Common Summer Reading

A Conversation on Leadership

Introductory Remarks

Some of you see yourselves as leaders, others hope to be leaders, while still others neither see themselves as such, nor do they plan on leading. However, by beginning the path to completing a bachelor’s degree, you selected a path of leadership. Using the American Community Surveys (ACS), the US Census Bureau reports that while the percentage of Americans over 25 year old holding a bachelor’s degree has increased in the past decades, only 32.1% of adults over 25 in the US hold at least a bachelor’s degree. For the South, only 19.7% of adults over 25 earned at least a bachelor’s degree in the most recent round of ACS data gathering. When you complete your degree, you will join a relatively small pool from which the vast majority of local, regional, and national leaders is drawn.

As you begin your time at Catawba College, the faculty expect you to spend some time preparing for the journey ahead. Part of this preparation includes exploring the meaning of our College mission with the expectation that you use the mission as a guidepost for your decisions and actions in your time with us. Our mission reads as follows:

Catawba College is committed to providing students an education rich in personal attention that blends the knowledge and competencies of liberal studies with career preparation. Catawba College draws strength from Judeo-Christian values, sustains a dynamic community of learners and seeks to unite a diverse population of students, faculty and staff as active co-participants in scholarship and service. Catawba College prepares students to reach their highest potential while becoming responsible citizens with a zeal to enrich human life.

This year’s pair of common readings intends to help you begin the process of exploring not just the meaning of this mission but how living through this mission can prepare you for leadership. This pair of lectures—while we read them, they were originally delivered as lectures—illustrates the promise of listening to a diverse set of perspectives and how doing so leads to a dynamic learning environment. We ask you to approach the selected readings by envisioning them as a conversation between two very different individuals.

At first glance, the authors and audiences seem to have little in common, and in fact may appear at odds. Dr. King points to war as one of the “three larger problems” arising from modern humanity’s central problem of “moral and spiritual lag.” He delivers this lecture at the University of Oslo as the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, following his speech accepting the award a day earlier. Dr. Deresiewicz delivers his lecture almost 45 years later, and 41 years after Dr. King’s assassination. His audience is comprised of young Americans training to fight and lead in war—the first-year students at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Dr. King is a preacher and the iconic figure in the American civil rights movement. Dr. Deresiewicz is an author and former English professor whose name is likely unfamiliar to most of you reading this.

As you read this pair of lectures with the assistance of the reading guide questions below, keep five broad questions related to Catawba’s mission in mind:

1. What does the mission statement define as the purpose for the education Catawba College provides, the values we root our community in, and the community we aim to cultivate?
2. How do these readings speak to the balance and blend of “liberal studies” and “career preparation”?
3. How does the guidance offered by both Dr. King and Dr. Deresiewicz speak to “becoming responsible citizens with a zeal to enrich human life”?
4. Building off of questions 2 and 3, does an education preparing you for good leadership require both the goal of a balance in one’s own education and the goal of improving the lives of those you lead?
5. What specific educational experiences inside and outside the classroom should I take as the beginning steps to complete an education for leadership that matches the promises made in the Catawba College Mission Statement and the lessons we learned by reading these lectures by Dr. King and Dr. Deresiewicz?

Reading the Common Reading

An important part of training in “solitude” as a leader according to Dr. Deresiewicz is reading, which including times where “you need to put down your book, if only to think about what you’re reading, what you think about what you’re reading.” We suggest you approach reading always as a conversation in the framework of friendship as a form of introspection as described by Dr. Deresiewicz in the sense that you’re really talking to yourself while talking with the other party. In the case of friendship, you’re conversing with a trusted friend who you can share your deepest thoughts and struggles. In the case of reading, you can pose questions heard only by yourself, and posed rhetorically in the same sense that these are questions posed to the author that you are both asking and answering. For both, the “conversation” is one-sided and the other party serves as a sounding board for you to work out your own inner world and perspective on the world surrounding you.

While you read “Solitude and Leadership”

• What does Dr. Deresiewicz mean when he talks about “world-class hoop jumpers”?
• Does his description of the kinds of hoops students are expected to jump through resemble any of the goals or marks set by you or for you by others?
• What is his argument broadly against considering “hoop jumpers” as true leaders?
• What is his argument for “thinkers” with “vision” rooted in “moral courage” as leaders?
• Why does effective thinking and training in thinking require time?
• What are ways of acting or thinking he believes prevent us from becoming effective independent thinkers?
• What are the “difficult and troubling questions” we all face?
  • Why do these require concentrated, focused inward thinking?
  • What is the risk of not considering these kinds of questions?
  • How do these questions rank in relation to the other kinds of questions we spend a great deal of time answering and acting on in our daily lives?
  • How do the realities of the internet age prevent us from effectively concentrating on and exploring these central questions of our lives?
• How is introspection “solitude”?
• How is “concentration of focused work” also “solitude”?
• How is “sustained reading” also “solitude”?
• How, according to Dr. Deresiewicz, does reading books better assist us in exploring our lives and the big questions of our lives?
  • How is reading a book better than reading or viewing the more present and accessible material we encounter in our daily lives (online)?
  • What is the value of old books that we continue to assign and read today for our contemporary lives?
• How does Dr. Deresiewicz describe true friendships, and how is living in true friendship with another yet another form of solitude?
• In his conclusion, how does Dr. Deresiewicz link the activities of solitude (introspection, focused work, sustained reading, and friendship) and the fruits of these activities to practical benefits for leaders? In other words, how do these activities help us make the correct choices when faced with difficult decisions?

While you read “The Quest for Peace and Justice”

• Dr. King begins with a list of mankind’s accomplishments in the decade(s) leading up to his lecture in 1964. What would a similar summary of recent human accomplishments in science and technology look like if written in 2022?
• Do you agree with Dr. King’s assessment that “the richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually? Why do you feel this way?
• What two “realms” does Dr. King identify as the areas in which each human lives their life?
• What are the three problems or evils confronting humanity in 1964, according to Dr. King?
• Has humanity made progress in resolving racial injustice? What do the events of the past five years suggest?
• Have we adequately addressed problems of poverty? How has the pandemic revealed new problems and exacerbated old problems on the numbers of the poor and distribution of wealth in the US and globally?
• Is war still a major issue threatening individuals and societies today? In an era without wars between powerful states, are civil wars and terrorism central threats to humanity’s continued existence (both in terms of general survival and of humans as “human”)?
• What does Dr. King identify as the root cause of these three evils or problems facing humanity in 1964?

• Are there new ills flowing from this “moral and spiritual lag” in relation to rapid progress in science, technology, economics, and other practical aspects of the “external realm” in which we all live?
• What is the strategy of nonviolence described by Dr. King, and how does he believe this strategy helps us “redeem the spiritual and moral lag”?
• How does love, or “all-embracing and unconditional love for all men” help us resolve the spiritual and moral lag, or at least address the problems caused by this lag according to Dr. King’s account?

After the Read

After you read these two works, guided by the questions above, remember the five questions we asked you to keep in mind in the introductory section of this reading guide. Reading, considering, taking notes on the questions above, and writing your own thoughts on these lectures (the readings) is preparation for a conversation you will have with your First-Year Seminar classmates. Much of your conversation with your FYS peers during Welcome Weekend should focus on the five broad questions posed at the outset.

To assist in getting this conversation started, the three groups of questions below ask you to begin a conversation with the authors. The first two sections below pose questions to the authors on key ideas and sections of the lectures. After the two critical analysis sections, a brief section follows where you are encouraged to try start an imaginary conversation between these two individuals. The goal of this exercise (the conversation with your peers and the intensive study of these two lectures) is to find a way to blend their arguments in a manner that assists you in gaining practical wisdom to guide you as you begin your educational journey at Catawba College.

 Critiquing Dr. Deresiewicz

• Dr. Deresiewicz seems to hold an antagonistic position towards bureaucracies. Does he seem to suggest that bureaucratic structure is a barrier to human progress, and worse, at least a permissive cause of human miseries?
• Is it realistic for one to follow a career or life guided by solitude, pushing back against bureaucracy and other forms of institutions?
  • What would a life would constantly questioning rules, norms, and structures look like?
  • What would a society with a significant number of people pursuing leadership models of “thinkers” look like compared to a society where there are mostly “hoop jumpers”?
  • What is the proper balance between “hoop jumpers” (or “conformists”) and “thinkers” for a successful society, defined as one where humans and humanity flourish and progress?
• What is Mr. Deresiewicz’s biography? In particular, how may his experience in his academic career at Yale influenced his views on institutions? Is this reflected in is comparison of his head of department with the station manager in Heart of Darkness?

Critiquing Dr. King

• How does Dr. King tell us we can address our “moral and spiritual lag”?
  • Does he get much more detailed than saying we must begin “learning the practical art of living in harmony”?
  • How practical and helpful is the advice that “Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world”?
  • Is awakening the conscience of good men alone sufficient to “redeem the moral and spiritual lag”?
• Are Dr. King’s core prescriptions for addressing humanity’s ills aimed more at treating the symptoms (racial injustice, poverty, and war) or the cause (the moral and spiritual lag)?

Facilitating a conversation between Dr. King and Dr. Deresiewicz

• What does Dr. King list as the areas of expression where we see the “internal realm” of humans expressed? How does this list (early in his speech) relate to the kinds of books Dr. Deresiewicz recommends for the practices of sustained reading?
• Is there a connection between Dr. King’s identification of tension between the internal realm and the external realm every human lives in and the opposing forces Dr. Deresiewicz identifies as pulling leaders to be either “hoop jumpers” or “thinkers”?
• Assuming one of the reasons you are coming to college is so you can become a leader in one form or another, does Dr. King’s acknowledgement that we truly live in two realms at once help us better think of the proper relationship between acting as hoop jumpers and acting as independent thinkers if we hope to lead as members of institutions, communities, or societies?
• Is there overlap between Dr. King’s claim that the “great decent majority” has a conscience that needs to be awaken from sleep caused by “blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality” and Dr. Deresiewicz’s claim that honing our moral compasses through solitude has been hampered by the distractions of and structures of modern life in the Internet age of distraction and multitasking?

Extending the Conversation and Your Education

Persons and Works referenced by Dr. King

• Henry David Thoreau
• Alfred North Whitehead
• Victor Hugo
• Moses, The Book of Exodus.
• Decolonization of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, Africa
• The American Civil Rights Movement
  • Brown v. Board of Education
  • 1964 Civil Rights Bill
• Mohandas K. Gandhi, and British rule of India
• U.S. Constitution
• U.S. Declaration of Independence
• President Lyndon B. Johnson
• Thomas Malthus
• Dr. Kirtley Mather, author of Enough to Spare
• John Donne
• The Limited Test Ban Treaty
• Dante Alighieri
• The Odyssey (Ulysses and the Sirens)
• Book of Hebrews
• First Letter of John
• Arnold Toynbee

Persons, works, places, and events referenced by Dr. Deresiewicz

• Heart of Darkness, book by Joseph Conrad
• Apocalypse Now, 1979 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola
• Vietnam War
• Belgian colonial administration of Congo.
• The Iraq War (beginning in 2003)
• Ret. Gen. David Petraeus
• James Joyce, and his book Ulysses
• T. S. Eliot
• Thomas Mann
• Amherst College
• Pomona College
• The American Revolution and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine

• 2021 - “The Perils of Indifference” - Elie Wiesel; “This is Water” - David Foster Wallace
• 2019 - "Teach Yourself to Learn"  - Saundra McGuire
• 2018 - "Their Finest Hour" - Winston Churchill
• 2017 - "The Quest for Peace and Justice"  - Dr. Martin Luther King
• 2016 - "Stepping Out" - David Sedaris
• 2015 - “Even Artichokes Have Doubts” -  Marina Keegan
• 2014 - Kenyon Commencement Address  - David Foster Wallace
• 2013 - "The Real Work" - Adam Gopnik 
• 2012 - "The Checklist Manifesto" - Atul Gawande
• 2011 - "Zeitoun" - Dave Eggers
• 2010 - "Three Cups of Tea" - Greg Mortenson
• 2009 - "In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars" - Kevin Sites
• 2008 - "We Are All the Same" - Jim Wooten
• 2007 - "Mountains Beyond Mountains" - Tracy Kidder
• 2006 - "The Kite Runner" - Khaled Hosseini
• 2005 - "Why Things Bite Back" - Edward Tenner