Designed for editors who are looking for a comprehensive overview of alumni and university magazines, this fast-paced and very visual workshop explores the basics of magazine planning, writing, editing, design and production. You'll see lots of examples of magazines, learn where to find inspiration, and leave with solid ideas for making strategic tweaks that will take your magazine to new heights. The session is ideal for those new to magazines, or higher education, or both—but there'll also be plenty of information that will prove useful to those who've been in their role a few years.

Jumping into a redesign is exciting—especially when your magazine is long overdue. But slow down, champ. There's lots to get done before you ever hire a redesign firm or tell your in-house designer to have at it. From the development of editorial strategy and tone to forging new relationships with offices (read: your sources) across campus, Mo Harmon and Bernadine Douglas share the 10 things they wish every editor would do before the word "redesign" ever escapes their lips.

Explaining complex information and research to the public can be intimidating. Engaging your audience to care about the subject matter is even more challenging. In this opening keynote, Daisy Chung, award-winning science visual communicator and graphics journalist at Reuters Graphics, will share helpful tips and innovative ways to emotionally connect people with information through compelling graphics and powerful visual storytelling. She will draw from her experience creating infographics at print magazines such as National Geographic, Scientific American, and Rice Magazine, and share how to bring visual stories from print to the digital platform with interactives and multimedia, such as her recent work at Reuters Graphics and Taiwan Data Stories.

Medill Dean Charles Whitaker will remark upon the disruption in the media and journalism caused by the digital revolution, and how those industries have responded to and pivoted around our new cyber-reality.

As the cost of paper and shipping continues to rise, along with efforts to be more eco-conscious, Howard University made a radical-to-Howard decision: to take down its magazine’s print version from four to two, with one digital-only version (three issues a year). To make this transition seamless, an overhaul of the existing magazine website to an interactive, immersive experience for the busy reader was required. In addition to the digital-only issue, each print issue of the magazine is accompanied by a digital version that must be editorially planned in tandem, essentially planning two magazines in parallel. The results we’ve achieved have been astounding. Join Rin-rin Yu (Editor, Howard Magazine) and Frank Tramble (Vice President of Communications and Chief Communications Officer) as they share the rationale made to go hybrid, the process they went through to design a new digital site, the features selected, along with the results and constituent feedback.

If you work in higher education, you have access to an incredible source of quick-bite content that intelligent readers will love: your faculty! Learn how to go beyond the in-depth faculty profile to fill your publication’s pages with short, accessible, informative pieces of content that will engage your audience and save you time and effort.

It was time for the Cornell Report to give voice to alumni of color, but the editor knew she could not do this herself. Inspired by Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Vanity Fair issue and the college’s new DEI initiative, she invited author, educator, and spoken-word artist Heather 'Byrd' Roberts ’09 to lead the editorial team. The editor ceded authority of a publication she has been in charge of for 28 years, on a social justice topic she knew would bring pressure to the situation. The guest editor stepped in, learned an entirely new process, and pushed back on unknown fences.

This session focuses on best team practices and provide you a tactical plan to ensure optimal collaboration between editorial and visual. For example: you have worked tirelessly on writing a strong fundraising proposal. It’s almost ready, but it does not look presentable. How can you work with the team’s graphic designer to make your proposal visually compelling? We will discuss the must-haves and the nice-to-haves that the editorial team should line-up before handing a project off to design, as well as key points needed from the designer to ensure absolute success of your next publication.

In this lightning-fast session, we'll condense 25 years of on-staff and client alumni magazine experience into 60 ideas that you can use TODAY to make your alumni magazine more read, more loved, and more valuable. From better class notes to more compelling brand features, participants will learn simple tweaks that make a real difference Whether you’ve just landed in the editor role or have been helming your publication for decades, you’ll come away with at least three smart ideas that you can implement as soon as you return from the conference.

The ultimate mark of success is recognition by our peers. Saying that we have “award-winning” magazines makes a difference to those in our organizations, our alumni, and to future employers.
So what does it take to get noticed and win a major award?
Recent CASE award winners Carrie Harrington, associate director of strategic marketing and communications and editor of the Peddie Chronicle; Allyson Irish, director of editorial and creative services and editor of Andover magazine; and Marisa Donelan, associate editor of Milton magazine, will share the recipe for the “secret sauce” to make magazine improvements and win an award.