Common Reading 2018: Home

Resilience

Failure, loss, heartbreak, disappointment: such experiences challenge us to recover; to develop; to show resilience.

We all face times where we have choices. One choice is to give up, and another is to find a way to recover. Natural systems and communities must be rebuilt after deaths, accidents, and/or disasters. People experience failure and sorrow. How do they recover?

By reflecting on resilient people and systems, we can examine the characteristics that lead to a resilient life or nature.

Dr. James Pomykalski, Associate Professor of Information Systems, Susquehanna University

Dear Reader,

Greetings! This Guide is here to help you understand the articles you'll find in Susquehanna University's Common Reading: Perspectives on Resilience. The theme of 'resilience' was chosen as Susquehanna University's 2018-2019 theme because it resonated with a large number of students, faculty, and staff. What does this mean? For starters, it's important to understand the meaning of the concept, and just why it is so important, even if you may not yet think about it as such. Resilience is: 

• The ability to recover quickly from difficulties such as grief, failure, trauma, setback, loss, illness, etc.

As you join a campus community with a common mission, which is "to educate students for productive, creative and reflective lives of achievement, leadership and service in a diverse, dynamic and interdependent world," we hope that you'll also join us in thinking about and developing resilience. In this guide, there are discussion questions, author biographies, and in-class activities to help you interact with and learn more about the selected texts. We hope these resources are helpful to you, and that you finish this semester with broader views of and ideas about resilience. We wish you the best of luck.

Best Regards,

Shannon Wilcox and Victoria Dunn, Teaching Guide Editorial Interns 2017-2018