The Maroon and Write’s purpose at Mississippi State University is to help improve undergraduate student writing. The goals of Maroon and Write include improving students’ writing quality and increasing writing frequency. The program strives to develop faculty who incorporate writing strategies in their classes.
Ann Spurlock, director of composition, instructor and co-director of Maroon and Write Quality Enhancement Plan, said writing is a skill from which everybody can benefit.
“We decided to adopt writing as our Quality Enhancement Plan, and it eventually evolved into the name Maroon and Write,” she said. “Our goal is to implement writing into classrooms where it doesn’t already exist.”
Spurlock said people communicate in writing all of the time and the program hopes to encourage students not to be afraid of writing. 
“After college, when students go out into the work world, one of the key signs that a student can advance and succeed in a career is the ability to communicate ideas,” Spurlock said. “Everyone starts out in an entry-level job, after they graduate from college, but the ones who go well beyond that are the ones with really strong communication tools, and of course, written communication is one of those things.”
LoToya Bogard, English instructor, described Maroon and Write as a way for students to understand that writing does not stop after freshman composition. 
“A lot of times after they leave freshman composition, they don’t write much in other classes, but through the Maroon and Write they’ll be using writing skills in courses across the curriculum and hopefully they can carry those into other classes that they’re taking that aren’t Maroon and Write,” Bogard said. “Some of the students I had last semester actually said in their reflective essays that they see how what we did in our course last semester can be carried over to classes that aren’t a part of the Maroon and Write.”
Bogard said writing and communication skills are a part of life. 
“Writing doesn’t stop in an academic setting,” she said. “If you’re on a job, you might have to write a proposal. You might have to do a memo, and you have to keep in mind that you’re writing to a community or an audience that has to be able to understand what you’re saying.”
Bogard said if students take what they learn in an academic environment and apply it to the work environment, they will be more effective communicators, which is what all employers want. 
Bogard encourages her students to use formal writing in both emails and text messages because practicing it will carry over into academic papers and eventually into formal emails on the job. 
Deborah Lee, co-director of Maroon and Write QEP, outlined the two levels of Maroon and Write.
“Level One is designed to provide intensive training to faculty to redesign select courses to incorporate writing in those courses. The faculty receive a great deal of training in how to incorporate that writing assignment into the class,” Lee said. “The Level Two is really for people who, for whatever reason, can’t redesign their class or their class doesn’t quite fit the criteria for a Level One, but they want to use some type of writing in their class as well.”
Lee said MSU is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. 
“Universities and colleges are accredited by a regional accreditation body and it’s a protection for your investment in your college education, because accreditation ensures the quality of the education at the institution that’s accredited,” Lee said.
For more information regarding Maroon and Write, contact Spurlock at [email protected] or Deborah Lee at [email protected].