A Summer Reading List

I know we are nearing mid-summer, and I’m a little late getting this list out. As a university president, I remind myself that the end of learning was never intended to coincide with graduation ceremonies. If commencement means what it means, it is a launch of lifelong learning. So this summer, I’m reading the following:

• How Will You Measure Your Life, Christensen
  I’ve asked a group of our campus leaders to read this. It is a good reflection on why we do what we do. Christensen is one of my favorite leadership authors. Rick Mann, leader of our MBA program, suggested this one.
• The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World, Heifetz, Grashow, Linsky (A Harvard Business Review Book).
  I’m rereading this common-sense, people-empowering book on leadership this summer. You should join me.
• Leadership: In Turbulent Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin.
  By reviewing the lives of Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, Goodwin examines the formative events and reactions to them in times of national crisis for these four leaders.
•  Heads You Win, Archer.
  A novel.
• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, Lukianoff and Haidt.
  This is a helpful balance to my reading list from last summer on white privilege, racial sensitivity, and the call-out culture. I found it descriptive of the way a Christian community respects people, discusses competing ideas and develops maturing friendships.
• Faith Formation in a Secular Age, Root.
  Great book on the spiritual formation of the generation headed to college and already there.
• Paul, N. T. Wright.
  I try to read one of Wright’s books every year because he seems to be the voice of a theologically responsible church. Paul was the epitome of a gospel entrepreneur.
• The Fool and the Heretic: How Two Scientists Moved Beyond Labels to a Christian Dialogue about Creation and Evolution, Wood and Falk.
• Giving a Voice to the Voiceless, Christopher Yuan.
• The Second Mountain, David Brooks.