A new era for the Record
In 2016 the ¹û¶³´«Ãº University Record will reach a historic milestone. Our little alumni magazine turns 100!
As you can imagine, there have been some significant changes to your magazine over the past century. Everything from format (once on newsprint), content, and distribution has grown and been renewed to meet the needs of the day’s alumni. And, to mark this next century, the magazine will meet another milestone, with a new online version.
To help develop our plans for the magazine, this past summer we called on you, our alumni, for your thoughts on the Record. And you delivered.
Between June 25-July 13, the Alumni Relations Office conducted a survey of alumni, administered by Corporate Research Associates (CRA), a national research firm based in Atlantic Canada.
The survey was sent to 11,800 alumni, and we were very pleased with a response rate of 22.5 per cent.
Thank you to everyone who took some time to share your opinions with us. And congratulations to Mary Jo Lynch (’69), who was the recipient of the $100 Amazon gift certificate. Mary Jo’s name was drawn at random from amongst all those who completed the survey, as an incentive for participating.
Over 80 per cent of alumni surveyed read each issue of the Record magazine, and the overall opinion of the publication is extremely high — 99 per cent of those who have read the Record have a favourable opinion of it. However, readership of the printed magazine varies by graduation year — 90 per cent from class years before 1990 read each issue, while only half of grads from class years 2010 and later regularly read the printed magazine.
Overall, the most preferred format is print; however nearly 60 per cent of alumni indicated they would be interested in seeing an online version. When asked to name their preference, 48 per cent of grads still favoured ‘print’; 35 per cent indicated ‘online’; and 18 per cent stated no preference.
It’s clear there is strong loyalty to and engagement with the magazine in its current format, but also a growing interest in an online version. Given the wide range of reading styles and preferences, and the increasing trends towards digital reading formats and mobile technology, we have decided the best way to serve our alumni is to retain the printed magazine and produce a complementary website version. This will be launched in early 2016.
For those who would like to see more details about the research, please visit the Alumni Magazine Research Findings.
As we move ahead into the next century of the Record, we hope you will join us for this next exciting chapter.
Carolle de Ste-Croix ('90)
Alumni director and editor of the Record
Laura Dillman Ripley
Assistant editor of the Record