Summer Reading Program

Callings: The Purpose and Passion of WOrk by Dave Isay
The first-year common read for 2018 is Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work by
Dave Isay. Callings is a collection of conversations about work
and vocation from the StoryCorps project, whose mission is “to record, preserve and
share stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs.” Through
StoryCorps, over 75,000 oral histories by ordinary Americans have been recorded
and preserved at the Library of Congress.
A radio producer and the
founder of StoryCorps, Dave Isay has won numerous awards for his work,
including four Peabody Awards and a MacArthur “Genius” grant. In
2015, Isay received the $1 Million TED Prize, which led to the creation of a
StoryCorps app that allows anyone with a smartphone to record an interview and
upload it to the Library of Congress. In addition to Callings, he has
edited four other volumes of stories: Listening is an Act of Love,
Ties that Bind, All There Is, and Mom: A Celebration of Mothers.
We are excited to discuss
this book with students early in their college careers as they begin to discern
their own callings, and we hope that it will foster campus-wide conversation,
not only about work, but also about the importance of sharing and listening to
each other’s stories. All first-year students will receive the book at SOAR in
June. During Viking Venture, students will join their first-year seminar
classmates, instructor and mentor to discuss the book over dinner, usually in
the instructor’s home. Dave Isay will deliver the Conson Wilson lecture
on September 6, 2018 at 7:30 in the Cage Center Arena.