Congratulations on your decision to continue your education at the University of Missouri!
Mizzou Reads provides incoming freshmen with a common experience as they begin their educational journey. All first-year students are asked to read the same book before they arrive on campus for the fall semester.
The summer reading program is integral to the first-year student’s transition to the college experience and has been a part of MU since 2004.
Pick up your copy of this year’s Mizzou Reads selection, Nothing to Envy, at the University Bookstore during Summer Welcome. Read the book when you return home, try to keep a reader’s journal and jot down ideas about the text, and don’t forget to bring the book with you when you return to campus in August.
Who/What
All Mizzou Freshmen will participate in a small group discussion of Barbara Demick’ Nothing to Envy, the 2012 Mizzou Reads selection. Discussions will be led by members of the MU faculty and staff.
When
During Fall Welcome on Thursday, August 16 from 3:30 to 5:00pm, immediately followed by the New Student Picnic and Spirit Rally
Where
Students living on campus will learn their small group location after moving into their residence hall in August. Off campus students will be notified via their university email account a few days before the discussion sessions.
Why
The Mizzou Reads program is designed to foster engagement in the academic culture of Mizzou and encourage all members of the MU community to challenge their assumptions of issues of civil, social, and cultural importance. Once on campus, students can use the book to initiate conversations and build community with their new classmates, roommates, and teachers. Faculty members, staff members, student leaders and administrators lead book discussions on campus during MU’s Fall Welcome Week, engaging students in an exploration of the book’s style, plot, themes, concerns, and implications. The program seeks to stimulate the process of examining one’s life, values, and goals with the intent of growing and developing as an educated person and life long learner as well as to provide a meaningful interaction between students and faculty prior to the start of classes. These discussions introduce first-year students to the pleasures and rigors of academic dialogue and give them an important opportunity to form connections with faculty and staff as well as with peers, in a low pressure environment. The book and its issues may also be explored in several classes, within a mini-film series, in an essay contest, and through an on-campus lecture.
