The OneBook CRC Project, which began at CRC in fall 2010, encourages the Cosumnes River College community to read and discuss a common book during each academic year. The project spans both fall and spring semesters and is for the entire campus community (students, administrators, classified staff, faculty and members of the broader Cosumnes River neighborhood). The idea behind the project is to create an intellectual community around the reading of a common book in order to enhance student success, improve cultural competence, and encourage inclusive teaching and learning.
What is a common book, you might ask? A common book is a text that students and staff across the campus read and discuss in various capacities throughout the school year. Through OneBook CRC, students, faculty, staff and community members are encouraged to engage in the practice of reading and to use their reading experience to communicate, learn, grow and connect beyond their classrooms and workspaces.
Interested in hosting a OneBook activity? Contact your PD Coordinator to share your ideas!
2021-2023 Selection
Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People
In Blindspot, Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald explore hidden biases that we all carry from a lifetime of experiences with social groups, age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, or nationality. The title’s “good people” are the many people the authors included who strive to align their behavior with their good intentions. The aim of Blindspot is to explain the science in plain enough language to allow well-intentioned people to better achieve that alignment. Venturing into this book is an invitation to understand our own minds.
Copies are available for checkout in the CRC Library or for purchase through the Los Rios Bookstore.
Everyone is invited to self-enroll in our Blindspot Canvas page where you can enrich your engagement with the text, interact with other readers, and/or plan class activities with a multitude of resources.
OneBook Guidelines for Employees
- At the first spring semester meeting of the Professional Development Committee the OneBook Workgroup for the following academic year shall be identified.
- OneBook Workgroup Membership: The workgroup shall consist of 3 or 5 members. Membership shall include the Faculty Chair of Professional Development, committee members in good standing, and a librarian (if available).
- A campus-wide “Call for OneBook Recommendations” shall be sent out, via email, before the end of March.
- Upon close of the campus-wide “Call for OneBook Recommendations,” the OneBook Workgroup shall review all recommendations, and select 2-5 options, based upon the following criteria:
- Cross-disciplinary appeal
- Social significance related to current events
- Quality of text, accessibility of prose, and literary appeal, to students, staff, and faculty
- Complementary nature, and collaborative opportunity, with corresponding spring semester cultural, and other, campus-wide events (e.g. Teaching Circles, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Earth Week, and other events identified as “ongoing campus events”)
- Potential of integration OneBook programming with current campus funding streams (i.e. possible links between book author honorarium and categorical funding opportunities related to the corresponding academic school year)
- If the OneBook Workgroup does not reach consensus, a vote by the PD Committee shall determine the OneBook selection in question
- Once the OneBook Workgroup identifies 2-5 options, report is made to the Professional Development Committee and a subsequent OneBook: Vote! is sent out campus-wide
- OneBook selection, and related campus-wide announcement, should occur no later than May 1
A7. Campus and Community Engagement
Provide a variety of engagement opportunities on campus, online and in the community.
Students engaged in campus activities are better informed and more likely to use services that contribute to their success. A vibrant campus life encourages participation and provides opportunities for students to apply the critical thinking skills developed in the classroom to real world discussions with their peers, staff, faculty and community members.
Area 4
Students will make progress toward becoming engaged and self-reliant learners demonstrating habits of intellectual inquiry and striving toward their maximum potential.
a. Actively engage in intellectual inquiry beyond that required in order to pass classes.
f. Be actively involved in campus life and express a sense of engagement with the campus culture.
Area 5
Students will become more prepared to contribute to a diverse democratic society with a pluralistic perspective of the world.
c. Develop a foundation for cultural pluralism, a rejection of previous personal prejudices and knowledge of and comfort with others unlike themselves.
d. Recognize the ethical dimensions of decisions and actions as well as demonstrate the ability to engage in the ethical reasoning necessary to exercise responsibility as an ethical individual, professional, local, and global citizen.
Inspiration for the OneBook CRC Project
The original inspiration for the OneBook Project was a research report from the National Endowment for the Arts entitled, "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence" (PDF). After reading this report, Humanities Professor Maureen Moore was inspired to create a common book project at CRC. Projects similar to OneBook CRC are cropping up at campuses around the country as other colleges work to encourage reading and foster a sense of campus community.