It occurs to me after reading the latest issue of Colby to write and congratulate you on what a pleasant and handsome magazine it has become. It is stylish and surprising--witness the most current cover. This is not your father's--assuming your father attended--Colby.
Scott Stein '83
Annapolis, Md.
Echo and Response
The magazine is great--keep it up!
Having been on the Echo staff many years ago, it was great fun to read the article on today's Echo.
Ann Jennings Taussig '49
Williamsburg, Va.
Good Coverage
No doubt your cover [on the spring issue] will trigger a number of
responses from those of us who identify with that picture!
The caption probably changed over the years--mine would have been "What do you mean the train didn't come in from Gardiner?" (Where the Echo was printed, typeset and proofed, then delivered [to Waterville] by train, picked up at the station and delivered around the campus.)
Ironically, I spent my career in "electronic publishing." No doubt the shrinks would understand why.
Charlie Morrissey '56
Echo editor '53-'55
Irvine, Calif.
Not Her Type
As a onetime staff member of The Colby Echo
(1942-1945)--which as far as I remember never skipped an issue during wartime
years--I was much interested in reading your article about the student
newspaper in the spring 1997 Colby. However, I stopped reading when I
reached the pages of six teeny-weeny, six-pica-wide columns. They simply
stopped the flow of the narrative.
The other bit of typographical mismanagement I would like to complain about is the use of type that is far too small for its purpose. One of the things that everybody in the advertising business knows, and we're willing to share the secret, is that 90 percent of the population over 40 is farsighted. That means they have a hard time reading the nine-point [type] used in the class notes and the even smaller type used in the reunion notice. Aren't the "over-40s" the graduates the Alumni Office mosts want to cultivate? The wonderful world of computers gives us all sorts of typographical and graphic options. But that doesn't mean we should use them if we're trying to get people to read our material. You have a good-looking publication with good material. Please make the contents more readily accessible.
Joan Gay Kent '45
Port Washington, N.Y.
Clarification
An article on the Pulver Family Professorship in Judaic Studies in our
last issue requires some clarification. Changes suggested by Professor Rob
Weisbrot prior to the article's publication were not made because of a
breakdown in the magazine's fact-checking process. According to Weisbrot, the
chairholder will be qualified to teach a broad survey of Jewish history and
civilization, courses from the Jewish Enlightenment onward and at least two of
the following: Jewish literature; Jewish spiritual traditions; Jewish thought;
anthropology or sociology of Jewish communities; and American Judaism. The
chairholder's courses will augment a current list that includes, among other
offerings, Biblical Literature; Athens, Rome and Jerusalem; Biblical Hebrew;
The Holocaust in Poetry, Fiction and Drama; Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict
and Accommodation, and a seminar on American Jewish literature.