Summarizer Chap 3 John P

The chapter begins with the author explaining how the university first introduces the idea of community during welcome week. They show a powerpoint that shows events starting from when the freshmen were born to present-day events.

Then Nathan talks about the mandatory community class that all freshmen had to take. The author explains how 97% of college presidents believed community was important on their campus which is why the class was mandatory for incoming freshmen. Many students did not participate and the class failed to do its job so the university decided to make the class an elective.

Next, Nathan's RA makes an interest survey to see what the residents would like to do as a group. Although most residents chose movie night as an event they'd like to do, barely any residents showed up, and movie night was shortly cancelled.

After that, Nathan explains how students are not participating in the community nearly as much as they should. She says that students want to be part of a community for all of the benefits, but they are not willing to put in the time or effort. The RA called another mandatory meeting where the residents had the option to write rules for their wing. After the rules are posted by the RA the following week, no one really follows them.

Following that, Nathan learns that students have their own distinct group of friends that they hang out with rather than hanging out with the entire wing or floor. Nathan discovers this during the Super Bowl where she found that most rooms had three or more friends in them watching the game.

Lastly, Nathan realized that AnyU is not a very diverse school when in comes to eating habits or friendship. Most minorities were found either eating by themselves or bringing their meal to their rooms and eating there. When students were asked to name their closest friends then name their ethnicity, most people's friends happened to be the same ethnicity as them.

The author wrote the chapter with a surprised tone. She was not expecting the students to be as individualized as they were. Towards the end, the author seemed to be scolding the reader abut how we are becoming more and more private with out lives. She is hinting that we need to participate more in our community.