If you’re reading these words, you’ve cracked the cover of the new Bucknell Magazine, the culmination of two years spent discovering what our readers want and finding new ways to portray and proclaim Bucknell’s compelling story. It’s standard practice to assess the design and content of a magazine every several years, and our former format was in place for a full decade.

With our redesign partners, Zehno, we listened to how you thought the magazine should evolve. We also found inspiration in Bucknell’s bold new branding initiative. (Read President Bravman’s message on Page 44 for more on that.)

Since you said the Full Frame photo was one of your favorite features, we renamed it By Way of Bucknell and moved it right up front. You told us you liked the short alumni profiles in the old class notes, so we kept them, too, but we’re telling our graduates’ stories in more arresting ways. (Check out Pop Quiz on Page 10.)

Your journey begins at Bucknell. That is a key element of the University’s new brand, and we have renamed some of the old magazine’s departments to reflect this navigational theme.

For instance, the first-person Last Word essay is now called Wayfinder and focuses on the journey our readers undertake after leaving Bucknell. ’Burg and Beyond shows people who are doing impressive things in the Lewisburg community or who have gone beyond the campus to follow their bliss, to paraphrase Joseph Campbell.

Class notes are the most popular section, hands down, but we’ve given you additional reasons to dive into the new ’ray Bucknell section, which leads off with President Bravman’s message. The books column now starts in the print edition but carries over to our redesigned companion magazine website (bucknell.edu/bmagazine). New features, such as Career Clusters and Flashback 5, further enliven what was formerly 30 dense pages of text. The DO feature that closes out ’ray Bucknell highlights ways for alumni to connect with one another and Bucknell. Simply put, the editorial strategy and graphic design of this new magazine reflect the wants and needs of our busy readers and our desire to engage newer readers.

Now back to the bliss. The print medium has always been my bliss. I just can’t get enough, as a glimpse at my crowded mailbox reveals, with The Atlantic nestled alongside Harper’s — and Esquire and The New Yorker … My life’s work has been making good magazines great, and the work we’ve done to transform Bucknell Magazine from a good, traditional alumni publication to an exceptional leading-edge magazine marks the pinnacle of my career. I love the new Bucknell Magazine, and I hope you love it, too.