Letters

OWU Magazine Is Back, Thanks to OWU Alumni

As you may know, these are challenging times for colleges across the country, with a shrinking number of college-age students, increasing expenses and competition, aging facilities—and a global pandemic.

Ohio Wesleyan completed a review of its academic and administrative programs in the first half of 2020, and one of the cost-cutting measures identified was to cease publication of OWU Magazine and rely, instead, on electronic communication with alumni and parents. That’s why you have not seen an issue of OWU Magazine since May 2020.

We regretted having to end the magazine, which had been published for more than a century, but we have a profound obligation to hold down tuition costs for our students. The cost to produce, print, and mail a magazine to about 25,000 alumni and parents three times a year has grown substantially.

Beginning around the 2020 holidays, however, we began to hear requests for us to bring back the magazine. Those voices continued to grow louder throughout 2021.

Then, the chorus gained an indomitable power this summer, with an incredibly generous gesture by two OWU alumni.

During a friendly conversation I had with an alumnus at OWU’s double-commencement in June—where his grandchild was graduating—we chatted about the magazine, and he asked me about our budget. Within a couple of weeks, I learned he and a fellow alumnus had donated enough to fund the production of two issues a year for the next five years.

We in the offices of Communications and Alumni Relations were overwhelmed.

Fittingly, our cover story for this issue of the reborn OWU Magazine tells the story of how OWU alumni and friends made the 7-year Connect Today, Create Tomorrow campaign a record-smashing success. It is not hyperbole to say that you have transformed the campus and created a brighter future for this university. As Rock Jones says, “We know that philanthropy is the difference-maker for American higher education.”

And alumni literally saved this magazine. The joy you see on the faces of the students’ pictured on the cover and in the article, mirrors the gratitude of faculty and staff across Ohio Wesleyan.

We pledge to fill OWU Magazine with stories and photography that will inform, fascinate, inspire, and entertain. In addition to providing news about your university, we’ll focus largely on OWU alumni who are changing the world—like the young scientists in the article “Rising to the Challenge of a Pandemic.” And through Class Notes, we will continue to give you updates about your classmates.

Please keep in touch with us with the Your Thoughts form. Send us news for Class Notes, whether it’s a new job or achievement, a wedding photo, or baby announcement. Send a letter responding to an article in the magazine. See more—including expanded Class Notes—at owu.edu/magazine, and follow us on social media at the sites noted below.

Thank you for all you do for Ohio Wesleyan University—and thank you for “creating tomorrow” for OWU Magazine.

– Will Kopp
Editor, OWU Magazine

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Share Your Opinions!

Use the Your Thoughts form, email us at magazine@owu.edu, tweet @OhioWesleyan, or send us a letter:

OWU Magazine
Office of Communications
61 S. Sandusky St., Delaware, OH 43015

Letters may be edited for length and clarity.