Mary Jennings Hegar, author portrait

Mary Jennings Hegar

Major Mary Jennings Hegar, one of Foreign Policy Magazine's 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013 and one of Newsweek's 125 Women of Impact of 2012, was commissioned into the Air Force through ROTC at the University of Texas in 1999. In 2004, she was selected for pilot training by the Air National Guard. Upon completion of her training at the top of her class, she served three tours in Afghanistan flying Combat Search and Rescue as well as medevac missions. On her third tour to Afghanistan on July 29, 2009, she was shot down on a medevac mission and sustained wounds resulting in her being awarded the Purple Heart. Her actions on this mission saved the lives of her crew and patients, earning her the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device. Today, MJ lives in Austin with her family. She continues to advocate for marginalized communities as well as write and speak publicly about both her experiences in the military and her fight for increased military readiness through equality.
Shoot Like a Girl

Books

Shoot Like a Girl

Videos from the 2026 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2026 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 17th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST   This

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What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2025-26

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 291 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2025-26. We will continue to update this

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2026 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2026! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about the environment, current events, history, public health, science, social justice, student success, and technology, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through

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