Entering college students may think they're experts on minimum-wage employment -- but it's a fair bet that few have had to afford food, clothing, housing and transportation on $7 an hour. Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich tried it, and the result is "Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America."
The 675 incoming students of the Smith College Class of 2006 are reading the book over the summer and will meet in small groups with faculty and staff to discuss their reactions to it as part of their orientation to the college. The group discussions will take place at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 3, in student residences. Tom Riddell, associate dean of the college and chair of the committee that chose the summer reading, noted that "Nickel and Dimed" directly raises important issues of class in the U.S., an emerging topic both of student activism and faculty scholarship.
It's also a book with particular resonance for women, as noted in Amazon.com's citation for "Nickel and Dimed" as one of the Best Books of 2001.
"With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by welfare reform," the reviewer noted, "Barbara Ehrenreich decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled."
As has become a tradition at Smith, the author of the required reading will visit campus to engage first-year students in a dialogue about her book. At 4 p.m., Friday, Sept. 6, Ehrenreich will give a presentation about the book to new Smith students in John M. Greene Hall and will answer their questions about the writing process. Ehrenreich's book joins a list of past required summer reading selections that includes Anne Fadiman's "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down"; Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," Ruth Ozeki's "My Year of Meats" and Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot's "Respect."
Smith College is consistently ranked among the nation's foremost liberal arts colleges. Enrolling 2,800 students from every state and 55 other countries, Smith is the largest undergraduate women's college in the country.
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