Judges' Report for the 2009 Sibley Award

The gold-medal-winning magazine entries in this year's Circle of Excellence presented the Sibley Award judges with a high level of overall excellence in writing, editing, design, and production. The judges saw that one or more of these elements is an underlying strength of each of these magazines, but the Kenyon College Bulletin had them all.

Kenyon had undergone a redesign in 2002 that brought about dramatic improvement in the look and architecture of the magazine. Building on this impressive visual foundation, stronger editing and writing have recently led to a publication that is firing on all cylinders. Kenyon plays skillfully on two elements of the small liberal arts college experience shared by the college's alumni--a deep emotional attachment to Kenyon's educational ethos and an abiding sense of place. By combining past and present on a palette of carefully calibrated stories, the magazine mixes deep tones of memory with a bright reassurance that present-day Kenyon, though it may be different in many ways from what alumni experienced, is inextricable from its storied past.

The clean design, executed on snow-white uncoated paper, encourages an elegant balance between art and editorial. The magazine's architecture is comfortably traditional, but is punctuated by innovative departments such as "Doors of Kenyon," "Hot Sheet," and "Burning Question." Feature stories in the two issues submitted fulfill the magazine's stated goal of conveying Kenyon's "beauty, fun, quirkiness, and academic rigor" in addition to the college's reputation as "a small place to think big thoughts." Cover packages included a recent graduate's experience in Teach for America, told in diary form and documented by professional photographs, and an innovative and intellectually challenging approach to treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder exemplify the college's engagement with the world. The latter was coupled with powerful profiles of Kenyon alumni who have served recently in the U.S. military.

On a more personal level, the magazine marked the death of Kenyon alumnus Paul Newman with a perfectly calibrated remembrance illustrated by never-before-seen photos of the young actor. And it commemorated a campus fire that killed nine students 60 years ago with a compelling package of personal remembrances of the tragedy. No Kenyon alumnus (the college was all-male in those days) could fail to be moved by either of these stories.

There is some space in Kenyon that could be devoted to better purposes. The book review section is unnecessarily long, a page of "Kenyon in the media" is gratuitously puffy, and the use of the inside back cover for a list of important people squanders important real estate. Tightening or eliminating some of these elements might allow for another feature or department that more readers could enjoy. But overall, the Kenyon College Bulletin is to be congratulated on its rapid ascent from the ranks of the ordinary to the smaller company of the extraordinary among college and university magazines.

June 12, 2009