Reading Groups
Readings groups sponsored by the Berry Center provide students with rewarding opportunities for academic enrichment, allowing them to extend intellectual inquiry beyond the classroom. Reading groups are hosted by faculty or staff members. Informal gatherings promote dialogue between faculty members and students, and between the students themselves. Reading groups attract students from different academic departments, facilitating conversation across disciplinary lines.
The reading group experience is sometimes enhanced by having students meet with the author of the book, or invited guests with relevant expertise. The Freakonomics reading group traveled to the University of Chicago to meet with co-author Steven Levitt.
2011-2012 Reading Groups Organized by the Berry Center
| Spring 2012: Linked:
How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means |
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The Berry Center is pleased to host a student reading group for interested students across campus. There will be two reading group sessions facilitated by Professor Santhi Hejeebu from the Department of Economics and Business. About the book (from Amazon.com): A cocktail party. A terrorist cell. Ancient bacteria. An international conglomerate. All are networks, and all are a part of a surprising scientific revolution. Albert-László Barabási, the nation's foremost expert in the new science of networks, takes us on an intellectual adventure to prove that social networks, corporations, and living organisms are more similar than previously thought. Grasping a full understanding of network science will someday allow us to design blue-chip businesses, stop the outbreak of deadly diseases, and influence the exchange of ideas and information. Just as James Gleick brought the discovery of chaos theory to the general public, Linked tells the story of the true science of the future. |
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From author Albert-László Barabási's bio on the Northeastern University Center for Complex Network Research: Albert-László Barabási is a Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University, where he directs the Center for Complex Network Research, and holds appointments in the Departments of Physics, Computer Science and Biology, as well as in the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women Hospital, and is a member of the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. His work lead to the discovery of scale-free networks in 1999, and proposed the Barabasi-Albert model to explain their widespread emergence in natural, technological and social systems, from the cellular telephone to the WWW or online communities. TimelineJan. 26, 2012 4:00 p.m. Feb. 7, 2012 11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. Feb. 21, 2012 11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. |
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| Spring 2012: The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care |
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The Berry Center and Dimensions are collaborating to host a reading group for interested students across campus. There will be two reading group sessions. The first session will be facilitated by Professor Barbara Christie-Pope from the Department of Biology and Professor Chris Conrad from the Department of Economics and Business. The second session will be lead by the book author T. R. Reid. From author T. R. Reid's website: The World Health Organization rated the national health care systems of 191 countries in terms of “fairness,” the United States ranked fifty-fourth. That put us slightly ahead of Chad and Rwanda but just behind Bangladesh and the Maldives. How is it that all the other industrialized democracies provide health care for everyone at a reasonable cost, something the United States has never managed to do? In The Healing of America, New York Times best-selling author T.R. Reid shows how they do it, bringing to bear his talent for explaining complex issues in a clear, engaging way. |
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TimelineJan. 9, 2012 4:00 p.m. Jan. 26, 2012 11:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. Feb. 6, 2012 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Feb. 6, 2012 4:45 - 5:45 p.m. |
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2010-2011 Reading Groups Organized by the Berry Center
| Spring 2011: A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton C. Malkiel | ||
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A classic in the field of financial investment and stock market analysis, this book contends that stock prices follow a random walk, and actively managed portfolios cannot outperform market averages. The author evaluates alternative investment strategies and argues in favor of benchmark index funds. The reading group was facilitated by three professors from the economics and business department, Chris Conrad, Todd Knoop, and A'amer Farooqi. It was co-sponsored by the Cornell Financial Group, a student-run investment club. |
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| Spring 2011: The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch | ||
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A national best-seller on education policy, in this book education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch reflects on her career in educational reform. Once of proponent of standardized testing and school choice, she calls into question the effectiveness of these reforms in producing a high-quality educational system. The reading group was facilitated by Professor Steven Hemelt (politics) and Professor Kate Kauper (education). |
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Fall 2010: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder |
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Global health care policy was the focus of this reading group co-hosted by the Berry Center and Dimensions (Cornell's academic enrichment program in health care). Students from various disciplines read Tracy Kidder's account of Paul Farmer, an infectious disease specialist, whose transformative public health projects have saved lives in Haiti and other poor regions. The reading group was facilitated by Professor Barbara Christie-Pope (biology) and Professor Erin Davis (sociology). Dr. John Murray, a global health care expert and WHO consultant, met with the reading group to discuss his work on the design and implementation of primary health care programs in 15 countries in Asia and Africa.
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Past Berry Center Reading Groups
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For more information about the reading groups, please contact
Associate Director of the Berry Center.