Common reading - Four Fish, by Paul Greenberg

Many of you (I hope!) have received the mailing I sent last week with the Freshman Handbook. In that mailing, I included a copy of the common reading for the Vassar class of 2016 — Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, by Paul Greenberg. Several factors led me to choosing this book for you.  First, I wanted something that was multidisciplinary and would appeal to as many students as possible.  Four Fish approaches its subject from scientific, environmental, sociological, historical, economic, and other points of view. Multidisciplinarity is central to the Vassar curriculum and the way that students and faculty approach their learning here. I hope you enjoy the many aspects of Mr. Greenberg's book. Second, Vassar is planning to break ground on a major science facility project at the end of the coming academic year, constructing a new building and renovating three others in part or in full. So having a scientific theme was important to me for my choice as well. Third, food played a big role in several aspects of campus life this past year. For example, several faculty got together and created a multidisciplinary living and learning community centered around food, where a group of juniors will live together and take three courses together (see Anthropology 286, Biology 280, and Geography 284 in the Vassar catalogue). After reading several options, I settled on Four Fish as the book that best represented these goals.

The Vassar library has created a guide to the book at http://libguides.vassar.edu/fourfish. Please take a moment to look at the guide for information about the book and its author as well as a great deal of other information, included related books and articles, information about eating sustainably, agencies and data about conservation and fish, local organizations, and more.

There are three events in September that connect to Four Fish that I wanted to mention to you.

• Sawdust Mountain, an exhibition of the works of photographer Eirik Johnson, will be on display at Vassar's Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (FLLAC) starting in early September. Several of the images in this exhibition are concerned with the salmon industry in the Pacific northwest. Mr. Johnson will deliver a lecture connected with Sawdust Mountain on September 7, followed by a reception in FLLAC.
• John Long, professor of biology, is giving the keynote address at Fall Convocation on September 12. Professor Long's work is on vertebrate biomechanics and focuses on — you guessed it — fish. His recent book, Darwin's Devices, gives an account of his use of evolving robots in his research, much of which is done with Vassar students.
• Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish, will be giving a lecture here at Vassar on September 20.  

I hope to see many of you at these events. Meanwhile, let me know what you think of Four Fish!