April 29, 2022

Community Reads

“We, too, on land are often navigating contexts that seem impossible for us to breathe in, and yet we must. The adaptations that marine mammals have made in relationship to breathing are some of the most relevant for us to observe, not only in relationship to our survival in an atmosphere we have polluted on a planet where we are causing the ocean to rise, but also in relationship to our intentional living, our mindful relation to each other.”

-Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned, p.21

UW Bothell and Cascadia College Campus Library’s Community Reads program strives to build community through shared intellectual experiences and discussions around social justice, equity, and diversity.  The intention of the program is to choose readings/viewings/recordings to cultivate productive discussion, reflections and creativity in the campus community around these topics. Each quarter, the Community Reads team, made up of staff from the UWB/Cascadia Library, selects a guiding theme for participants to follow along with and reflect on over the quarter. 

This academic year, the Community Reads program has focused on Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. The book consists of a series of “meditations,” or chapters, encouraging readers to think about their wellbeing and presence in the world and community, inspired by the practices of marine mammals and Black feminist thought. Each quarter, Community Reads has focused on two meditations relating to a common theme:

Fall 2021: themes of self-care, breath, and reflection. Meditations: breathe and go deep.

Winter 2022: themes of community care and support. Meditations: collaborate and be vulnerable.

Spring 2022: individual and community practices in the face of systemic injustice. Meditations: practice and take care of your blessings.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, Community Reads has taken an asynchronous form this year, in the form of an online digital gallery of artwork. The Community Reads program is open to the entire UW community, and participation is encouraged at any time throughout the quarter. Community members are encouraged to reflect on the meditations or any of a series of prompts, to create some form of artwork in response to those reflections, and share their artwork with our online gallery as part of a community art piece. This gallery is viewable to anyone on the internet and is designed to highlight diverse and accessible means of story-telling and reflection. Examples of past contributions include poems, photographs, spoken word collections, collages, diagrams, and short stories.

Now in its seventh year, the Community Reads program has reached hundreds of students, faculty, and staff across all three UW campuses. As an integral part of the UWB/CC Library, this program has played a fundamental part in the library’s outreach during the pandemic, as it allowed for students, faculty, and staff to directly interact with library staff and collections from home.  Here are some past testimonials from previous Community Reads participants:

“The Community Reads Program, and in particular, the online art exhibition enabled my class to explore course content in a public sphere increasing professional practice learning and providing students a public exhibition space for their work which we are lacking at UW Bothell.  In freshman courses, this experience was particularly powerful in how they developed and resolved their work, and it was an incredible confidence-building experience for the students–many of whom were relatively new to the arts.  In conjunction with the reading, the prompts for art contributions broadened the approaches my students were exploring and inspired a much deeper level of engagement with the content; it became a project with real-world implications rather than simply another assignment they needed to complete.  This was an incredible addition to the learning experience.” – gary carpenter, artist/lecturer, UW Bothell

“When I think about my wellbeing in connection with community wellbeing, I act and am better with myself and all those around me—human and non-human alike. The occasional prompts I get from the Community Reads program are helping me make the connection between myself and my community (and I’m broadening the definition of ‘community’, too). I feel lucky that I got a physical copy of Undrowned, as I revisit it often and know that I’ll need to in the future!” – Je Salvador, library staff

How to participate in Community Reads during Spring Quarter:

• Read the meditation(s) practice and/or take care of your blessings
• View the online gallery of submissions community members have submitted in response to readings from Undrowned. Fall and Winter Quarter submissions are engaging and quite beautiful.
• Submit to the gallery: We have provided a series of prompts developed to inspire a creative response to the readings. Submissions can be in any form of artistic expression (drawing, collage, writing, photography, audio, etc.). Submit on your own, or make this a team activity.
• Develop a course assignment using these readings and gallery space. In the last two quarters, faculty at Cascadia and UWB have created course assignments centered around the selected readings in Undrowned and asked their students to submit them to the gallery. If you would like to consult with the Community Reads team on an assignment, we would be thrilled to hear from you (it is not necessary to consult with us, however, to use the readings and gallery in your classes).

Community Reads is always looking to broaden its outreach to the greater UW Community by engaging directly with faculty and staff who teach in areas relevant to the program’s themes. If you would like to work with Community Reads, please contact the Community Reads team.

This program complements other EDI-based reading and collection work happening across our UW campus community such as Recommended Reads for Equity program and UW Tacoma’s REAL Lit[erature] Book Club, both of which are continuing as remote/online programs.