Turning 40 is one of those moments that give people pause: It's a psychological passageway to middle age, a midpoint in one's life, a handy excuse to pull up for a jump shot instead of going hard to the hoop.
But this is not an essay about the yearning for youth or the creeping compromises of aging. I turned 40 a long time ago and have forgotten how it felt. No, the birthday I'm interested in is the magazine's—this fall we mark 40 years of publication. And in that context, a moment of reflection seems in order.
The Stanford Magazine was introduced by founding editor Della van Heyst in 1973, accompanied by a letter from Ralph Davidson, '50, who also served as president of the Alumni Association at a time when the organization was independent from the University. Davidson wrote: "The Stanford Magazine will display a strikingly beautiful campus; it will feature stimulating articles; it will offer glimpses of research and other endeavors that have an impact on the quality of our lives; it will look over the shoulders of today's students; it will also seek to capture the enduring spirit and atmosphere of a unique institution." Contributors to the first issue included no less a writer than Wallace Stegner, who offered an observant piece on American culture.
Originally a quarterly, the magazine went to a bimonthly schedule and became simply Stanford in 1989. And that's not all that's changed. Poring through the old issues, we found a Hewlett-Packard advertisement touting $395 calculators (1974) and a Time magazine ad introducing a section devoted to . . . wait for it . . . computers (1982).
What hasn't changed is our mission: We still aim to do what Davidson described and deliver what Stegner delivered—sparkling writing and thinking that educates, entertains and provokes. This issue perhaps is an example, beginning with our cover story on the conundrum facing Stanford in undergraduate admissions. With more than 38,000 applicants last year, the University finds itself in the unusual position of having too many great students to choose from. With an acceptance rate around 5 percent, Stanford turns down thousands of extraordinary students, disappointing families, including hundreds of alumni families, whose hearts are set on the Farm. Our story tries to bring some clarity and understanding to a matter that defies easy explanation.
Throughout its history, Stanford has been recognized for excellence in writing, photography, design and overall quality. It is a three-time winner of the Robert Sibley Award, presented annually to the best alumni publication in the United States, and has earned more than 100 national magazine awards. But the metric most important to us is how well the magazine is read, and after 40 years it remains a popular staple for Stanford's 200,000-plus alumni. These days they read it in many forms—online, on smartphones and on tablets as well as in print.
The magazine also has become much more than a bimonthly—it regularly publishes stories between print issues and aggregates other Stanford stories on our mobile app. When combining all of these formats, Stanford has more readers today than ever before.
To honor the magazine's 40th birthday, we have established a gallery of highlights from past issues—memorable stories and photos that convey the breadth and depth of the Stanford community over four decades. I invite you to check it out at the magazine's website or on our mobile app, available for download from the App Store.
Kevin Cool is the executive editor of Stanford.
