Incoming freshmen at Lewis University are being served a piece of Pi this academic year.
As a common reader project, the school will use Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” throughout its general-education curriculum in an effort to encourage a diverse group of students to think beyond their own backgrounds.
Ewa Bacon, chairman of the history department and the Task Force on Globalization, suggested the program after talking to professors at other universities.
Bacon had read the book last year and said she was impressed with how it encourages global thinking. With students coming from many cultures and backgrounds, assuming there is a commonly read and understood story is no longer a given, she said.
She hopes that by introducing the concepts of globalization and internationalization, a wide-ranging student body can find common ground. Perhaps, Bacon said, the book could help to meld a group of strangers into a class.
“Life of Pi” follows the journey of a young zookeeper who finds himself in a lifeboat with a zebra, orangutan, hyena and Bengal tiger. He is the only human survivor of a ship that sank en route to Canada from India.
The students will be handed the book as they go through orientation sessions and are expected to read it before classes start. The story will be discussed in the Introduction to the College Experience program and in many classes throughout the curriculum.
In a biology class they may talk about living in a finite universe and the issues of water, food and shelter for survival that Pi dealt with. In history classes, they might take on the issues of the teenage experience in other countries, such as Pi’s native India or the immigration experience related to his trip to Canada.
Bacon said the book is also meant to be a “glue” for the incoming freshmen.
“It is a tender moment transitioning from high school to university,” Bacon said, noting that the book can serve as a common thread for the students.
In the spring the university will assess the impact of the project on both students and faculty members.
