About the Committee

The Freshman Common Reading Selection Committee members volunteer their service each year. CSUN students, staff, and faculty who would like to join next year's committee are welcome to contact Cheryl Spector at x3932 or via email at cheryl.spector@csun.edu before mid-October. CSUN freshmen have offered crucial advice in recent years and are encouraged to consider joining next year's committee.

The Committee typically meets twice: once in late October to choose a short list of five or six finalists from the list of nominated titles; and a second time in January to select from the short list the winning title for the upcoming academic year.

Got opinions about the books? Blog with us.

If you'd like to share your opinion about any of the nominated books, please do! You can submit your opinions for posting on the CSUN Common Reading Blog: http://csunreading.tumblr.com/

Cover of "One Amazing Thing" by Chitra Divakaruni showing three dried long-stemmed pink roses.

Selection Committee Members (Oct. 2011-Jan. 2012)

These people helped choose One Amazing Thing: A Novel as CSUN's Freshman Common Reading for 2012-2013. Names marked with an asterisk (*) are CSUN undergraduate students.

Selection Committee Members
  • Karen Abramowitz
  • Keighlynn Adlof*
  • Dorothy Barresi
  • Sister Rita Basta
  • Erin Delaney
  • Alexa Dimakos
  • Thu Duong*
  • Kimberly Embleton
  • Susanna Eng-Ziskin
  • Eric P. Garcia
  • Kate Gurewitz
  • Lindsay J. Hansen
  • Eric Hanson*
  • Rachael Johnson*
  • Jeffrey Kaplan
  • Sharron Kollmeyer
  • Mary Kombazdjian*
  • Tina Kotin-Savitch
  • Brennis Lucero-Wagoner
  • Debra Berry Malmberg
  • Denise Mammen*
  • Mary Marca
  • Melissa Marcussen*
  • Coleen Martin
  • Debbi Mercado
  • Julia Panchenko*
  • Harmanpreet Kaur Panesar*
  • Tina Reed
  • Lisa Riccomini-Clancy
  • Ronit Sarig
  • Heidi Schumacher
  • Cheryl Spector
  • Cira Winarto*
  • Louise Xu*

CSUN Common Reading Archives

2011-2012:The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

2010-2011: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

2009-2010: The Soloist by Steve Lopez

2008-2009: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

2007-2008: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien