The Honors College's Summer One Read is a selection for new students that is used to foster a community-wide discussion in preparation for the first-year courses. The selection is intended to focus on a contemporary social issue or theme that is deeply intertwined with social impact and inclusive excellence.
Through these courses, students develop traits and non-cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, empathy, collaboration, respect, problem solving, persistence, understanding, and introspection—skills that will help students learn how to transform their ideas into action so they may contribute meaningfully to society and succeed in life.
2024 Summer Reading | How Beautiful We Were
This year’s Honors College Summer One Read is How Beautiful We Were, one of The New York Times 10 best books of the year, by Imbolo Mbue (a Rutgers graduate from Cameroon). Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, How Beautiful We Were is the story of a decades-long fight for environmental justice. The novel centers around the Nangi family, telling their story of challenging the destruction of their ancestral land by an American oil company from multiple different perspectives over the course of the book.
This book was chosen by a committee of two Honors College faculty members and nine dedicated students from across various majors and years. The committee chose two books to read and evaluate, meeting multiple times over the Spring 2024 semester to discuss which book would benefit our incoming first-year students the most.
How Beautiful We Were is a compelling narrative that offers multiple complex perspectives on creating social change and pushing back against colonialism and other oppressive systems that threaten many local communities.
The book will be discussed during the Honors College Welcome Week, as well as in both required first-year courses, Honors College Forum and Cross-Cultural Competency.
Students may visit the Honors College Summer One Read Canvas page for information on where to find the book and more.
Previous Readings
2019 | The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh
2018 | Enlightenment Now by Dr. Steven Pinker
2017 | Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
2016 | Spare Parts by Joshua Davis
2015 | To Repair the World by Dr. Paul Farmer