Daring Them to Think

Lots of alumni magazines used to sound like the social column in the Oblivionville Weekly Gazette; now they dare old grads to think about all manner of profound topics related to education. A measure of this drastic change is that 219 alumni magazines (out of about 500 in the U.S.) are currently tackling the once too ticklish subject of academic freedom. In fact, their 1,634,000 readers are all reading the same article--a deftly done 16-page insert titled "What Right Has This Man?" Their interest reflects the remarkable success of the insert's ambitious author:

Editorial Projects for Education Inc.

E.P.E. is a Baltimore-based operation run by Corbin Gwaltney, 41, former editor of the Johns Hopkins Magazine, who in 1950 began turning that once stodgy journal into a model of lively thought. Gwaltney had begun to fret that most alumni magazines were too parochial to cover the main story that serious college graduates care about when they cast their minds back to school: higher education's trends, troubles and triumphs. His solution: informative inserts to tap the vast readership of all alumni magazines combined.

Gwaltney mustered a dozen like-minded alumni editors to produce "American Higher Education," a 32-page insert that 154 magazines snapped up in 1958. Next year the editors got a Carnegie grant of $12,500 to finance "The College Teacher." When 249 schools bought that one, they returned the money unused. Forming a nonprofit corporation, they went on in 1960 with "The Alumnus"--reaching 2,858,000 readers in the process. This year's insert on academic freedom, written mainly by Gwaltney, is a balanced study of professorial rights and duties that asks alumni for "understanding and--if the cause be just--for support."

To reach specialized audiences, E.P.E. has started a syndicate that commissions articles such as Margaret Mead's recent blast against college marriages, breaks even at a mere 25 acceptances. Current and choice is an E.P.E. piece by David McCord, the famed poet-fundraiser who recently retired after 37 years at Harvard. Sadly surveying "the average alumnus," McCord asks: "Do you think they really know and value and re-examine the heart of a dozen great books? I strongly doubt it. When they learn that Johnny can neither read nor write, do they ever stop to listen to the sound of their own speech or read the letters which they themselves have written?" Thanks to E.P.E., McCord makes an alumni magazine sound rude like an alumni magazine sometimes should.

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