“Before you start talking business with someone, you have to have three cups of tea or a visit to their house,” according to a Norwich student. “You go from stranger to friend to family.”
Several Norwich students skipped the three cups of tea, and went straight from stranger to family at a recent meeting with the Norwich Board of Fellows.
But, they did first read Three Cups of Tea.
Freshmen and other students from the school of humanities gathered together on Oct. 7 to discuss the book Three Cups of Tea, written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, with members of the Board of Fellows and faculty from the School of Humanities.
The idea began when the School of Business required all of its incoming freshmen to read a book last year.
“They presented it and it was so successful we said, ‘Why don’t we give it a try?,” said Marty Pottle, ‘65, a member of the Board of Fellows and moderator of the group.
This year, all of Norwich’s incoming freshmen were asked to read Three Cups of Tea. “The school bought 800 copies.”
Three Cups of Tea is an “inspiring account of (Mortenson’s) campaign to build schools in the most dangerous, remote, and anti-American reaches of Asia,” according to www.bookbrowse.com.
“He was a missionary, not in the sense of religion,” said board member Becky Cooper, ’91, “but in the sense of education.”
Mortenson has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work, and has been invted to speak at Norwich in December, according to Pottle.
The board posed a series of open-ended questions to the group and received some intelligent answers.
The group talked about challenges that Mortenson faced.
Mortenson faced challenges of stereotypes and differences in culture, according to students.
Many students who read the book have been inspired to further their interests in Middle Eastern culture. When asked who wanted to learn more about other cultures, and possibly have a career surrounding it, nearly everyone in the room raised their hand.
“It did give us a perspective of another culture in the Middle East,” said Meghan Papagno, an 18-year-old freshman communications major from Wakefield, Mass.
The purpose of freshmen reading Three Cups of Tea was to provide them with something significant to read and be able to discuss it, according to the board.
“In the book, I found that the human spirit comes face to face with human condition,” said Barbara Roll, a member of the board and a graduate of the Norwich school of graduate studies. “Things from the book can be applied to life.”
“The overall goal was a social aspect,” Pottle said. “Other schools had tried it and we wanted to get as many people together as possible so we could share our thoughts.”
“This made a good platform for it,” Pottle said. “It’s been positive, we’re always trying different things.”
As the meeting was coming to a close, a member of the board asked, “Did we do good?”
The crowd of students replied, “Yes, sir!”
The Board of Fellows plans to repeat this process next year, and are currently looking for another book for next year’s incoming freshmen to read.