From the staff of Notre Dame Magazine
First, we’d like to say thanks. For 35 years Notre Dame Magazine has been produced with its readers foremost in mind. In return, we’re heartily appreciative of your generous financial support as well as the guidance, story ideas and articles you’ve contributed. It’s been a great relationship. We’re even more sure of that now.
This year we’re especially grateful—because 12,000 of you mailed back your readership survey (an almost 10 percent return rate which greatly impressed the company that tabulated the results). Your responses were equally gratifying.
For example, 98 percent of you said the magazine did a good job of conveying Notre Dame’s mission and purpose (with 78 percent “strongly” agreeing with this). Again, 98 percent thought the magazine met its goals either “very well” (65.3 percent) or “well” (33.2 percent). Also, 96 percent of you approved of the magazine’s mix and proportion of ingredients (with 56 percent of you being “enthusiastically satisfied”). And your selections, when asked to pick your favorite elements, coincided closely with our sense of your preferences and reaffirmed our belief that much of the magazine’s success depends upon its editorial diversity.
Most of you will be reassured to learn that your thinking matches the staff’s reluctance when it comes to moving the class columns solely online or opening our pages to advertising or going to a subscription-only system. You should also be assured that each of us has read the thousands of comments, has listened carefully, and that we have already talked about ways to fine-tune our content to meet your desires.
In August we’ll be putting a much more detailed report at our website—a website that this autumn will be thoroughly renovated and expanded, that will have features unique to the site but which will be consistent with the character, content and approach of the print magazine.
Meanwhile, we promised $100 gift certificates to the Hammes Bookstore to 10 of the survey respondents (with gifts to the magazine having no bearing on eligibility). The winners, who have been notified by us personally, were selected by a random drawing from a box full of return envelopes and coupons. They are: James Evans, Glen Ellyn, Illinois; William T. Gleason ’52, Bloomington, Minnesota; John Goodrich ’91, Carmel, Indiana; James C. Higgins Jr. ’62, Wayne, Pennsylvania; Louis L. Podruch ’42, Wausau, Wisconsin; Alfonso M. Quintans ’57M.S., Chatham, Massachusetts; Amy Scanlon ’97 M.A., Silver Spring, Maryland; Joseph S. Secker ’72, San Diego; Amy Facinelli Stone ’84, Manhattan Beach, California; and Russell D. Todd, Correctionville, Iowa.
We had fun with the drawing. We also have fun working here at the magazine. A lot of that has to do with our affection for this place and our being able to share the rich and textured Notre Dame experience with you, helping you feel close to this University, to friends and community, to the intellectual excitement and spiritual traditions, to the telling of stories and the vital exchange of ideas, and to youthful ideals, abiding values and new horizons.
Cheers to you, from all of us.
Kerry Temple ’74, editor
Carol Schaal ’91M.A., managing editor/web editor
John Monczunski, associate editor
John Nagy ’00M.A., associate editor
Angela Sienko, alumni editor
Don Nelson ’91MCA, design and art director
Julie Ettl, business manager