The Penn Stater Magazine

The Best Alumni Magazines in the Country

May 29, 2009 at 2:25 pm Tina Hay 1 comment

Stanford Magazine, one of my favorites—and a gold medal winner this year

You may remember that two years ago we were named the top alumni magazine in the country—we won the “grand gold” from our national professional group, called the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE.

The grand gold is better known as the Sibley Award, and it’s what pretty much every alumni magazine editor dreams of winning someday.

Last year we won a gold, though not the Sibley—that went to the very fine Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. But we were very happy with our gold, happy to again be considered one of the best alumni magazines in the country.

This year? We didn’t win a danged thing.

(Well, not in the overall magazines category anyway. We did win two golds in CASE’s “Best Articles of the Year” category, but more about that another time.)

The Carleton College Voice, consistently one of the best alumni magazines in the country

CASE recently announced this year’s winners in College and University General Interest Magazines, as the category is called, and while we’re of course disappointed not to be among them, it’s very much a deserving bunch. I thought you might be interested in seeing what the really good alumni magazines across the nation are, in the eyes of this year’s judges.

Gold (one of these will get chosen next week to win the Sibley Award):

Kenyon College Alumni Bulletin
In Touch (King’s College London)
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Stanford Magazine

The alumni mag of the Fashion Institute of Technology is gorgeous.

Silver:

Hue (Fashion Institute of Technology)
Middlebury Magazine
Suffolk Alumni Magazine (Suffolk University)
Notre Dame Magazine

Bronze:

Carleton College Voice
Columbia Magazine (Columbia University)
Dartmouth Alumni Magazine
Duke Magazine
Pomona College Magazine
Smith Alumnae Magazine

We get a lot of these magazines at the office, and it’s hard to argue with the judges—these are great magazines. I love the Stanford and Carleton magazines especially—when they come in the mail, I drop what I’m doing to take a look, and inevitably there’s something in there that makes me say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” That often happens with the Kenyon, Dartmouth, and Middlebury magazines too. Notre Dame’s magazine is very thoughtful and writerly, while Hue is visually stunning; I’m glad to see that the judges appreciated both.

There are a few magazines on the list here that I’m not as familiar with, and that’s part of the value of the awards competition—we’ll contact the editors of those magazines and see if we can get on their mailing list (and offer to send them The Penn Stater in exchange). A few months from now, we’ll gain access to the judges’ reports, and that can be educational as well.

And, of course, there’s always next year….

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: The Penn Stater magazine. Tags: Carleton College Voice, CASE, College and University General Interest Magazines, Columbia Magazine, Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Duke Magazine, Fashion Institute of Technology, Hue Magazine, Kenyon College Alumni Bulletin, King's College London, Middlebury Magazine, Notre Dame Magazine, Pomona College Magazine, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Sibley Award, Smith Alumnae Magazine, Stanford Magazine, Suffolk Alumni Magazine.