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in the corner
conference room of
our offices, a seven-foot-tall bookcase spans
an entire wall, and 30 years. It houses
the past
issues of STANFORD magazine, all 124 of them,
beginning with the Fall/Winter issue of 1973.
There’s
a lot of history in there.
On page 2 of Volume
1, No. 1, is a letter from Ralph Davidson, ’50,
who was then publisher of Time magazine and president
of the Stanford
Alumni Association. His letter begins: “The
Stanford Magazine is unequivocally about Stanford
University—its
memorable past, its dynamic present, its bright
future.” They
were the first words in what would become an
admired institution in its own right and an
important instrument
of alumni connection.
It began, as start-ups
often do, on the equity of spunk and conviction.
Davidson and founding
editor Della Van Heyst wanted a publication
that exemplified
the quality of the university it covered. “Ralph
said, ‘Stanford is a great university; it needs
a great magazine,’” Van Heyst recalls.
Most
alumni publications 30 years ago were insular
in coverage and outlook, and they appealed
primarily to people in their schools’ inner
circles. Van Heyst aimed higher—she wanted “a
real magazine” whose writing, design and personality
were good enough to compete successfully against
newsstand publications for readers’ attention.
Charged with engaging all alumni, not only
those closest to the University, STANFORD from
the very
beginning interpreted the Stanford community
broadly, in all of its complexity and diversity.
It won readers
and it won acclaim.
The variety and substance
over the years is striking—faculty research,
contemporary debate, student life, institutional
analysis, history,
biography, humor. The magazine has covered
the famous and not
so famous—senators and CEOs, Harley riders
and hay farmers. And it has regularly been
ahead of the curve. In 1985, a cover story
featured a young
assistant professor of political science named
Condoleezza Rice. In 1995, the magazine introduced
readers to
the Cardinal men’s golf team, whose newest
member was a gangly freshman his coach called “potentially
the greatest golfer who ever lived,” Tiger
Woods. In the September 2001 issue, mailed
a few days before Afghan-trained al-Qaida terrorists
attacked
the World Trade Center, STANFORD profiled
Mary MacMakin, a 72-year-old activist who had recently
been kicked
out of Afghanistan by the country’s fundamentalist
regime for her work on behalf of women and
children. (Two months later, the Taliban was
gone and MacMakin
was back.)
Obviously, much has changed since
1973. Generations of students came and went.
The campus grew,
and so did the strength of Stanford’s reputation.
But the magazine’s approach is essentially
the same as it was when Davidson articulated
it three decades ago: to “feature stimulating
articles . . . offer glimpses of research and
other endeavors that
have an impact on the quality of our lives
. . . look over the shoulders of today’s students
. . . and seek to capture the enduring spirit
and atmosphere of a unique institution.”
Here’s to the
next 30 years.  |
