City Views - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

FROM THE EDITORS
WhatYouToldUs
A
s
one of the last alumni magazines at a private university that must rely
solely on its readers and advertisers for financial support, we need to
know what readers want.
Our paying subscribers have always insisted on unbiased reporting
of the university, an approach we characterize as "sympathetic objectivity."
We try to understand and explain a grand and occasionally puzzling institution,
a mix of mighty scholarship, idealism, and youthful tomfoolery.
But do alumni still want to pay for an independent magazine that aims to
serve their particular needs?
Two years ago our publisher, the Alumni Association, through its Publications
Committee, asked us to find out what alumni think of the content, display,
and marketing of the Cornell Alumni News, and fix anything that appeared
broken. The first step was a survey of readers, conducted early last year by
Marcy Dubroff '84, a graduate student in communications, with the help of
marketing and publishing experts on the Publications Committee. She sent out
800 surveys. Some 40% of you who received them responded.
Some of the responses were encouraging, others pointed to the need for
change.
When asked to rate the magazine overall, readers were enthusiastic: 86%
said it was "good" or "excellent." 91% rated it a better source of information
about Cornell than the other periodicals they get from the university. 98% want
to continue receiving tjie News.
Asked what subjects most interest them, readers favored our current content.
They ranked news of alumni first, 96% saying they were "interested" or
"very interested" in such items; followed by campus news, 95; Cornell history,
Cornell Alumni News
A Alumni News
competes for attention
at
Mayers newsstand,
as it does
on alumni coffee
tables.