Background: 

The DSU “One Book, One Campus” Program seeks to encourage students, staff and faculty to read and discuss a selected book as a community. This “Common Read” serves as a foundation for conversations that employ critical thinking skills and center around topics such as science and history through the lens of the African American experience. The goals of the One Book One Campus program are to enhance students’ critical thinking and writing skills, to stimulate discussions inside and outside of classrooms, and to unite students, staff, and faculty in one learning experience. 

2015-2016 Book:

The book chosen for One Book One Campus for the 2015-2016 Academic Year is "The Ties That Bind:  A Memoir of Race, Memory and Redemption" by Bertice Berry. This selection is thought provoking and inspires readers to heal through forgiveness and encouragement. It shines a brighter light on the history and culture of the State of Delaware. It is spiritual and philosophical and written from a sociological and somewhat anthropological perspective.

According to the publisher:  

When novelist Bertice Berry set out to write a history of her family, she initially believed she’d uncover a story of slavery and black pain, but the deeper she dug, the more surprises she found. There was heartache, yes, but also something unexpected: hope. Peeling away the layers, Berry came to learn that the history of slavery cannot be quantified in simple, black-and-white terms of “good” and “evil” but is rather a complex tapestry of roles and relations, of choices and individual responsibility.

In this poignant, reflective memoir, Berry skillfully relays the evolution of relations between the races, from slavery to Reconstruction, from the struggles of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power 1970s, and on to the present day. In doing so, she sheds light on a picture of the past that not only liberates but also unites and evokes the need to forgive and be forgiven.