Through the use of a collegewide novel, the College community unites in an effort to encourage reading as a life long source of pleasure and learning. Each year the faculty, students, administrators, and staff select a novel that will be read by the College community. The activity is spearheaded by faculty, but includes the entire College community in its selections, activities, and discussions.
Faculty incorporate the novel in their classes across the curriculum.
They attempt to capture the minds and imaginations of their students by reading the selected book. Since the entire campus is also involved the readers, whether faculty, staff, students, or administrators, serve as role models to one another and encourage the view that reading should be an integral part of one s life. The goal of the activity is to create a reading community and, thereby, encourage reading for pleasure, critical thinking, global awareness, and multicultural understanding. Since its inception in the spring of 1993, the college novel concept has not only sustained itself, but grown to include more participants each year. Its key achievement has been to create a reading community that finds pleasure and stimulation through the reading of a novel.