COMMON READING PROGRAM INFORMATION

Text:  Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Ringling College of Art and Design is excited to announce this year’s Common Reading Program text selection will be Blink: the Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.  Gladwell, a former business and science writer at the Washington Post, is currently a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine and was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2005.  

The Common Reading Program uses a common text that will enrich your first year experience by giving us all something provocative to think and talk about, as well as address in our work together. All new students will receive this text free of charge in an upcoming summer mailing.  You are required to read at least the Introduction and Chapter 1 (pages 3 – 47) prior to Orientation.  During Orientation you will be assigned to a discussion group which will meet on Friday, August 21 at 9:00 a.m.  Attendance is required during this session at Orientation.  This will also be a great opportunity for you to meet some of your fellow students! 

Blink was selected for the Common Reading Program as it encourages students to think about the power within intuitive decision-making and how we understand the world around us and within.  Blink is “An entertaining psychology book....Blink is not a glib handbook of how to think, or a guide of what to think.  It will make you think about how you think, when you think in a blink." (Seattle Times, 2009).  Blink raises a number of important issues  —about fast-paced life and critical thinking, intuition, and other insights into the human condition, environmental stimuli, and conscious/present living. 

Assignments in various studio and Liberal Arts courses, especially Writing Studio, and co-curricular programming will be linked thematically to this reading.  These will give you the chance to strengthen your writing and refine your sense of social responsibility as an artist or designer.  These are two of the goals in Ringling College’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). 

We all look forward to an interesting year of curricular and co-curricular events linked to the very important themes raised by this text!  Watch for it in the mail!