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One Book One Northwestern demonstrates how you can engage your entire campus with a single book.

One Book One Northwestern recognizes that a book is more than a book. This is why Northwestern University's Office of the President has hosted One Book One Northwestern for more than a decade.

Though the program originated in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences for the duration of a single quarter, today's One Book One Northwestern engages the entire campus. Students, staff, and faculty across the university's departments are invited to join the community-wide conversation on a carefully selected, thought-provoking book.

Throughout the year, One Book One Northwestern hosts events including lectures, films, and discussion groups that provide opportunities for individuals to gather and talk about the book, its themes, and the issues its author presents.

As a part of the school's 2016-2017 one book program for The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, One Book One Northwestern launched an online game called NUpredicts. This app was inspired by the one book pick and gives students the chance to apply lessons learned from The Signal and the Noise to answer questions about different events (sports games, the presidential election, etc.) throughout the year.

Prior to the 2016 elections, the school also invited the book's author, Nate Silver, to deliver a keynote address on predictions, statistics, and forecasting to a full house. With this keynote, in conjunction with other voting initiatives and NUpredicts, Northwestern broke records in 2016 by registering 96 percent of incoming students to vote!

The Signal and the Noise one book program didn't stop there. In addition to the Northwestern-exclusive online game and author keynote, One Book One Northwestern also hosted:

– Vice News Tonight's Allison McCann, who spoke on data visualizing and information presentation
– Climate Scientist and Assistant Professor Yarrow Axford, who spoke on climate change in relation to predictions
– Social Psychology Professor Eli Finkel, who spoke on the effectiveness of online dating websites and apps in predicting long-term romantic success

To encourage participation in the on ebook program, The Office of the President sends a free copy of the selected title to incoming first-year students the summer before they officially start their freshman year. This is where BookPal comes in! Over the past few years, we've helped One Book One Northwestern procure over 16,000 — yes, you read that right — books for its programs. Here's a look at some of the titles they've featured in their program in the last few years:

– The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
– Whistling Vivaldi by Claude M. Steele
– The Last Hunger Season by Roger Thurow (one of BookPal's spotlight speakers!)

To get inspired and learn more about One Book One Northwestern, visit the official program website here. Thank you for sharing about your incredible one book program Northwestern University, Nancy!

This post was written by Elizabeth Lee, the marketing manager at BookPal. She is currently reading Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie & The Evil Hours by David J. Morris.