J. D. Salinger Slept Here (Just Don’t Tell Anyone)

By MICHAEL WINERIP
New York Times: March 20, 2011

COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. — For years, officials at Ursinus College had been trying to figure out how to capitalize on the fact that J. D. Salinger had spent one semester there in the fall of 1938.

Callie Ingram and Anton Teubner, prior winners of a writing contest with a prize that included a year in Salinger's old room.
Photo by Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

They were hoping to attract publicity for Ursinus and tried everything they could think of to lure Salinger from the secluded world he’d lived in for his final 50 years. They offered to make him a guest lecturer; to build a literary festival around him; to award him an honorary degree. “No response,” said Richard DiFeliciantonio, the vice president for enrollment at the small liberal arts college here. “Absolutely nothing.”

Then Jon Volkmer, an English professor, had what Holden Caulfield would have called a goddam terrific idea. They could establish an annual J. D. Salinger Scholarship in creative writing for an incoming freshman, and as a bonus the winner would get to spend the first year at Ursinus in Salinger’s old dorm room. “Any college could offer money,” Professor Volkmer said. “Nobody else could offer Salinger’s room.”

On Jan. 19, 2006, the college announced the $30,000-a-year Salinger scholarship, and within a week, the writer’s literary representatives were demanding that his name be removed. In retrospect, this was not a big surprise.

All his life, Salinger had done everything possible to protect his privacy from the same stinking phonies who’d so unnerved Holden Caulfield. He removed his photograph from the jacket cover of “The Catcher in the Rye” and successfully sued a biographer to prevent the publication of his personal letters.

“Salinger’s representatives sent us a warning; it was only one paragraph, but it was blunt,” Mr. DiFeliciantonio said. “They may have used the word ‘exploit.’
College officials pleaded that they were just trying to help worthy students. “I don’t think they used the term ‘cease and desist,’ ” Mr. DiFeliciantonio said, “although they may have used the word ‘desist.’ ”

Full piece at New York Times.