College professors face an emerging challenge: We know students are no longer reading entire books

Some teachers increasingly are shifting their approach to reading, assigning fewer books than they once did.

By: Austin Sarat, Amherst College, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: July 23, 2026

Words: 1,361

Last Updated: 3 weeks, 6 days ago

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By Austin Sarat, Amherst College

Anyone who has spent time on a college campus lately has probably heard laments from faculty about their students’ reading habits, or rather nonreading habits. Such complaints are more than an unfounded nostalgia for a bygone age.

Reading – not just any kind of reading, but reading long, complex, challenging books – is quickly vanishing from the American scene.

As Sunil Iyengar, who directs the Office of …

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