students a little money.”
