We have partnered with University of Maryland to create virtual book clubs for University of Maryland alumni. The book clubs will connect through private forums where all participants can discuss the current books and network with each other. Joining is completely free, you just have to get a copy of the book to enjoy. The book clubs will read one book every two months so that you'll have plenty of time for each book.
There are three main reasons we hope you'll be excited to participate in one of our book clubs:
1. Connect with Fellow University of Maryland alumni: Want another way to connect? Joining one of our book clubs will help you learn and grow with fellow alumni to help you improve your network.
2. Advance Your Career: A book club can enhance your career on two fronts. First, the books you read may make you more effective in areas critical to success like leadership, communication and productivity. Second, the network you'll be building may help you with career advice, introduce you to new people and find your next job.
3. Reading is Good for You: Did you know business people who read at least seven business books per year earn over 230% more than people who read just one book per year?1 Reading improves your intelligence, reasoning ability, and has been linked to reducing the chance of Alzheimer's.2 Joining one of our book clubs gives you the opportunity to read more and enjoy all the benefits that come with it.
Below are a few examples of the kind of books the group may read. We will vote between several options each period and select a book based on reader interests.
We plan to start the book clubs by reading one book every two months. The texts selected will be lifelong learning, business, education, social issues, novels and other books and take an average of nine hours to read cover to cover. If you have between 1 and 2 hours a week to read you should be fine.
No, the book clubs will be entirely online. You can participate anywhere you have Internet access and on days and times that are convenient to you.
Participation is free for University of Maryland alumni!
Participants can get books for free at their local library or purchase them.
The book clubs will have a moderator from PBC Guru who manages the forum where discussions occur online. The moderator will pose questions to the book clubs, share relevant articles and facilitate conversation about topics in the book. Members will be encouraged to post and share as well. This format allows for ongoing conversation and makes it easy for readers to connect with each other through the forums.
We're using private forums to host the virtual book clubs so it's easy to connect with fellow alumni. During our sign up process, you will enter the information to auto-generate your free profile. After you complete the sign up, we'll send you a link to the forum and you can begin to post right away!
Professional Book Club (PBC) Guru is a book club management company that works with businesses, alumni associations and professional societies. University of Maryland is teaming up with PBC to put this program in place for University of Maryland alumni. You can check out their website at www.pbc.guru if you want to see more of what they do.
If you are already a member, you can click here to log in.
Feel free to send an email to info@pbc.guru and we'll be happy to help.
1 Tuesday Morning Coaching by David Cottrell, pg 134.
2 Harvard Business Review, 2012, https://hbr.org/2012/08/for-those-who-want-to-lead-rea/
