Worlds beyond

For several years, Trinity University has had a summer reading program. While everyone - students, faculty and staff - is encouraged to participate, the incoming first-year students are the primary targets so that they may have a shared literary experience. The book for the summer of 2008 is Three Cups of Tea, and the program is being promoted more strongly than usual because the co-author and subject of the book, Greg Mortenson, will be on campus during the first week of classes to give a lecture and to meet with smaller groups of students. The book is the story of how Mortenson, a former high altitude mountain climber, became involved in building schools in Pakistan, and later in Afghanistan. I was particularly interested to learn that one of his early supporters and board member of his Central Asia Institute is Julia Bergman, library system administrator at City College of San Francisco.