The Common Experience is a year-long initiative of Texas State University-San Marcos designed to cultivate a common intellectual conversation across the campus, to enhance student participation in the intellectual life of the campus, and to foster a sense of community across our entire campus and extended community.

2007-2008 Common Experience
The Water Planet: A River Runs Through Us

Primary Text:
Goodbye to a River
by John Graves

As a theme for the Common Experience, the subject of water has particular relevance for our university. The unique, spring-fed San Marcos River that runs through campus is a constant visual reminder of the many dimensions and roles that water plays in our lives. The nexus of the Common Experience parallels this literal flow: it fosters students' confluent thinking where discovery in one area will lead them to discovery in another.

Water is a salient focus in science, law, history, anthropology, economics, political science, and international relations. Yet our creative imagination is equally compelled by water's beauty and allure. This wonderment unfolds into aesthetic expression in art, music, poetry, literature, religious rite, and cultural ritual, all awash in the world of ideas.

Clearly streaming through so many realms, the 2007-2008 Common Experience theme on water can galvanize interdisciplinary conversation, cultivate learning and introspection, and inspire a collective stewardship of this most precious global gift within our university family.