The First Year Book is a tradition at Maryland. It’s given to you for free (which is great since you’ve probably just started buying your own books), and it’s given to you so you may engage in a conversation with the University community.
Keep in mind that your views are not right wrong; they are your views. I only ask that you engage in respectful conversation with others. Many of the topics we have explored over the past 18 years have been controversial: the death penalty, global warming, issues of race, class and identity, to name just a few. Often these topics challenge us to examine what we really believe.
The project began back in 1993 from when a student decided that she wanted a new tradition, one that involved something academic. Since there is not one course that all students take, she decided she wanted a first year book, much like ones at smaller schools.
Since that time we’ve introduced 19 books to first year students at Maryland. We’ve had fiction, biography, plays and poems, the intent of each one to generate dialogue among students and faculty members.
The author, Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Ms. Lacks’ illness and subsequent death from cancer and the cells taken from her which grew and grew and grew, and as a result, were used in some of the most pressing medical research of the 20th century, such as polio and AIDS.
What makes this story so compelling is that is this: her family, living in poverty and ill health were followed by Johns Hopkins researchers for many years. Her husband and children were led to believe that physicians were monitoring the family’s cancer risk.
The story is a local one, chronicling the family’s move from the south to better employment opportunities for African Americans during WWII. Ms. Lacks had to travel 20 miles to be treated at JHU because it was the closest hospital that would see African Americans.
And years later, when the family found out about Henrietta’s legacy, there arose suspicion in the Black community, recalling images of the Tuskegee and the Mississippi Appendectomy studies.
So I invite you to join me in discussing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
