The Alumni magazine: Will you ever read it?

Got a good one today: The Wall Street Journal published an article about alumni magazines and what a load of crap they are.

Alright, that's not exactly what the article's about. But the point is that colleges have viewed the publication of editorially-independent alumi magazines as a threat to their fundraising efforts, particularly if those publications are focusing on administrative scandals rather than the college's "achievements." The article primarily cites Harvard as an example of this; the university's development office has begun publishing a separate alumni magazine, *The Yard* -- competition, I suppose, for the presumably far more interesting, *Harvard* magazine. I've gotta get my hands on these.

Williams College (my alma mater) gets a shout out in the article, which I mention because I find it a little funny: "Current and former editors at alumni magazines across the country, from Williams College to Columbia University, say that tensions with their schools have grown in recent years as fund-raisers increasingly try to gain control of communication with graduates."

"From Williams College to Columbia University"?? Well, that's not a very big range, now is it?

Another notable line from the article, "The alumni-magazine landscape at Harvard is poised to become even more cluttered with the September launch of 02138, a private publication named for Harvard's iconic ZIP Code."

Maybe I'm just uneducated, but 02138 just doesn't quite ring for me like, say, 90210.







Anyhow, Williams' alumni magazine, if you're curious, is usually full of foliage and sports blurbs and incredibly tedious articles about new buildings on campus. There are some interesting bits: new academic programs they've established off campus, books that kooky and loved professors are publishing. But the fact is, the Alumni Review is such a throwaway publication that they actually *removed* the Alumni News from the magazine because that was the only piece of it that people cared about. Now all the class notes and wedding photos are published in a smaller digest called, simply, "People." I have to say, I don't care for that one much, either.

So, you should read this piece. Makes you think a little bit about what kind of literature our colleges would have us consume.

Now I'm off to sign a lease on a new apartment in Brooklyn. hurrah!