Book Club

The BAAC Book Club provides IUB advisors with a space to select, read and discuss books of professional interest to them. We select one book per semester and meet once or twice during that semester to discuss the book. The interests of the group drive our book selections; our discussions are intended to challenge our thinking and evoke critical questions that will help to evolve our work as advisors.

All IUB academic advisors are welcome in this group and are invited to participate! To get involved, please contact Emily McCord at eimccord@indiana.edu or Jennifer Watson at watsjenn@iu.edu.

In the 2021-2022 academic year, we will read:

Fall 2021 - Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (available as an eBook through the IU Library System)
Spring 2022 - Get Real: 49 Challenges Confronting Higher Education by William Tierney (available as an eBook through the IU Library System)

Two discussions will take place in fall 2021 and spring 2022. The fall discussions will occur on Zoom. The modality of the spring discussions will be hybrid: in-person in Wells 009 and via zoom. These discussions count as “events” toward earning the BAAC Professional Development certificate.

In addition, we have a new Canvas site for the BAAC Book Club! This Canvas site is a place for participants to chat about the book in-between meetings, suggest questions/topics for discussion at our meetings, and recommend other books to their colleagues. It is a space for connecting around books, building our community, and deepening our thinking.

Past BAAC Book Club selections include:

Elizabeth A. Armstrong & Laura T. Hamilton's Paying for the Party (fall 2019)
Cia Verschelden's Bandwidth Recovery (spring 2020)
Richard Light's Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds (fall 2020)
Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (fall 2021)

Other books nominated by the BAAC Book Club (and that may become future selections):

Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life by William Deresiewicz
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students by Anthony Abraham Jack
Hand To Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado
Ebony and Ivory: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities by Craig Steven Wilder

Critical Questions Generated by BAAC Book Club Members

How is class different from caste? In addition, who does a caste system benefit, and who does it harm?
How can we intentionally create spaces of equity within the greater social structure of caste that we know exists? Could IU-Bloomington be such a space? If so, what would it look like?
How can we most effectively connect BIPOC students with resources that they may want to take advantage of without actively participating in reproducing the caste system and assumptions embedded within it?
Does IUB have a caste system in place? If so, how does it work and what impact does it have on students, faculty and staff? If not, what makes any social structures in place at IUB not like the caste system that Wilkerson describes?
As academic advisors, how can we use our work to actively push against a race-based caste-system and support the inclusion and academic success of students who are BIPOC?
In what instances do you see initiatives at IUB helping to dismantle the caste system? Are there ever times, in your opinion, when these efforts unintentionally reinforce a race-based caste system or threaten to build a new version of caste?
What would Isabel Wilkerson suggest that we do to express radical empathy in our advising practices?

Once diverse groups of students are admitted to IUB, how do we (as advisors) support them in defining and achieving success for themselves? Are there strategies that we could use that we are not yet using? What are they and how could they be put into motion?
How do we empower students to take what they need or want from IUB to achieve their vision of success?
How do we connect students, early on, to resources that often seem hidden or inaccessible? What resources open doors for students that otherwise would be closed and how do we effectively connect them to these?
For students who do not have parents with the social capital to provide guidance in navigating life and education at IUB, how can we provide some of this guidance?
How do we identify and support students who come to IUB with an “insecure academic orientation” (i.e. they don’t feel strongly about what they want to study or what they want to get out of college, so they are more susceptible to the party pathway that might derail them)?
What kinds of conversations would be optimal for supporting students who see a sudden GPA drop? How do we initiate those conversations (before probation hits) and craft them to be of benefit to the student?
What does it look, sound and feel like to be transparent with students about the different “pathways” at IUB? How can these conversations be structured to support and empower students, rather than leaving them feeling defeated or up against insurmountable odds?
What strategies can we suggest to students to help them “find their people”? Is this an easy task at IUB? Is there more that we might need to know or do to help get students who may feel marginalized and left out of the “party pathway” to realize that they are actually the majority and have many potential peers to connect with? How do we know when a student is facing isolation, before their academics are impacted, and support them?

What can advisors do in the context of their advising meetings to promote a growth mindset in students?
What student populations are currently under-supported at IUB, and what could advisors do to develop programs or practices to support these students?
What “values affirmation” work could happen within an advising setting? Is this work happening in courses at IUB? How could we know?
How could the tools presented in Bandwidth Recovery be useful in work with probation students?

How do we (advisors) empower all students to take what they need or want from IUB to achieve their own vision of success?
How do we challenge all students to grow academically and personally, in their time at IUB?

Book Club

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Paying for the Party

Bandwidth Recovery

Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds