Dean’s Read 2025

Welcome!

The Russell Sage faculty, staff, and students are excited to have you join our community. One of the first steps in becoming part of Sage is beginning your journey with the Dean’s Read—a book that I share with all incoming students, as well as the faculty and staff you’ll soon get to know. When you arrive on campus, this book will be something we all have in common.

This year’s Dean’s Read is a fully digital book. You’ll engage with the book in a variety of ways—through events, assignments, and class discussions—especially in your first course, RSC101: Thriving at Sage. The shared theme for this year’s book and related fall events is Envisioning Sustainable Futures, and we can’t wait to explore it with you.

The 2025 Dean’s Read is a book about climate change and possibility—both personal and environmental. In What If We Get It Right?, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson gathers poetry, stories, and conversations with experts who respond to the powerful question posed in the book’s title: What if we get it right? (Johnson 3). This question is the heart of the book, inviting us to imagine a thriving, sustainable future and to consider how each of us can use our unique skills and passions to help shape it. I love this book because it encourages what psychologist Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset”—the belief that our abilities, and by extension our world, can grow and improve through effort and perseverance. With a growth mindset, we become better equipped to tackle complex challenges and to create meaningful, lasting change together.

This summer, as you dive into the “Prelude” and “Possibilities: Introduction” sections, you’ll discover three big questions—and your first college assignment will be to reflect on and respond to them. You’ll find everything you need to get started in the assignment sheet, including step-by-step instructions.

As part of this process, you’ll also get to explore Moodle, Russell Sage College’s online course system. For now, you’ll see just one course—the “Dean’s Read”—but in August, all of your fall classes will appear there. You’ll use Moodle throughout your college journey to enrich your in class learning experience, and this summer is your first chance to get comfortable with it. We’re excited for you to jump in, connect with your new community, and start thinking deeply about the future we can create together!

As you embark on this new chapter, remember that you are joining a supportive and engaged learning community. I encourage you to approach both this reading and your college experience with curiosity, reflection, and a willingness to grow. Let What If We Get It Right? challenge and inspire you to envision the future you hope to shape—not only for yourself, but for your community and the wider world.

Welcome to Russell Sage. We’re so glad you’re coming!Andrea Rehn, Ph.D.
Dean

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and teacher working to help create the best possible climate future. She co-founded and leads Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and is the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College.

Ayana co-edited the bestselling climate anthology All We Can Save, co-created and co-hosted the Spotify/Gimlet podcast How to Save a Planet, and co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy. She earned a BA in environmental science and public policy from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She serves on the board of directors for Patagonia and GreenWave and on the advisory board of Environmental Voter Project. Above all: Ayana is in love with climate solutions.

Compass Roses: Maps by Artists
Artists’ Visions of the local
Opalka Gallery, Albany Campus
September 2 – October 11, 2025

Lungs
Play written by Duncan MacMillan
Directed by David Baecker
Dates/Times at James L. Meader Little Theatre, Troy Campus

Dean’s Read Lunch & Learn 
October 8th, Armory, Albany Campus
(Required for all first year students) 

Check out They Called Us Enemy Online: Borrow a digital copy using the Libby app. You will need to log in with your Sage username and password.

Takei’s book is important for many reasons. He tells a crucial story of United States history and helps readers understand how those events affected many people, then and now. His family’s story is one of trauma but also persistence and resilience, as they found ways to stay together and help each other, and eventually to help the rest of the country recognize the profound injustice they suffered. This is a story of both how democracy sometimes fails, and how citizens can speak up for the truth and for each other. Courage, love, justice, democracy, truth – all these themes are present, as well as bullying, racism, and fear. The form of the book, a graphic memoir, might remind you of Art Spiegelman’s great graphic novel of the Holocaust, Maus, which I encourage you to read as well.