Mississippi State University’s Maroon Edition announced the new book for the 2011 to 2012 school year, “The Optimist’s Daughter,” the 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Mississippi native author Eudora Welty.
The Maroon Edition website said, “(The Maroon Edition) is an initiative to engage all freshmen and the MSU campus in reading the same book each summer and fall. It is intended to serve as a basis for intellectual and cultural discussion as students come to campus and enter into dialogue with other students and with the administration, faculty and staff.”
The Maroon Edition was inaugurated in 2009 and is a committee composed of volunteer faculty, staff and retirees with different responsibilities pertaining to selecting a book for the year and lining up programs corresponding to themes or points illustrated in the book. The Maroon Edition committee asks all incoming freshmen to read the book prior to their arrival to campus in the fall.
Linda Morse, chair of the Maroon Edition committee, leads the selection process by researching what book would be the best fit for MSU.
“It starts with me looking at catalogs — I look at everything,” Morse said. I look at what other SEC schools are doing. I talked to agents; I talked to authors; I looked at books. I talked to other universities on what they were doing. It starts by just looking at things we think might be something that would work for us,” Morse said.
The selection this year came down to a pair of authors the committee was enthused about getting to visit campus, Morse said.
“This year, the top two books that we chose, we could not get either author to come. That sort of put a kink in our plans. So we decided that if we couldn’t get the two authors of the books we had in mind, to do something completely different. We decided to do a classic,” Morse said.
MSU President Mark Keenum, who has the final say on the Maroon Edition’s selection, suggested Eudora Welty’s classic novel, “The Optimist’s Daughter.” Morse and the rest of the selection committee thought the novel was an optimum fit.
“He recommended this book, and everybody thought it was a good idea,” Morse said.
Lynn Reinschmiedt, professor emeritus and committee member, said the plan to do a classic piece of literature has been in the works for some time.
“Over the last three years we have talked about different directions that we might want to go,” Reinschmiedt said. “From day one there has been a group of people who felt like we should do something with a classic.”
Eudora Welty was a Jackson, Miss., native who was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Reinschmiedt thinks the prestige of Eudora Welty and her novel was an ideal selection for this year’s Maroon Edition.
“Obviously, Eudora Welty is a product of Mississippi and has helped put Mississippi on the literary map. This book is a Pulitzer Prize winning book. It has that type of merit associated with it,” Reinschmiedt said.
Last year’s book, “Three Cups of Tea,” was accompanied by a lecture in Humphrey Coliseum by its author, Greg Mortensen. Although Eudora Welty died in 2001, Morse thinks this year’s events will be just as engaging as having a current author come and speak.
“We are looking at bringing in some scholars who knew Eudora Welty. We are also looking at the possibility of bringing in a family member. We think we will be able to create some interesting programming, in that. Even though she won’t be here, it will still be people that can address various aspects of her life and bring her to life for us,”Morse said.
Ultimately, Morse said she thinks the success of this year’s Maroon Edition hinges on the university and community’s involvement with the novel.
“Not only is it an interesting novel, but it has many themes in it that are really important themes for anybody to think about,” Morse said. “Really, that’s what I’m hoping. I’m hoping they’ll pick it up, read it, go to some of these events, talk to some other students, talk to some faculty members about it and learn something that they wouldn’t have known otherwise.”