Next Month: A (Not Altogether) New Look
DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE On the left, the magazine edited by Sid Hayward '26 in 1932. On the right, a new logo from the same type family.
If we editors ever get into trouble, don't blame William H. Scherman '34. Hanover resident, once our editorial board chairman, retired vice president of Newsweek, and former promotion manager of three Time Inc. magazines, Bill is one of our most trusted informal advisors. When we ignore his advice (which, being the feisty editorial types that we are, we do frequently), we often regret it later. One of his remarks has been given the status of "Scherman's Law" around the office. "There hasn't been a redesign in history that readers have liked right away," he said. "This is especially true when the magazine is changed for the better."
Despite Bill's warning, next month the editors will hold their breaths and publish a magazine that looks quite different from the one you are reading now. After a national search, several months ago we brought on New York based design consultant Beth Whitaker, who until recently was art director of American Heritage. One of Ms. Whitaker's innovations was to devise an updated version of the magazine's logos from the 1920s and '30s. Starting with the September issue, the new banner will head up a clean, classic look that uses better paper and fullcolor photos.
The past also yielded some promising editorial ideas. One new department, "Dr. Wheelock's Almanack," is being resurrected from the 1930s. A monthly back-page feature, "Dartmouth Undying," will report on the ways that the College's history reverberates (such as the debt Dartmouth still owes on Daniel Webster's legal fees). An occasional series of articles, written by some of the top journalists among the alumni, will explore fundamental topics from admissions to the faculty. The series will be headed, "Is Dartmouth Still Dartmouth?"
But we're most excited about upcoming stories that chronicle the College's intellectual renaissance. A monthly faculty-written department called "Syllabus" will describe the place of Cherry Coke in Islam and tell how President John Kemeny used probability theory to devise a tenure strategy. Short essays by faculty and students will show some of the thinking that is taking place at the College. Cover features will range from students' original research in the art of the White Mountains to Professor Jamshed Bharucha's use of a computer to understand how the brain learns about music.
Some aspects of the magazine will not change except, we hope, to get better. We will continue to solicit and print the opinions of alumni. Campus news and sports will receive prompter publication. And reports of your mates, some of them profiled in short boxes, will be ferreted out by our unstinting Class Secretaries.
Not all of what we print thrills the administration, but those wise souls in Parkhurst have chosen to let the editors make their own mistakes. The magazine is still financially independent of the College, and we are counseled by an editorial board composed primarily of alumni. We also listen eagerly to the advice of friends such as Bill Scherman. He says, incidentally, that he likes the redesign so far. But if nobody else does right away, don't say he didn't warn us. The Editors
