A Season of Change
Welcome to the health-themed edition of Colgate Magazine.
You’re hopefully celebrating spring — a season of renewal — with the mental boost that accompanies better weather. Perhaps you’re evaluating your physical wellness, assessing your living space, or enjoying the dopamine rush of planning a summer vacation.
With this special issue, it’s our intention to provide compelling pieces that are both informational and express the beauty of humanity.
Colgate’s database of alumni includes approximately 2,500 graduates (whom we know of) working in a health care–related field. In these pages, you’ll read about an alumna finishing her residency with Native peoples in rural Alaska, as well as a cardiothoracic surgeon who helped save David Letterman’s life and performs more mini-aortic valve surgeries than anyone else in New England. We talked to graduates who deliver babies and those who hold the hands of the dying.
In addition, we learned from alumni who specialize in mental wellness and complementary medicine. The radiance illustrated by our cover art reminds me of advice offered by JoAnn Inserra ’82 Duncan, who is a Reiki master teacher: “Think of the positive energy that’s out there in the universe.” Many of the alumni we interviewed spoke from the heart about how their work enables them to help others in life-changing ways.
We stretched our theme to explore financial well-being, spirituality, the health of the planet, and, yes, how to organize your home.
Closer to our home, we met with Colgate counselors who are teaming up with athletics to support student-athletes’ mental wellness, as well as sustainability staff members working with our landscape project manager to preserve the campus.
This season of change is a good time to announce a forthcoming modification in Colgate Magazine’s frequency. After the summer issue, we will be combining the autumn issue with the winter issue; and mailing with the autumn/winter issue will be the President’s Report. We surveyed alumni to hear their thoughts on these publications, and we learned that the majority of our readers still prefer to read the magazine in print. Due to rising costs, we need to change our publishing frequency to three times a year, but we are dedicated to providing the same high-quality print publication our readers expect.
Share your thoughts on this health edition by writing to us at magazine@colgate.edu. In the meantime, we wish you all the best for your well-being.
We Asked, You Answered
In February, we sent a survey to alumni to gauge readership engagement with Colgate Magazine and the President’s Report. Here’s what we learned from the 1,261 respondents.
- Gender: 69% men, 30% women
- Race/ethnicity: 89% white, 2% Black/African American, 2% Asian, 1% Hispanic/Latinx, 1% other, 5% prefer not to say
- Age: 50% 65 and over, 29% 50–64, 14% 35–49, 5% 25–34, 2% under 25
Magazine Engagement
- Readership: 68% read every issue, 20% read most issues, 10% read occasional issues, 1% never read an issue
- Issue engagement: 16% read all of the issue, 46% read most of the issue, 38% read some of the issue
- Print vs. digital: 69% read the magazine exclusively in print; 25% read it mostly in print, occasionally online
- Favorite articles: 53% favor alumni activities, 39% favor campus life, 8% favor faculty activities
President’s Report
80% of respondents read the President’s Report.
Of those respondents, 31% read all of the report, 34% read most of it, 30% read some. Topics respondents found the most interesting, in order of popularity: Third-Century Plan updates, admissions, the financial report, and academic and faculty endeavors.
One reader wrote
I love the Colgate Magazine. The large format allows for luxurious type and photo displays. Generous white space gives the eye and mind elbow room/breathing room for taking in the content. One wants to amble through an article, not race through it. I love learning about the interesting things that people are involved in. Each story illustrates the value that a liberal arts foundation provides for creative thought and action. I like the combination of big, meaty articles and little tidbits. I admire the excellent paper you use. The landscape photos are so well done. The colors and tone of the cover of the President’s Report make it breathtaking — the rich, saturated gray of the slate dormers and the misty pastel of late afternoon make me stare and stare at them. So for me, reading the magazine is an intellectual and aesthetic pleasure.
Keep up the good work! I am happy for the sound management and ethical grounding of Colgate.
– Meg LeSchack MA’68