Robotic touch sensors are not just skin deep
May 2, 2025
If you’ve been a student at Northwestern over the course of the last decade and a half, chances are Nancy Cunniff has touched your life.
As director of One Book One Northwestern, she helped make it possible for the Northwestern community to predict that the Chicago Cubs would win the 2016 World Series through programming around “The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't” by Nate Silver. The following year, Cunniff arranged for all Northwestern first-year students to receive free tickets to the Chicago production of the smash-hit musical “Hamilton” in conjunction with reading “Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality” by Danielle Allen. And for many years, she welcomed One Book student fellows and ambassadors into her kitchen to prepare meals for each other, a tradition culminating last year in “Taste of Home,” a student-authored cookbook inspired by “Crying in H Mart” by Michelle Zauner.
These unique collegial moments were all in a day’s work for Cunniff, who will retire in August after 15 years and 15 books.
“I believe the power of One Book is that both students and faculty from throughout the University come together to explore the issues of the day and by the end of the year feel a stronger sense of community and their humanity,” Cunniff said. “And along the way, we have a lot of fun.”
Under Cunniff’s stewardship, One Books explored global health, Chicago, hunger and many more topics, challenging Northwestern readers to look deeper into all sides of an issue. But more than a shared read, Cunniff and her steering committee worked with Northwestern schools and departments to create engaging and inspired experiences and events that brought the topic to life.
“Nancy’s passion, creativity and talent for bringing people together around the exploration of literature and ideas have made a significant impact on the Northwestern community over the years,” said Sumit Dhar, associate provost for faculty and the Hugh Knowles Professor of Hearing Science in the School of Communication.
Together, the campus community read “A Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, as well as “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson, among many other thought-provoking books.
Cunniff compares the challenge of naming her favorite One Book to picking a favorite among her children.
“That’s impossible. In every book, we found the ability to look at challenging topics through various lenses — art, film, music, lectures, theater, even field trips — to create meaningful connections to the world around us,” she said. “Thanks to the faculty and the students, we built a program that was educational, collaborative and a little unexpected.”
The One Book program will not take place in the 2025-26 academic year as the University explores how it may look in the future.
