Catawba College News Service

This year’s incoming class at Catawba College will learn about learning. And it’s not just for the students.

As part of the college’s Common Summer Reading initiative, both students and faculty will focus on learning through books designed for each group and hear a nationally recognized guest speaker on the impact of understanding how one learns.

Both faculty and students will use books by Saundra McGuire. “Teach Students How to Learn” will be the faculty-focused book, while students will read “Teach Yourself How to Learn.” After these readings and discussion groups on campus, both faculty and students will have workshops led by Christiane Price of Dalton State College in Georgia, an expert on student learning and teaching.

“Catawba’s two-pronged approach is much more inclusive and impressive when it comes to instilling the importance of understanding and the processes behind learning,” said Price, who will conduct a workshop for the faculty on student learning, then one for first-year students on engaging themselves as modern learners.

A professor in both the School of Liberal Arts and School of Health Professions, as well as founding director of the Center for Academic Excellence at Dalton State, Price has been teaching at the collegiate level for 25 years. A professor of psychology, she is a nationally recognized authority on innovative teaching techniques to engage millennial learners and was chosen by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as the Outstanding U.S. Professor for 2012 in the baccalaureate colleges category.

Catawba’s Common Summer Reading initiative is jointly sponsored by the First Year Seminar Program, directed by Sheila Brownlow, professor of psychology; the Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching, directed by Michael Bitzer, chairman and professor of politics; and the provost’s office at Catawba.

“This year’s selection of ‘Teach Yourself How to Learn’ complements perfectly our Common College Reading Initiative, which has always been focused on getting students ready to talk about important issues as soon as they arrive on campus.,” says Brownlow. ” The initiative has afforded students the opportunities to contribute to the intellectual life of the college, but with this reading, students will be able to more actively participate in the conservations about ideas that matter to them as learners, ultimately shaping their abilities as students and members of the larger community.”