We decided to completely shift our alumni magazine to strictly online in 2024. The September 2024 issue was the launch of the new magazine and we wanted it to feel like more of a digital experience than just a magazine that was online via PDFs on a page. We also expanded the audience to include all alumni, but also faculty, staff, and students. We settled on a monthly model through the fall and spring semesters for six total issues during the academic year (September, October, November, February, March, and April). This required a full redesign of our existing magazine site, new article templates, a new method of collecting class notes, and increasing multimedia content. We settled on four features for this issue: a cover story on Willard Jenkins, an alumnus who is the Director of the DC Jazz Festival; a profile of Mark Polatajko, Vice President of Finance and Administration at Kent State, about his family's experience in Ukraine and reflections on the current conflict; a multimedia story on our international student athletes; and a profile on David Hassler, Director of the Wick Poetry Center as it celebrated its 40th anniversary, which included some moving poetry on the page. We updated class notes with a new design and more fun format, and we changed the poem featured in each issue into an animated video version with moving words. This magazine vastly outperformed our past online versions of our print magazine in page views, engagement rates, and engagement times.
From the Judges
Kent State Magazine is a magazine that is designed to be online, not just a magazine repurposed to be online. It has a clean home page with just the right amount of content and great interactive graphics and embedded videos. Great job!
