From the Nominator

Spring 2024 marked the four-year anniversary of the COVID-19 shutdown. The pandemic’s impact on everyone’s mental health, and on a generation of youth, was staggering. What had Brown University alumni and researchers learned from all this? What were the lingering effects, positive and negative? Our mental health special issue, “You OK?”—the cover line making a personal connection right off the bat—brought readers into their community’s experience of meeting and learning from this challenge we all went through. Its aim: to inform, inspire, and connect both dots and experiences, bringing the university community in “closer touch and sympathy,” as our century-old mission statement asks of us. Our features looked at the impact on teens and one alumna’s solution; the double whammy of racism and COVID-19 for Black Americans; and offered a profile on the creative career of a four-decade multiple-cancer survivor called “Living Large While Something’s Trying to Kill You.” Other stories covered everything from related scientific and technological innovations from Brown alumni and professors to an alumna in her 70s who made it through the pandemic by plunging into an iced-over lake. Readers loved it, with letters continuing to come in for months. “What a great idea to have an entire issue devoted to mental health,” one reader wrote. Another said it “dropped out of the sky” on the day of his lymphoma diagnosis, “like a gift from God.” “No, I am not OK,” wrote yet another. “But thank you for asking...thank you for caring.”

From the Judges

This edition features a clean and dynamic layout, well-balanced typography, and a striking mix of illustrations and photography that draws the reader in and gives the stories the space they need and deserve. The thoughtful approach to mental health—explored through multiple perspectives—feels real and celebratory and adds depth and relevance to the issue. It’s a magazine we kept going back to and even shared with our staff for inspiration.