Table of Contents

A Note on the Transition from High School to Drury University
Introduction to Alpha Seminar and Interdisciplinary Inquiry
Andrew P. Mills, What’s So Good About a College Education?
Mark Twain, Two Views of the River

I. Individual and the Community

The Declaration of Independence
The Bill of Rights
The Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Poems of Emily Dickinson
Frederick Jackson Turner, Significance of the Frontier in American History
Anna Howard Shaw, The Fundamental Principle of a Republic
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Michael Nava and Robert Dawidoff, What Do They Want, Anyway?

II. Identity and Difference

Charles Mills, Theoretical Introduction: White Being, Black Being: Metaphysics of Race
Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman?
Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus
W.E.B. DuBois, Of Our Spiritual Strivings
Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa), from The Soul of the Indian
Abraham Cahan, I Discover America
Simone de Beauvior, from The Second Sex
Anonymous Seventh Grade Student, Who Am I?
Peggy MacIntosh, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Deborah Tannen, from You Just Don’t Understand
Emily Martin, The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles
Camille Paglia, Rape and the Modern Sex War
Suheir Hammad, A Road Still Becoming

III. Private Interest and Public Welfare

Plato, Allegory of the Cave
Luke, The Sermon on the Plain
Matthew, The Sermon on the Mount
Acts of the Apostles
Benjamin Franklin, from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds
Hamlin Garland, Under the Lion’s Paw
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Economic Bill of Rights
Milton Friedman, The Distribution of Income
John Rawls, An Egalitarian Theory of Justice
Robert Reich, Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer
Peter Carlson, I’m So Glad I’m Livin’ in the U.S.A.
Ann Crittenden, from The Price of Motherhood

IV. The Good Community

APPENDICES

Appendix A Skills Development in Alpha
Appendix B Overview of GP 21 Curriculum
Appendix C Advisors for Majors and Minors
Appendix D List of Alpha Faculty for 2007-2008 Academic Year
Appendix E Drury University’s Writing Rubric
Appendix F Drury University’s Academic Integrity Policy
Appendix G Philosophy and Religion Grading Guidelines
Appendix H Student Services at Drury University
Appendix I 2007-2008 Academic Calendar