About the program

The sun rises over the KU campus.

Purpose

The purpose of the KU Reads is to provide a platform for community conversations that center on grand challenges. Grand challenges are significant and complex issues that require concerted efforts to solve. The challenges typically transcend boundaries and affect multiple aspects of human life. Addressing grand challenges often requires interdisciplinary collaboration, innovative approaches, and long-term strategic planning. KU Reads will generate opportunities to center grand challenges by selecting books that tackle relevant societal issues and prompt discussions that encourage discerning crucial details, deep consideration, empathy, and collective problem-solving among participants. The KU community will read and learn together in order to take action and solve problems. The program has three goals:  

  • Build community among students, faculty, and staff
  • Encourage intellectual engagement through reading, discussion, curriculum, and events
  • Create a shared conversation about topics and issues of significance in today’s world

KU Reads is a shared experience among KU students in that it is integrated into general education courses that many students take.  In addition, the book is used in co-curricular activities such as small-group discussions and public speaker engagements.  Academic Affairs, the Libraries, and the Hall Center for the Humanities continue to partner to generate both curricular and co-curricular opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to engage with each year’s selection.    

The KU Reads Advisory Board is charged with oversight of the program including the nomination and selection processes, and communicating information about the program to the campus community. The Advisory Board is responsible for designing and implementing a coherent, integrated program that fosters awareness of and engagement with the book. 

 

2025-2026 KU Reads Advisory Board:

Giselle Anatol*, Director, Hall Center for the Humanities 

Samantha Greeson*, Common Book Librarian, KU Libraries 

Brad Allen, Director, Lawrence Public Library 

Folashade Agusto, Associate Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology 

Jane Barnette, Professor, Theatre & Dance 

Jill Becker, Head of the Center for Undergraduate Initiatives & Engagement, KU Libraries  

Marie Brown, Associate Chair, History 

Grace Edgar, Assistant Professor, Music 

Millinda Fowles, Director, Academic Programs & Experiential Learning 

Ashley Kalatusha, Student Services Specialist, Edwards Campus 

Polli Kenn, Readers’ Services Supervisor, Lawrence Public Library 

Tracey LaPierre, Associate Professor, Sociology 

Laura Moriarty, Professor, English 

Maria Orive, Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences 

Eliott Reeder, Program Coordinator, Hall Center for the Humanities 

Mary Jo Reiff, Professor, English 

Emily Ryan, Director, The Commons 

Celka Straughn, Deputy Director for Public Practice and Curatorial, Director of Academic Programs, Spencer Museum of Art 

Heidi Ray, Undergraduate Student 

Grace Price-Brown, Graduate Student 

 

*Co-chair