The University of New Mexico

NEWS RELEASE

                                                                                                         Contact: Wynn Goering (505) 277-2611
wgoering@unm.edu
Contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627
kwent2@unm.edu

April 28, 2009

UNM Announces Summer Reading Selection

UNM Provost Suzanne Ortega says “Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream" by acclaimed Los Angeles Times journalist Sam Quinones will be the inaugural work of the Lobo Reading Experience, a summer reading program for UNM Freshmen.

Ortega commissioned the development of a freshman reading program at UNM after seeing its positive effects at peer campuses like the University of Missouri and the University of Washington.  “When a significant number of faculty, staff and students begin the year with a common academic experience, it transforms the campus in a host of ways,” she noted.  “I hope it will help freshmen in particular, to develop a sense of affinity with our UNM community and introduce them to a part of the academic life they are beginning.”

“We worked very hard to select a book of particular relevance to New Mexico and the Southwest,” added Vice Provost Wynn Goering, who is coordinating the project.  Sam Quinones has an especially keen eye for the ways that Mexican/U.S. immigration patterns are shaping communities on both sides of the border.” 

“Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream” will be recommended, not required, reading for freshmen enrolling at UNM in the fall of 2009.  The book will be used in numerous discussion groups and selected class assignments early in the semester, and a further series of events is being planned around a visit by the author later in the term.  Copies of the book are available at the UNM Bookstore and other retail outlets. 

More information about the program and opportunities for participation can be found on the LRE’s website: www.unm.edu/~lre

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