Videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 19th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST This event

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The Author of The Blue Sweater on Our Interconnected World and Combatting Poverty Worldwide

Contributed by Jacqueline Novogratz, author of The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World. Chronicling her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it through the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, this book is a

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Breaking Through Author Katalin Karikó Awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Long before the search for a COVID-19 vaccine, the visionary, Hungarian-born biochemist Katalin Karikó knew that an ephemeral and underappreciated molecule called messenger RNA could change the world. Karikó worked for more than three decades at her lab bench, in the single-minded pursuit of a breakthrough that would confirm her hunch: that mRNA could transform ordinary cells into tiny factories

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How Students at Oldenburg Academy Explored Reconciliation Through Convicted

We are very pleased to share that Oldenburg Academy of the Immaculate Conception in Oldenburg, Indiana, selected Convicted: An Innocent Man, the Cop Who Framed Him, and an Unlikely Journey of Forgiveness and Friendship by Jameel Zookie McGee and Andrew Collins with Mark Tabb for the student body to read over the summer. English Teacher

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How an Afghan Girl Risked Everything for Education

Contributed by Malaina Kapoor, co-author of Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education. A searing, deeply personal memoir of a tenacious Afghan girl who educated herself behind closed doors and fought her way to a new life, the book has received advance praise from Bill Gates, Sal Khan, and

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Hope Wins Community Book Club

By Courtney Walker, Campus Librarian at Skaggs Elementary School in Plano ISD When times are tough, we must continue to find and spread HOPE. I am the campus librarian at Skaggs Elementary School in Plano ISD, and this year I hosted my campus’ first after school book club. When selecting a book, I knew that

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Julie Otsuka’s novel The Swimmers is Seattle Reads’ 25th anniversary selection

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka has been chosen as the 2023 selection for Seattle Reads. The Seattle Public Library provides information on the program: “Founded in 1998, Seattle Reads is a city-wide book group, where people are encouraged to read and discuss the same book. Originally called ‘If All of Seattle Read the Same Book,’

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FROM THE PAGE: An Excerpt from John Hendrickson’s Life on Delay

In Life on Delay, Hendrickson offers new insight into a disorder that has for decades been mocked, mischaracterized, and misunderstood. Through a layered and unguarded narrative, he takes the reader inside the intricate family dynamics surrounding his stutter, and he explores the history of stuttering treatment, the current search for a “cure,” and the nature of self-acceptance.

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Beacon Author and “Badass” Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann Dies at 75

It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the death of the acclaimed Disability Rights activist and author, Judith Heumann. Ms. Heumann died Saturday, March 4th in Washington DC after a brief hospitalization. She was 75 years old. Long before she became an international leader of the Disability Rights movement, with many of her US

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