From the Nominator

"The Excel magazine is Lakeland's alumni magazine featuring alumni profiles, campus news, student stories, and alumni association information. It is a collaborative effort between our alumni relations, fund development, and marketing and communications offices. Communications contacts alumni and writes profiles about their success since leaving Lakeland, as well writing the news and student stories and overseeing pagination. The design department is responsible for all design work of both editorial and design. Fund development works on appeals, recognizing donors, and conceptualizing advertisements to engage alumni in becoming donors. Alumni relations helps coordinate the alumni features, collaborates with the alumni association on what information they would like included in the issue, and works on alumni-centric information and advertisements. 

In these two issues from 2021, we focused on both recognizing and celebrating our college's past and looking forward to the future, celebrating the many changes coming to Lakeland, including our new ag tech degree and our new bison herd. Our goal was to engage more alumni in participating both in becoming donors and becoming engaged with our alumni association. One impact was that we have an entirely new panel of executives on our alumni association! We are excited to get back to in-person alumni events and so are our alumni."

From the Judges

Excel magazine presents Lakeland College as a fun, vibrant, and vital community. The publication often presents very institutional content in engaging, digestible ways for readers (such as in the “Alumni Benefits” spread). Good story selection, compelling photography and, as noted, a great sense of warmth and human connection.