In connection with the NIACC Common Read This I Believe, NIACC will be hosting This We Believe on Thursday, April 11, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in the NIACC Activity Center. Showcased will be This I Believe statements, unique artworks, photography, videos, and other expressions of personal beliefs from NIACC students, faculty, staff, and community members.  This promises to be an evening of inspiration and engagement for all.

This I Believe, was originally a five-minute radio series hosted from 1951 -1955 by acclaimed journalist Edward R. Murrow. Murrow asked Americans from all walks of life to write essays about their most fundamental and closely held beliefs that guide their daily lives. This radio series became a cultural phenomenon with people reading their own personal motivation in life on the air. Eighty-five leading newspapers printed a weekly column based on This I Believe. Each day, some 39-million Americans gathered by their radios to hear compelling essays from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller and Harry Truman as well as corporate leaders, cab drivers, scientists and secretaries — anyone able to distill into a few minutes the guiding principles by which they lived. A collection of essays published in 1952 sold 300,000 copies — second only to the Bible that year. The series was translated and broadcast around the globe on the Voice of America. A book of essays translated into Arabic sold 30,000 copies in just three days.

The Common Read is a program designed to engage North Iowa Area Community College, its students, staff, faculty and community members, in a unified intellectual activity. For first-year students it introduces them to academic expectations, respectful discourse, and community building. The Common Read is supported by the Performing Arts and Leadership Series as well as the NIACC Foundation, which sponsors a keynote address by the author of the Common Read, or someone closely associated with the book. First-year students will be asked to read the book as part of their Composition One requirements. The Common Read book is available through the NIACC BookZone.

This program is supported by the Academic Affairs board of the institution, and a host of individual faculty and staff members on the Common Read Committee.