AUSTIN, Texas – University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work faculty members Noël Busch-Armendariz and Lori Holleran Steiker were among some of the university’s finest professors who invited members of the Class of 2016 to join them in the university’s annual Freshman Reading Round-Up held August 28.
Now in its ninth year, Freshman Reading Round-Up gives entering freshman an early start on exploring and sharing ideas. Members of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, Signature Course professors, and other outstanding faculty recommend stimulating books for students’ summer reading and schedule times to discuss the books at the beginning of the fall semester.
At the Freshman Reading Round-Up, Dr. Busch-Armendariz and students discussed the crime of modern day slavery as examined by author David Batstone in “Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It.”
Dr. Holleran Steiker and students discussed “Chasing the High: A Firsthand Account of One Young Person’s Experience with Substance Abuse” by K. Keegan & H.B. Moss.
During the fall 2012 semester, both professors are teaching Signature Courses. These classes offer first-year students an expansive array of topics taught by faculty from almost every college and school at the university.
The Signature Course 
entitled Women for Sale? Economic, Social, and Political Proposition of Human Trafficking is co-taught by Busch-Armendariz, director of the Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (IDVSA), a unit of the school’s Center for Social Work Research; J. Bruce Kellison, associate director of the university’s Bureau of Business Research, IC² (Innovation, Creativity, Capital) Institute, and Laurie Cook Heffron, associate director for research, IDVSA.
The Signature Course entitled Young People and Drugs: Who, What, Why, When and How? is taught by Holleran Steiker, an associate professor and University Distinguished Teaching Professor. Holleran Steiker was an addictions therapist for more than 12 years and conducts research on adolescent substance abuse and prevention.