Review connects Alumni Weekly, Alumni Council
A special review committee has recommended a structure
for transferring administrative responsibility for the
Princeton Alumni Weekly from Princeton Alumni
Publications Inc. (PAP) to the Alumni Council, and for
ensuring its continuing editorial independence.
The Alumni Council is a volunteer organization composed
of the presidents of all alumni classes and regional
associations along with other alumni leaders. It is overseen
by a volunteer executive committee and is supported by a
staff that reports both to the executive committee and to
the University administration.
The special review committee included representatives of
the PAP board, the Alumni Council, the University's board of
trustees and the University administration. It was chaired
by Brent Henry '69, a University trustee and immediate past
chair of the Alumni Council.
The committee has also recommended that the University
more than double its financial contribution to the magazine
to provide relief to the undergraduate alumni classes who
currently cover just over half of the magazine's annual
budget from class dues.
Under the proposed arrangement, the University and the
classes would contribute equal amounts after accounting for
advertising, other subscriptions and other income. It is
anticipated that both the University and the classes would
cover approximately one-third of the total budget. The
magazine is mailed to all undergraduate alumni, graduate
alumni who pay dues to the Association of Princeton Graduate
Alumni, and faculty, staff and members of the senior
class.
PAW board
Under the new structure, all members of the PAW
staff will report to the editor of the PAW. The
editor will report to the director of the Alumni Council for
administrative matters and to a PAW board for
editorial direction, long-term planning and adoption of the
magazine's annual budget.
Principal responsibility for selecting or removing the
editor and for annual performance review and goal-setting
will be exercised by a three-member committee composed of
the director of the Alumni Council and the chair and vice
chair of the PAW board, who must be alumni with
professional experience in the editorial side of
journalism.
The 11-member PAW board will include six alumni
elected by the Alumni Council, one explicitly a
representative of graduate alumni, and one faculty member
designated by the dean of the faculty. The other members of
the board will be the vice chair of the Alumni Council, the
chair of the council's Class Affairs Committee, the director
of the council and the vice president for public
affairs.
The review committee recommended that the PAW
board should reflect the diversity of the entire alumni body
with respect to age, type of degree, gender, ethnicity and
other considerations. It also recommended that the Alumni
Council should adopt a charter for the PAW that would
reaffirm its editorial independence and describe its
mission.
Moved in 1991
A predecessor to the PAW, The Alumni Princetonian,
was founded in 1894 by the editors of the Daily
Princetonian. This publication was succeeded in 1900 by
the Princeton Alumni Weekly, published by a group of
alumni who founded Princeton University Press. The
PAW was an administrative unit of the press from its
founding in 1906 until 1991, when PAP was created. In 1916
the press established a board of editorial direction that
included three members appointed by the alumni association
and two members appointed by the press.
PAP is legally constituted as a University support
organization, and all of its staff members already are
University employees. PAP is managed by a 14-member board
divided into two seven-member committees: an editorial
committee (including two alumni appointed by the president
of the University, two alumni elected by the Alumni Council,
two alumni elected by the committee and one member of the
faculty) and a publication committee (including the vice
chair of the Alumni Council, the chair of the council's
Committee on Class Affairs, the director of the council, the
vice president for public affairs, and three alumni
appointed by the president).
Once the new PAW charter has been adopted and the
new PAW board elected, steps will be taken to
dissolve PAP as a corporation. It is expected that this will
happen by the end of the current academic year.
17 times a year
The PAW currently publishes 17 issues a year. The
review committee has recommended a thorough review of the
question of frequency as soon as possible, with an
understanding that some reduction in frequency could be
instituted beginning in academic year 2000-01 to permit
greater attention to the quality of each issue. The review
will consider the results of a recent alumni survey
regarding the PAW and consider ways in which the
printed issues of the magazine can be complemented and
supplemented electronically.
As chair of the review committee, Henry said, "The
PAW is the principal means of communication among
alumni, and between alumni and the University. We care
deeply about preserving its editorial independence, about
providing a central role for alumni in overseeing its
operations, about enhancing its quality, and about its
effectiveness in conveying to its readers as complete,
accurate and perceptive an understanding as possible of the
University and the alumni.
"We believe we can best achieve these objectives by
vesting responsibility for the magazine in the
representative body for all alumni, which is the Alumni
Council, and that the magazine will also
benefit--administratively and financially--from its access
to the administrative resources of the University.
"Finally, while we believe it is important that alumni
continue to play an active role in funding the PAW,
we also believe that current billing levels challenge or
exceed the financial capacity of many classes," Henry added.
"We are grateful to the University for its willingness to
provide this additional financial support."
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