Walk around the Homewood campus, and you might notice a rather daunting question posted on bulletin boards and light poles: WHAT IS HUMAN?
No, there's no ongoing campaign to provoke existential angst in the student body—quite the opposite, in fact. "What is human?" is this academic year's Common Question, meant to spark meaningful conversation that connects the Hopkins community.
In first-year seminars and extracurricular programming offered by the Writing Center, students are invited to consider what it means to be human: How do we define what a human is? What does it mean to be human during the rapid rise of artificial intelligence? How have definitions of humanity evolved over time, and how do they vary by culture, religion, and political identity?
Students and faculty will convene to ponder these questions on Oct. 10, at the University Writing Program's second "Expo," which UWP Director Matthew Pavesich describes as "a celebration of student writing" where "the Common Question will be a visible presence."
If all this discussion of humanity ignites your inner philosopher, be sure to look out for an upcoming addition to campus scenery: dropboxes where you can submit your own answer to the Common Question that could be displayed on screens around campus.
Alumni of a certain age might remember the Common Question's predecessor, the Common Read, which had first-year students read the same book and discuss it in a seminar. While there's undeniable value in having students read and respond to the same text, finding a book that feels relevant to everyone, from pre-med students to English majors, can be difficult. Like the Common Read, the Common Question unites undergraduates in a shared experience, but its open-endedness widens the possibilities for cross-disciplinary discussion.
"Instead of having students all read the same book and talk about it, where maybe a third of the room won't really have much to say, we asked ourselves, can we ask a question that's potent enough to provoke responses from a lot of different kinds of thinkers, speakers, students, and scholars?" said Nate Brown, associate director of the Writing Center. "And we imagine it'd be answered differently by an astrophysicist than a biologist and be answered differently by a poet."
Created by the Office of Student Services in 2018, the Common Question moved to the Writing Center this year. This move is connected in part to the work of the Second Commission on Undergraduate Education, which issued a report establishing the guiding principles and goals for a re-envisioned Johns Hopkins undergraduate education. CUE2 lists six foundational abilities for instruction, the first one emphasizing that "students should recognize the importance of language and have a command of it as readers, writers and speakers." Another goal of CUE2 is to strengthen students' sense of community and belonging on campus. With the Common Question, Writing Center Director Deirdre Vinyard saw a unique opportunity to accomplish both.
"Since the Writing Center is the public-facing aspect of the University Writing Program, it seemed like a natural fit [for the Common Question] because we are a place for students to gather," she says. "[The Writing Center] has really grown to be a hub of writing-related activity."
This year, the Writing Center is incorporating the Common Question into its weekly Thursday programming. One upcoming event will celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month while inviting students to think about how language shapes the way we think about humanity. Another event, jointly run by the Center for Social Concern, will frame voting and democracy as uniquely human endeavors, and students will also participate in a writing workshop where they'll learn how to express their views to their congressional representatives through writing.
Brown sees these gatherings as prime opportunities for students to informally meet their professors: "We're at a world-class university, but there are relatively few opportunities for students, undergraduates in particular, to engage not just intellectually, but also socially with our faculty. So that's one of the ancillary goals of the program. We have these abundant resources and we have all of these smart students: How do we actually put them together outside of the classroom?"
Pavesich is excited to see the Hopkins community come together over big ideas. "A big part of the CUE2 goals are helping faculty members and students, especially first-year students, to connect with each other," he says. "If we get the Common Question right, it can make a huge difference in how connected students feel to campus, to each other, and to faculty."
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