Read the book and join the conversation! So goes the motto for Fort Lewis College’s Common Reading Experience (CRE). A unique program, but not unique to Durango, CRE programs are increasingly a part of new student programming at colleges and universities across the country.

The program aims to “promote critical thinking, provide a common intellectual experience and create a community of readers.” It serves Fort Lewis’ liberal arts mission as a bridge across disciplines and is a great way to get students, faculty and community members sharing, learning and reading from the same book.

CRE exposes students to real world issues and serves them in powerful ways. A nine-member board picks books based upon topics that one member described as both “current and urgent.”

The Fort Lewis program began in 2006 with the book Folding Paper Cranes by Leonard Bird. A FLC professor who died in 2010, “Red Bird,” as he was known, was also a Korean War veteran, peace activist and celebrated writer. The book details his exposure to early atomic tests and later travels to Hiroshima, one of two Japanese cities where the U.S. dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War II.

Other selections have included: Mountains Beyond Mountains, Three Cups of Tea, The Beast in the Garden, Enrique’s Journey, The Heart and The Fist, Full Body Burden, Dead Man Walking and Thinking in Pictures. They address globally important issues as wide-ranging as curing tuberculosis, educating girls in developing countries, the death penalty, autism, immigration, war, radioactive waste and, this year, the relationship between humans, animals, landscape and time.

For the past 11 years, faculty members have used the CRE book across campus and disciplines, drawing upon its themes. For this year’s selection, Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Future of the Earth by Craig Childs, that involves the geology, biology, political science, sociology, history and English departments.

If the program had a mission statement, it might be “to make the world a better place one book and reader at a time.” Thanks to Fort Lewis College for sustaining and offering this program to our entire community. For the full schedule that kicks off Wednesday, visit fortlewis.edu/common-reading-experience.