Outcasts United: An American Town, A Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make a Difference was the 2011 first-year student common reading. It was also the pick for last fall’s Roanoke Valley Reads project. So when the author of the book, Warren St. John, came to Hollins in October to talk about what he called “a laboratory in getting along,” the theatre was filled with campus and community members. The book focuses on Clarkston, Georgia, a once-typical small southern town that transformed over a decade into one of the nation’s most diverse communities. St. John explored the impact of this radical change on refugees and townspeople through the story of a Clarkston youth soccer team called the Fugees.