Union students teamed up with 10th grade English honors students from Schenectady High to discuss Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” Tuesday at South College. Both groups shared their insights on the best-selling novel about the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant in Afghanistan.
“Union students were charged with facilitating the discussions and keeping the questions on point,” said Katherine Lynes, assistant professor of English at Union. “The high school students benefited from the active participation in transferring what they learned in the classroom to a college experience."
Union participants included Don Austin, AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer at the Kenney Center, Jyoti Bankapur ’09, Andrew Camden ’09, Sarah Conner ’10, Ivy Jiang ’10, Emma Labrot ’09, Maggie Levine ’09, Nicole McRuiz ’09, Caroline Tulp ’11 and Brad Wilhelm ’10. The two-hour discussion was coordinated by Angela Blair, assistant director of community outreach at the Kenney Community Center, and Tom McEvoy, associate dean of students and director of Minerva Programs. The event also included a lunch in Old Chapel and a talk by Alireza Jawanshir, a 26-year-old kite maker who recounted his experience emigrating from Afghanistan in 2001.
Hosseini’s book is this year’s selection for the Schenectady County Public Library’s annual “One County, One Book” community reading program. The book "provides a structure to explore the political, cultural and historical aspects of Afghanistan while fostering critical thinking and respect for cultural diversity,” said Karen Bradley, a librarian with the county, which has seen an increase in its Afghan population.